Avignon on a windy Sunday!
Sunday, August 21, 2005We woke with the sun only to decide to go back to sleep for another couple of hours finally getting up around 10, today would have to have been the coldest that we have come across yet in Europe. There was quite a cold wind blowing and memories of Wellington came flowing back. There wasn’t much point rushing really, as Europe on a Sunday is a ‘snails pace’ so we finally got into town just before lunch. Avignon is simply amazing and I know that I’ve used that word far too much but it is just stunning, particularly with its complete medieval outer city wall between separating the old city from the new. We mainly just wandered aimlessly through the streets stopping in the little shops, until we got to the Pope’s Palace in a large cobbled square with café’s all around. Getting hot drinks, (with Sarah specifically saying a HOT chocolate, after she received a cold one in Marseilles!) we sat for a while to take it all in. The whole city is just so well maintained, fairly expensive but then it all evens out really with the accommodation being the cheapest yet so when we got our bill for a espresso and hot chocolate all I could do was laugh and take a photo. We finished our drinks and went over to explore the Palace more, and found a huge raised park off to the side with nice views of the city and over the river. The wind was really picking up by this stage so we didn’t stay too long, but long enough to get a couple of photos and walk to the top of a very random lookout at the top of a massive rock that had steps cut into the side of it. Walking through the city has an amazing feeling; it’s so medieval. We just wandered the streets some more, having a quick (but oh, so satisfying) lunch in a kebab place before walking to the bus station and getting a bus half way home, where there is a castle on the same hill as our hostel. I thought that is would have a nice view of the city from the top of the massive turrets of the castle and when we got there after a little walk found out that we didn’t even have to go up the top. The view was amazing just from the base, as it turned out this was good as going up the turrets wasn’t an option, only viewing the gardens was on offer, and for this they charged 11 euro each, needless to say we gave it a miss. By this time it was getting to the end of the day, finally getting back to the hostel around 6ish. We had hoped to get dinner at the hostel but this turned out to be an offer that we obviously weren’t supposed to take seriously, so the only option that we had was to retrace our steps back into the city – unfortunately the bus service wasn’t much on a Sunday. Both Sarah and I are relatively sick of ‘fast food’ so we headed for where we knew there to be a ‘strip’ of bars and restaurants, finding an Irish pub and having an amazing meal of hot chicken sandwiches (which in France are all Baguettes) with salad and fries.
posted by Maarty @ 12:00 pm,
