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Euro Adventures Pt 7 - The Medieval Town of Avignon

Today we head off to the town of Avignon today - one of the oldest medieval towns in France. It houses the only other home of past Popes other than the Vatican. We are lucky enough to have been arriving the same day as the popular Avignon Festival which happens every July and is a massive performing arts festival. 

We had a long 6-7 hour drive to reach our hostel - it was a really bumpy and windy drive so I found myself feeling very ill, we stopped for a picnic lunch and were very surprised to find the strangest squat/drop toilets I have ever seen before in my life... In Australia we have long drops... But we have nothing like this. I was going to give it a try for the sake of this blog but I chickened out. I took a picture too... 



After a long hot drive and a couple of toilet stops we finally arrived at our hostel - WHICH HAD A POOL!!! Noddy gave us an hour and a half of free time before we headed into the old city of Avignon. Alysha and I were straight into that pool - so refreshing. We freshened up and headed into the city where we had a walking tour, Noddy pointed out the Palais Du Pope - the Palace of the Pope, the famous Opera building and the main shopping street. Then we were set free on the town. 



The Avignon Festival is an annual performing arts festival where the performers can showcase their talents on the streets, or try to get you to buy tickets to their show. Some people in our tour went down to the river for a picnic, some did shopping, Alysha and I went and found a nice restaurant in the main square - we were right in the centre of the festival, performers were playing instruments or dancing and it was an amazing atmosphere!! 



We walked around the town a lot, had a lot of local performers mistake us for French people - a woman actually had a full conversation with me without realising I didn't understand her... I just said merci boucoup and au revoir and walked away - it was soooooooo funny. There were heaps of funky markets with great handmade jewellery and even a lady doing henna tattoos. We made our way to the top gardens of the Palais Du Pope and enjoyed the stunning views. It is truly sooooo surreal to be in a place like this. I took a minute to just soak it in, Avignon is such an old town and had seen soooooooooo much over the centuries. Amazing. We watched a short street performers show while we had some fruity sorbet, which was hilarious. 



We managed to find our way out of the town the gates of the old town where we were meeting the bus to get back to our hostel. Everyone is buzzing for Barca - that will be our first BIG night out. So all of the girls headed back to their rooms to fake tan, shave their legs and prep for tomorrow night. Spain - you better watch out!

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