Our arrival in Avignon was smooth, albeit a little later than we had initially planned. We made a newbie mistake and had checked the ‘Arrivals’ board in the Montpellier train station and thus were late for our real train by a mere 5 minutes and therefore had to wait for the next train 1.5 hours later.
Luckily enough we had our Nintendo DS consoles and the time went by rather quickly while we had a nail-biting game of Scrabble. Despite our nintendos not getting much play for the first half of the trip, it’s been a good time waster on the trains (and in the train stations) here in Europe. Scrabble and Mario Kart are our top 2 favorites and probably the 3rd runner up would be Settlers of Catan – much more portable than the actual game!
I suppose my diversion towards our time wasters is enough of a prelude of Avignon. According to the Lonely Planet, it is considered the ‘Belle of the Provence Ball’, where its entire city center is still enclosed by fortified walls.
While the town is pretty and nice to explore, it was much smaller than Montpellier and its fine French cuisine was much more expensive. So, unfortunately I didn’t enjoy the food as much here. However, we did find the ‘Sushi Shop’, which was recently discovered in Montpellier and this turned out to be our best value meal in the city.
The major architectural attractions included The Palace of the Popes, Pont d’Avignon, Jardin de Doms and a church next to the Palace of the Popes that was discrete by European standards, but had a sculpture depicting the scene of Jesus on the cross.
The Palace of the Popes is the largest gothic palace in Europe and one of the town’s most significant tourist drives.
The large square was perfect for cafes and restaurants to spill out and set up their patios and for some of the street buskers to perform.
Probably the most unexpected area that we fell upon during our exploration of the city was a street down from a more residential area. It was narrow, had small cafes and boutique shops, but the coolest feature were the large water wheels working in a small canal that ran parallel to the road, which was also sheltered by the cool shadows of the leafy trees.
Of course, there was more shopping to be had, but I’m holding off (for now), until Paris. There were enough cools buildings in Avignon to distract me from shopping.
As far as our foodie adventures go, while Avignon didn’t please the palate much, I’m not too disappointed, because our next stop is Lyon – which is apparently the gastronomic capital of the country. We shall see…
With all the food you have been eating, you have not gain weight!
Must be all the walking…..