Slow Travelin': Avignon with Parents!

02 October 2018

Avignon with Parents!

We had given ourselves a few days to rest, so on Monday morning, we drove from Sète, and parked at the Parking Palais des Papes (it has an elevator to the square). It was a cooler day, and pretty darned windy! But the sun was out, with just enough clouds to make it interesting. We had thought about picnicking in the Rocher des Doms garden,

but the wind made us decide otherwise :-). Rising thirty meters above the Rhone river, the site has been occupied by humans since Neolithic times - it was beautified in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. We spent quite a while wandering the paths and taking in the views

Pont d'Avignon

See the mountains?

Thirty meters...

Next, we expected to go into the church

but the front was blocked off, and a note said to enter from the boutique - but there was no boutique in evidence 😡. We tried several things throughout the afternoon, and finally had to settle for viewing the outside

We decided to have lunch near the Place de l'Horloge (Clock Square, if you will). The wind was driving everyone to the interior of the restaurants! We were no exception...

After lunch, I kept trying to find the clock tower! I had remembered seeing it from just about any place on the square - but no! You really have to back away from the Hôtel de Ville

to see that the tower is essentially part of the same building!

As you can see, it was getting late - we watched the clock go past the quarter hour (no action), and decided that a 15 minute wait for the chance of seeing the figures move was not worth it - we were getting tired!

We headed back to the Pope's Palace, towards the Verger Urbain V.

The cobblestone streets were not great for using the wheelchair, and the sidewalk was giving out - I went ahead to see if it made sense to push on (possibly, but not today)