Farnsniente

Inside Avignon's Palace of the Popes with their virtual reality device.

Are two Popes better than one?

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in
📍 Avignon, France

Photos

Trip index

Summary

Spent most of the day in Avignon. First on the agenda was a self-guided tour of the Palace of the Popes (with the world’s most annoying electronic iPad-like device). Its massive rooms were built to house a second papacy during a schism in the Catholic Church back in the 1400s. Good lunch outside at the Place l’Horloge then took the little tourist train that take you to parts of town you probably wouldn’t discover otherwise. Drove to Lourmarin (yet another Plus Beaux Village) for drinks then dinner at a favorite restaurant from a previous trip.

Details

Another beautiful day. Alas the internet, which has been plaguing us since we arrived in France, is again acting up. The hotel’s access to the web is great, when it’s working, but now it’s not. Thankfully we have our cells phones (though even that seems to come and go, too). 

Today’s plan is to make the 30 minute drive west to Avignon, known for being the home of a second Pope for many years, back during a schism in the church. 

Breakfast is again good. There are lots of choices and lots of breads, meats, cheeses, fruit, juices, etc. Too easy to eat too much. 

In Avignon we park, walk through one of the impressive city gates and hike to the Palace of the Popes. Our tickets not only get us in but also gets us each our own heavy “histo-pad” or some such name. It’s a tablet with software that lets you read about features in about each room. It is supposed to guide you and give you views of what (they think) each room looked like back in the day. The views include furnishings, people, tapestries, wall paint, etc. It works OK but seems to have been designed by committee. We guess that graphic designers would suggest a large number of choices for how the user interface might work. The higher ups were supposed choose one but instead said “Great, let’s do them all!”. The end result is a bit of a confusing mess. Some of it was fun. 

We wander from room to room, repeatedly aiming our camera at some design that tells the device where we are. Then we twirl around to see the room and to see what the room looked like 100s of years ago. If you want to make users motion sick, this is the way to do it. Then the machine gets confused and you have to restart. 

What we do learn is that a lot of money flowed through this regional papal house. There were layers of clergy and they all have fancy clothes, fancy places to live, and apparently hefty expense accounts. This was a major schism in the Catholic Church and I can see why a group might want to be in charge. It pays really well. 

Back outside we find a spot for lunch and install ourselves. It’s pretty good and we enjoy conversing with two older American guys at the next table who now live here. Next we hustle over to the launching point of Le Petit Train Touristic which will drive us around the city, complete with English language narration. We see where Team Pope kept their money and the houses (er, palaces) where the Cardinals lived, very nice. We see the famous Bridge of Avignon (which now goes only 1/2 way across the river). There’s a famous song about the locals dancing on this bridge that probably everyone knows. We see Roman ruins from 2000 years ago and places where Napoleon wrote this or someone else wrote that. 

Done with the train and Avignon we have one more stop before we head back towards our hotel. It’s going to the Hertz office in town to ensure they’re OK with us turning in our rental car a few hours later than previously planned. The Hertz office? It’s really just a gas station/convenience store that happens to also have a desk inside with a big black and yellow Hertz logo. I ask the gas station girl if the Hertz office is closed (since I see no one). She assures me it’s open and asks what I need. 

For the next half hour she try’s calling this phone number and that phone number to raise someone who can help us. No one answers or the number is disconnected. She eventually gives up and logs into the Hertz terminal herself and pulls up my reservation. She changes the time and she thinks (and we think) all is well. We’ll find out when we drop the car in Lyon. Hertz is an American company but she wasn’t interested in doing any of this in English. I pity Americans over here who can’t speak at least some French. And this required some deep catalog vocabulary. 

After our half hour ride home we’re actually in a lovely city nearby, Lourmarin. We’ve been here many times and have a favorite restaurant here. The place doesn’t open for another 30 minutes so we join the locals at the sidewalk cafés drinking wine and beer and other beverages. A mis-communications brings two coffees instead of two pink wines, but the error is quickly resolved and the waitress is very understanding. Dinner is al fresco. It’s a price performer and one of the better meals we’ve had on the trip. The night is cool and gets delightfully cooler as we dine. It’s starting to get dark by the time we head for home. Our route takes us through the Luberon range, next to a river. The road is extremely windy and there are zero traffic lights. All’s well that ends well, though, and soon we’re home and ready to hit the hay.  

Photos

[Note: to view the photos in chronological order, start at the bottom :-/ ]

Back home at last. It’s now dark and the stars and moon are out.
Part of dinner, the vegetarian plate. Delicious.
White Wisteria in Lourmarin. We had drinks at a sidewalk cafe just down the way.
At one point on our “train ride” we go through a narrow canyon. The walls around us, some of them, are from the Roman times, long, long ago.
Sur le pont d’Avignon is a well known children’s song. It only goes 1/2 way across the river and has for the past few 100 years. But the locals love it. There’s no accounting for taste, eh?
As we went by businesses the owners would frequently smile and wave, as if to say “come back and spend money here!”. The plate glass windows gave us a good view of our “train”.
On the Petit Train Touristic. In the background yet another of the many castles in town. It’s hard to keep up with them all.
Lunch. Not bad. Cesar salad with chicken.
On our way out we see decorations tweaked by invaders. Step one is to snap off the heads of each of the small statues, which has been done.
Next door is a hunting lodge kind of room. It’s supposed to let you feel like you’re out in the forest hunting. It’d be much too dangerous for a man so rich as the pope to go out, so I guess this is the next best thing.
Some of the walls do still have their original paint. This is the Pope’s chamber (crib?).
What it looks like on our “Histo-Tablet”, showing what the room would have looks like back in the day, complete with wall decorations, lighting, tables, table cloths, and on and on. As you point the camera in different directions the view keeps up, mostly.
Next we hike up a never ending spiral staircase. From up here we get another view of the gardens.
Above another part of the garden, a part that’s open to the public, the shade vine is rose with oodles of blossoms.
We pay extra to see the gardens. They have artichokes, onions, and lots of other fruits and vegetables.
The blue sky does a great job in offsetting the stone crenelations and arches.
Where we pay our admission fee. The wall and ceiling are impressive. Not all of the building is this fancy, but I guess prior to getting our money they need to let us believe it’ll all be this nice. In reality much of it is just big open areas with fairly plain ceilings.
Across from the Palace of the Pope is an impressive building. This is where Team Pope kept their money. Nice looking place!
At the Palace of the Popes we head inside and pay our admission.
The walls surrounding the Papal city of Avignon, France. It’s designed to keep people out and as such we have to walk to find one of the gates to go through to be in the old town proper.