Avignon

The vault, where they put all their money

Well, 4 out of 5 of us had a pretty good sleep! ;-)  We were all pretty tired from the previous day.  Got up and headed straight to Avignon in the morning, with the first goal of finding a parking spot... which we did.  We decided to tour the Palais des Papes (huge gothic Palace of the Popes) before it got too busy.  It was pretty interesting... we had audio guides which were helpful.   The palace was immense!  I'm constantly amazed at how old these buildings are, and it's fun to imagine Popes wandering the halls of their massive "home", and conducting important, secret meetings.  And having big feasts in their huge dining halls! :-)  There were so many secret corridors and staircases, most of them blocked off to the public.  Anyway, definitely worth the visit.

From there we started to wander the streets of Avignon.  I tried to embrace this famous walled City, with all its culture and famous arts scene... and the famous half-bridge where everyone "must" visit and do a little dance on.  But I couldn't.  Truth be told, I actually kind of hated Avignon  (I can hear some of you gasp from here!).   I found it busy, a bit ugly and littered with thousands of advertisements stapled, tied, and taped to every surface, advertising for performing arts festivals.  Every 2 seconds someone was thrusting a brochure into our hands.... Rodger would take one and say "Merci" (have you ever seen the movie "Elf"?  that was Rodger...) whereas if anyone even looked in my direction I would cut them off right away, say "Non" and keep walking. The kids thought it was hilarous. We wandered some of the streets, the kids had sorbet, Rodger and I had a coffee & croissant, and then we left.  It felt weird leaving, like we were missing something?  Why do people love it here?  We didn't even check out the bridge, even though we had tickets to do so... we all decided that we didn't care enough to endure the walk/heat.

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Flyers, flyers everywhere

I felt a bit sad.  Let down.  It was anticlimactic.  (Interesting to note:  Simon actually really like the feel of Avignon... he said it reminded him of a smaller Paris!  Busy, bustling, architecture.)  On to the next place!  Smaller, quaint villages that have parking spots! ;-)

Gordes

Too hot & tired to make it up another hill

And that lead us to Gordes, listed as one of France's most beautiful villages.  That is was!  Beautiful hilltop village, with narrow cobblestone streets, a gorgeous view of the surrounding vineyards and valley.  If it wasn't 36 degrees, I could wander the streets of little villages like this forever!  The gorgeous displays outside the shops... sigh!  We took refuge in a cute Creperie for lunch - our first ones!  (Except the ones I made out of a box... not really comparable.)

Ruby matches the beautiful flowers

Having crepes for lunch

We meandered back to our place in Comps, stopping at the Abbaye du Senanque, near Gordes.  Wow, there were alot of tourists there.  Not exactly peaceful and serene. We didn't go in - we weren't dressed appropriately and we were "done".

We relaxed for awhile in the apartment before heading back to Pont du Gard for a picnic dinner and an evening swim.  The owner gave us her parking pass, which was very kind of her.  (Costs $18 to park, after 8 pm reduced to $10.)