Provence, Day 3

When we were driving back to Venasque the day before, we approached Avignon from the west and saw the beautiful view of the old papal city. We decided to make Avignon our destination on this day.

Modern Avignon is a big city, but we did a pretty good job of finding our way to the west side of the old city wall, and even found a free parking spot! We went in through a small portal in the wall and walked through the quiet old streets to a long set of stairs that took us to the top of the essentially big rock where the old city is. From the top there are wonderful views of the Rhone and the surrounding area.
From there we walked into the cathedral, and then stood in line for quite a while to go into the Papal Palace - Palais de Papes. Armed with the requisite audio guides, we toured this amazing building with its long history, and the interesting stories of the seven popes who resided here from 1309 to 1378. (If you want some more history, click here for a Wikipedia article.)

After the palace, we saw a few fun things in the square in front, including this merry-go-round and a terrific elephant sculpture.

We next went to the famous Pont d'Avignon on the Rhone. Here are pictures of the bridge and the view back to the city.
When we got back to Venasque, we eventually went to dinner at one of two possible spots in the village. We had eaten at the hotel the night before and had a good meal and fun time. This night we went to the other place, Cafe Fontaine. It was fabulous. Amazing cooking and a wonderful small menu. It was great. We determined to eat there again the next night, which we did!