For most of the fourteenth century the popes lived not in Rome but in Avignon, and they built to prove it — the Palais des Papes, the largest Gothic palace in the world, still fills the rock above the Rhône like a fortress that happens to be a court. The whole city behind its ramparts grew up to serve it.
I. The palace and the rock
The Palais is two palaces in one — the austere old wing and the grand new one — vast halls, chapels and the popes’ private chambers with their painted hunting scenes. Climb beyond it to the Rocher des Doms, the garden on the height, for the river, the bridge and the hills of the Alpilles laid out below.
“They built a fortress and called it a court, and ruled the Church from the Rhône.”
II. The bridge in the song
Below the walls, the Pont Saint-Bénézet — the pont d’Avignon of the children’s round — reaches half-way across the Rhône and stops, its arches carried off by the floods centuries ago. Four spans remain, with a tiny chapel on one, and the song outlives the bridge: everyone dances on it, no one ever quite did.
III. The festival and the gateway
Every July the Festival d’Avignon turns the city into the capital of French theatre, the courtyard of the palace its greatest stage. The rest of the year Avignon is the gateway to the south — TGV from Paris, then the Luberon, the Alpilles and the vineyards of Châteauneuf-du-Pape all within half an hour.
