ART IN FRANCE: Avignon and Arles!

I did so MUCH; it is difficult to know where to begin when talking about my trip to the south of France. First of all it was awesome, so that’s good! But I guess I will start with a little song I learned…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNp1z5mQDSA(watch this, its really corny)

Anyways, I am much more comfortable with traveling—that’s for sure! Traveling alone in a new country is more difficult then you would think, but I feel like I did pretty well; here are some of my experiences: Buying tickets and getting on the train in Paris was a little terrifying, mostly because I have only ridden a train a handful of times, so I had had a hard time finding my assigned seat—I thought I could just hop on any car and sit down, so I ended up getting on the first class car, and was immediately yelled at in French, so I moved. Also, now I know there are two platforms at Gare de’Lyon, one with letters, and one with numbers. It was confusing, but I figured it out (and not to mention I was still recovering from fete de la music :). Finding a hotel was really pretty easy; all I did was look up hotels on Hostelworld.com before I left, and to my surprise I found a great hotel that was reasonably priced and in the center of Avignon (in fact it was called Hotel Centre). When I arrived in Avignon I took a bus into the main city walls (literally, the city walls, the whole center of town is enclosed in castle walls) and was greeted by a very nice lady working the front desk of my hotel. She told me about the sight seeing, and where to get something to eat—she was very helpful. After that, I simply walked around the quiet willowy streets that snaked around ancient churches and charming shops, until I was good and lost. The cobble stone streets were a beautiful reminder of the city dense history. It felt like I was stepping back to Roman/Medieval times. Pont Avignon (supposedly the most famous bridge in France) was beautiful, and has a really interesting history. It extends out into the powerful Rhone River that has seen many battles in its long European antiquity. After the Pont, I walked through the Pope’s gardens that perch on a large Mediterranean limestone veranda. I got a view of the whole city as well as the distant mountains that rolled across the horizon. On Sunday morning, I got up early and continued my exploration. I toured through the Palais des Papes, which was the Popes’ home from 1309-1377. There were seven Avignon’s popes that lived in the Palais, and they were all corrupt and obsessed with honoring god through luxury and wealth. The papal palace was more like a warlords fortress than a palace, but it was still really beautiful. There was a really strange art exhibition in the main hall of the Palais, where an artist created these grotesque mutilated figures, and put them on steal posts. There was even a decapitated horse hanging from the ceiling (I couldn’t find any information about this exhibition, so it was altogether really creepy). After the Palais des Papes, I took a 20min train ride to Arles. It was another really charming town with a loaded history. I walked around the old Roman Amphitheater and saw Espace Van Gogh, which is the hospital where Van Gogh was treated in 1889. After wondering around all afternoon, I had a really delicious lunch and headed back to Avignon. Both cities were perfectly manageable in the limited time I had. I left for the TGV station feeling very satisfied in the amount that I saw and experienced. However, my train was about and hour-and-half late, so I didn’t get back to Paris until midnight—that wasn’t very fun—but overall the trip was a total success! I had a really great time, and I would highly recommend going if you are ever in southern France!

Palais des Papes