Skip to main content

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!

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Euro Adventures Pt 28 - Our Last Day In London - Let's Visit The Queen!

Our last day in London - where has the time gone?? It seems like only yesterday we were packing our bags, getting on the planes, meeting out Topdeck family... It's all gone so fast!! I'll try not to get all emotional for all my blog readers out there - but it may be inevitable. I really am such a lucky person - I never thought I would be able to see the world once, let alone twice - and with one of my closest friends as well. Very lucky indeed.  Today we are off to visit the queen!! We want to see Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guard. We caught the underground and walked across Green Park to where this massive golden and black gates were - then we saw it. Just like in all the movies we had seen and exactly how I imagined it... Buckingham Palace. The majesty and beauty of this building was like nothing I have seen. Plus the queen lives there! How cool is that?!  We were typical tourists and took lots of photos and then found the prime position to wait out the morning...
Post a Comment
Read more

Euro Adventures Pt 22 - Eat, Sleep, Beach, Repeat

Another day in paradise, Mykonos you beautiful place. I woke early with a coughing fit to find everyone was home and in bed - absolutely dead to the world. Once a couple of the girls woke up we headed down for some brekkie - the included brekkie was absolute shithouse so we ordered from the breakfast menu at the restaurant. Such a good life choice. Plus the view!  Noddy joined us for a chat and a coffee - Greek coffee is pretty different, very very strong - I was kind of in love with it. Delish. We headed back to the room and the girls had naps while I caught up some overdue blogging - even though without wifi I couldn't post anything. The camping ground did have wifi but it was so bad that you could only connect of you were standing right next to the bar and even then it dropped in and out. LAME!  When everyone was awake we changed into our swimmers and headed down to the beach at our back door. The beach was absolutely spectacular. For once it wasn't all pointy sharp rocks t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Euro Adventures Pt 18 - A Very Long Day

Oh dear... 5 hours on the bus... 15 hours on a ferry... Then we will be in Greece. This will definitely be a very very long day - and that's only if the ferry isn't delayed. We had a very early start this morning with bags on the bus  at 6am  and brekkie at 630. With a long drive ahead of us we began our journey to the ports. I've never been on a proper cruise ship before so I was pretty excited.  We had a toilet stop and were informed that the ferry was running about 4 hours late, oh dear. But Noddy said we could find a great beach and just chill for a couple of hours - rather than waiting at the ports. I am feeling really really unwell today, light headed, dizzy, headaches, fever... Not a good sign. It also made the bus ride pretty unbearable.  But we made it to a beach resort type of place and it was WAY to hot to be by the water. There was a bunch of shops with tables and chairs so we just sat and talked and had gelato. Alysha and I bought Turkish towels for the ...
Post a Comment
Read more