This morning, we took the 9:35am train from Nice to Avignon. We got there ahead of time and waited for the train. According to the big train station sign, they are supposed to post the correct track at least 20 minutes before departure, but this time they didn't until the train was arriving, about 10 minutes before departure. We had no trouble finding our seats and getting off in the right place. Our car was almost full in Avignon — the train was continuing on to Paris, so I bet most people were going there.
None of the hotels in the Rick Steves book returned our reservation request e-mail, so we found a different place over the Internet. That meant we didn't have directions in the book, and the book's map wasn't specific enough. Luckily, the tourist info center was a few blocks from the main train station, so we stopped there to ask directions. The tourist info person said, "I'll tell you where it is, but it's closed for reservation". ?!!?? I have a reservation! When we got to the hotel, we found out that they just re-opened after 5 weeks of renovations for new fire safety codes — fire doors, self-closers, smoke detector in every room. Five weeks is a long time for a hotel to be closed, so I understand why they wanted to do it in January/February.
We had pizza at a cafe for lunch and then went to the Palace of the Popes museum. I originally thought the approx. 9 euro price tag was steep, but I definitely enjoyed it. Back in the 1300s, Italy was in a series of wars, so the pope left Rome and traveled constantly within pope-friendly territory in France. Eventually, he settled in Avignon, which was allied with Rome. One of the next popes decided to build his own pope palace there instead of borrowing someone else's buildings. After about 100 years, the pope decided to move back to Rome. However, when he died, there were 2 pope elections — one Italian pope and one French pope ... thus the schism. The rest of Europe split their allegiance between popes (for example, England & Ireland were loyal to Rome but Scotland to Avignon). The French pope eventually abdicated, but Avignon remained in papal hands until the French Revolution.
We checked into our room at the hotel, relaxed a bit, then went out for
dinner. We decided to go to this Vietnamese restaurant. After a big lunch
and a week of eating French & Italian food, we wanted something different.
It was pretty good (I find that Asian food in America is usually better
than in Europe), and it definitely felt like home (one of our favorite
"comfort food" dishes to cook at home is shrimp curry). After dinner
(while it's drizzling ...
Our combo ticket from yesterday included the Saint Benezet Bridge, so we went there in the morning. Back in the 1100s, a sheperd named Benezet had a vision from God to build a bridge across the Rhone River, so he went to Avignon and proposed the idea to the town elders. They laughed at him and said, "OK, if you can move this stone leftover from the palace [because nobody could lift it], we'll build it." Benezet picked it up, carried it to the banks of the river, and set it down. So, they built a bridge there — though during the next several hundred years, parts had to be rebuilt several times due to nasty floods. Eventually, they gave up and didn't have a bridge across the Rhone until more modern times. The bridge site was really cool and included information about other, more modern bridges. It was basically an ad for a local bridge-building company, but that was OK because it was cool.
We realized it was about time to catch a train to Arles for the rest of the day, so we started walking as quickly as we could back to the train station. We realized that we wouldn't make it, so we gave up and more slowly got to the train station in time for the next one. Except, we then realized that the "next" train doesn't run on Sundays! Argh!!! The next train was over an hour later, but at least we found a bus that was going to Arles (but it took 50 minutes instead of 20). The bus went to the Arles train station, and we got off when almost everyone else did. Then we remembered that we needed to go to the train station to figure out when we needed to return. Oops. Luckily, the train station was only a few blocks away.
Finally, we walk into the historic center of Arles, find some lunch at a cafe, and go into the Roman amphitheater. We originally came to Provence because this ampitheater is featured in the movie Ronin starring Robert DeNiro. Very good movie, great car chase scenes, violent, definitely not for kids. We liked walking around inside the ampitheater and also the ancient theater next door, which could seat thousands of people in its heyday. We wandered around the town some more, then caught the 6pm train back to Avignon. We had dinner at this "cheese" restaurant where we had this amazing cheese plate for an appetizer, and we enjoyed listening to this guitar player play background music while we ate.
This morning, we left Avignon. I took my postcards to the post office, where this nice lady helped me use the automated machine and buy postage (she went above and beyond what I expected), and then we took the train to Nimes. Nimes was pretty important in Roman times and has the best-preserved Roman amphitheater in all of the world, plus other ruins. It's not that touristy of a town, so it feels more like a regular city. We talked about coming here as a day trip, but then we figured out that we could take a 10am train from here to Barcelona but a 6am train from Avignon to Barcelona. Unfortunately, the hotel reception didn't open until 2:30pm, so we had to carry the luggage with us for 3+ hours. We saw several examples of Roman ruins, a Versailles-inspired city park, and a really cheesy movie about Nimes' history. We also read in our guidebook that denim is "de Nimes" and had existed here long before Levi Strauss popularized it.
P.S. There's no Wi-Fi at this hotel, but somebody in the area left their network open ... good for me, bad for them. ;-)