Day 47 Avignon, France

Sur la Pont d'Avignon.....

Barb is singing the song. She won't stop, even though it's a rather irritating little rhyme. We think she's excited!

On the way to the train station on the tram, Barb had her first real conversation in French with a stranger. An elderly lady struck up a conversation by offering her newspaper. Barb explained (in French) that she didn't understand or speak French very well and that we were visiting from Australia. Well .... that opened the floodgates! The woman's sister lives in Australia, in the "north-east". That's where I'm from says Barb. What a small world says the lady and so it went on discussing grandchildren and the Chinese university students studying science in Montpellier.

Barb got on the train happy that she'd had a real conversation. You can't count ordering food, buying things in shops and asking directions .... that's basic tourist stuff.

We arrived in Avignon and were happy to find a sign pointing from the train staion to the Tourist Office. Always our first port of call to obtain a free city map.

John outside the train station. Did we mention that old Avignon is a walled city?

There's the gates .... and a number of singing bike riders!

We walk up the main avenue .... there's always a fountain or two

Roman ruins pop up in the strangest places

Aha .... the tourist office can't be too far away ....

We had to stop and listen to this old man playing an old
fashion organ grinder .... with his cat perched on top!

We have our map in hand but the city is well sign-posted anyway

First stop is a coffee outside the Palais du Papes

John consults the map to plan our day

It's all starting to ramp up with tourists in the Place du Palais

We try to escape the crowd and end up in the tourist tat shops

The Mercure hotel has a prime location right near the
Palais de Papes and the Pont d'Avignon

Barb is very excited as we cross the drawbridge onto the Pont d'Avignon

Just look at that happy face!

That's a view from under the bridge

Barb coming up from the lower level of the bridge

The lower deck of the bridge

Here's the bridge from afar .... half of it got swept away in floods a few centries ago

We navigate back through narrow lanes

We head up the hill to the gardens, almost getting run down by the Noddy train coming down

It's sure worth going up .... the views are stunning!

Too far to walk to get to this one today

Big river cruise boats tied up

Looking down on the roofs of the town

The blur in the far distance is a snow covered mountain range

Oh look .... a grotto with goldfish - carp of widely varying sizes

Close-up of the fish. John thinks they're not that pretty,

We sit beside this ornamental pond and have a cold drink

Visiting school kids try to get the swan to flap its wings

This statue is a shiny gold

She looks down over Christ on the cross

We look down over Place du Palais .... it looks like toy town from here

We kick back in a restaurant for lunch overlooking a double decker carousel

The detail on the theatre behing John is amazing

That's the whole exterior

A local artist paints just across from where we sit

We were sad to leave Avignon, but very glad we came