Rhone Day 7: Avignon

Do NOT watch this video. If you do, you won't be able to stop singing "Sur le Pont d'Avignon l'on y danse, l'on y danse. 

Whoops! Probably just reading those words has already put the 15th-c folksong in your head. Sorry about that, but we were singing it for a couple days in and around Avignon.

There is enough traffic on the river that at times two boats moor side by side with passengers passing through one to get to the other. In Avignon, we were the boat on the outside, transiting the lobby of the other boat to reach the dock. Last evening when the inner boat was ready to embark, rather than wait mid-river, our captain took us on a short cruise to "le pont d'Avignon". Actually, the Saint Benezet Bridge.

The original wooden bridge was completed in 1185, but was burned by soldiers in 1226. It was rebuilt in stone, but river flooding destroyed it so often that efforts to rebuild were abandoned in the 17th century. Now it is more like a pier, too narrow for much dancing in the round.

The next morning we were off for a walking tour of Avignon. The day was still cold and cloudy so my pictures are disappointing, but at least it was not as windy as yesterday.

Avignon looked like a stereotype of a fairytale town. the walls were built in the high middle ages, and I suppose illustrators of fairy tales have often used them for inspiration.

Of course, it is also a modern city, and just inside the medieval walls are modern apartment buildings.

Notre Dame des Doms was originally built in the 12th-c with renovations in the 15th and 17th. It's beautiful, but we were headed to the 14th-c Palais des Papes.

past narrow lanes

and the modern (19th-c) Hotel de Ville (town hall).

The palace really did look like something out of a fairytale.

Ingrid suggested this might be the popes' helipad.

This is essentially what the interior of the palace looked like when the troops moved out and restoration began in 1906. 

The French Revolution (beginning in 1789) was, of course, no friend to the Catholic Church which had supported the aristocracy in their abuse of the people for centuries. Churches and palaces like this, which were still papal lands even after the popes returned to Rome, were sacked. You can see on the walls of this hall where it was divided into three stories as a barracks to house soldiers. Windows were knocked in the medieval wall on the left to let light into the second and third floors. Those have since been refilled in the restoration.

Even the chapel was divided into multiple floors. The pointed tops of the gothic windows were removed as too religious, and restored in the twentieth century.

I'm a suckor for miniatures. This one shows the palace complex.

I'm also a sucker for cozy places to sit with a cup of tea and a book, although I would want some nice needlepoint cushions to enjoy this one.

Our local guide focused on the architecture and the broadest sketches of history, avoiding the opulence and corruption the Avignon popes were famous for. I wished I had spent a bit more time reading up on them before coming. The whole things started when French Pope Clement V refused to move to Rome. Avignon was a much nicer place to live at the time. Rome was a dirty heap of ancient ruins. I imagine it was like a choice between New York and Cairo, IL.

This courtyard was being prepared for the annual Avignon Arts Festival when we came through. I guess it takes months to set up and months to take down the stage for the three weeks in July. It would have been fun to be here at the right time, although I expect Southern France is miserable in summer.

The evening's recital was a survey of French music from the Middle Ages to the Romantic era-

 

Johannes Regis, Burgundian school – L’homme armée (this secular tune, written in the Middle Ages, as represented by the Pope’s Palace, became the basis of Latin masses for 150 years. This performance also represented Jackie’s singing debut in France!)

 

*Jean Baptiste Lully – Menuett (with just a hint of Sur le pont d’Avignon while Aloysia was tuning)

 

Jean-Philippe Rameau – La Poule from Pièces de Clavecin (it wasn’t only the Impressionists who had colorful titles, and conveniently chicken was also on the dinner menu that evening)

 

Robert Schumann – Introduction to Faschingschwank aus Wien (in which Schumann cheekily includes a reference to the Marseilles, which was banned in Vienna at the time because of its revolutionary connotations)

 

*Gabriel Fauré – Sicilienne

 

*César Franck – 1^st and 2^nd movements from Sonata for violin and piano

 

*Louiguy (Edith Piaf) – La Vie en Rose

Tomorrow: Truffle farm and the village of Gringon