Oops, realised today that I haven't posted in a month...
Well, here is my adventures in Avignon with Meg the weekend of Saturday September 28, 2013:
I know this has nothing to do with Avignon, but I on
Thursday night I was looking at WWII propaganda posters with my host brothers
and we found this one.
We couldn’t stop laughing. What was great was that at first,
Ianis didn’t recognize that it was a cartoon drawing of Hitler, which made us
laugh even more.
Now for the weekend trip:
I left early Friday morning to catch a 9:20 train out of the
SNCF train station at Part-Dieu. As far as train stations go, I don’t think it
was planned out very well. First of all, you have to pay 50 centimes (cents) to use the bathroom. So
not cool. Secondly, the platforms on which the trains will be arriving are not
easily at the passengers’ disposition. At 30th Street Station, the
board with all the train announcements is right in the middle of the station
with plenty of room to wait (not necessarily seats). At the Part-Dieu train
station, the board is just on the inside of the main entrance with only enough room
for thirty people to see the board (and that’s not thirty people comfortably).
For a train station that has platforms that go up to the letter J, you think
there would be a more efficient manner in disseminating information. Oh, and
there’s no place to sit.
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This is my morning face. |
Anyway, Meg (
http://meginlyon.wordpress.com/) and I took a train heading toward Marseilles,
which took about two hours and twenty minutes. It wasn’t too bad. I read a lot.
What was strange was that at no point were we asked for our tickets. That is
kind of frustrating because it made me think that I didn’t need to buy a ticket
in the first place. I know there are random checks, but still, it’s annoying.
We arrived at the local train station right on time and found ourselves
face to face with the historic walled city. The whole city is literally
surrounded by a wall about 20 feet high. That being said, it’s an incredibly
tiny town. Like, I can walk from one end of the town
to the other. Food was our top priority. After stopping by the Office du
Tourisme, which is a great idea and all cities should have one, Meg and I
checked our map and headed in some sort of direction. We found a small open
plaza with a bunch of restaurants at which we could eat. We both ordered
sandwiches and hot chocolate. The hot coco was amazing! It was much richer than
normal Swiss Miss (Don't get me wrong, I love me some Swiss Miss) but not
overly thick, like melted chocolate. In short, it was delicious and perfect for
the dreary day. We also had very yummy sandwiches, but that's not surprising
because pretty much all sandwiches are yummy here.
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Hot chocolate from the heavens |
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Meg being a cutie |
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SANDWICHES |
After lunch, we went to a little art museum called
Musée Angladon, a house
turned museum. It was really cool and unique! The best part was that our
tickets were only three euros for students, score! Thank you Europe.
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Jean Emile Laboureur Femme sur une terrasse |
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Tsugharu L. Foujita Auto-Portrait and Portrait de Madame Foujita |
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Edgar Degas La Repasseuse |
These next few pictures are where the people who collected all the art.
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No touchy! |
After the art museum, we went exploring. We wandered around the Palais
de Papes which is this ginormous castle/fortress thing where the Popes
lived when the pope was in France, but more on that later. By the Palais, there
is a garden/park area that connects to the palais and the outer city wall. It
was really cool and just a nice place to chill for a bit. It has a great view
of the town.
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This is George |
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If you zoom in, there is a very well placed leaf... |
We wanted
to try to visit the free museums while they were still open so we stopped by
the natural history museum. It was a little disappointing but the taxidermy was
fantastic. It was neat to walk around the non-touristy parts to see how the
real Avginonais live. It’s always curious to the real inhabitants of tourist
town. Also, found this in a vintage store for Heather.
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Oh hai! |
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So good! Of course now I don't remember what the flavors were. |
After our walk about town, Meg and I went back to the hostel
for happy hour before going to dinner. In the bar/salon/reception area, we saw
one of the other inhabitants of our six person room, an Australian woman named
Carmen. She was super nice. We also met Macy and Julia, two girls our age from
Kentucky and Germany, respectively. We all chatted for a bit before going out
to dinner. Macy, Julia, Meg, and I went to this Italian restaurant close by for
really good and reasonably priced food. I had four cheese ravioli. (: From all
of our walking around, Meg and I were pretty exhausted so we just went back to
the room. It was only about 11 o’clock so we were talking at you know, at a
normal volume for like 15 minutes when we hear some sort of snort/breathy sound
from one of the bed. Oops, someone was sleeping. And then at like 4:30 in the
morning, these people
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Carmen and all the firefighters that showed up in our hostel (Pop'Hostel) |
The next morning, we woke up early to go to markets which
started at 9. Unfortunately, we didn’t remember that here, starting at 9,
really means 9:30 or 10. Or was it 8? I don’t remember, but the important part
is that no one was awake. It was really cool just to wander with no intention
because you know, not all those who wander are lost.
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Outside wall |
For lunch, we went to this restaurant called New Ground. It
was traditional Provençal dishes with spice flavorings from around the world.
Oh lord, help. It was delicious. And there was dessert too. Fabulous.
We went to the Palais des Papes, which was the palace for
the popes when they weren’t in Rome (1309-1378). This place is huge!!! Both in
terms of land area and height. It’s all made out of stone and different parts
were added and removed not only while it was in use by the popes, but also its
history including today. One thing I learned from the audio guides (which you
hold up to your ear. Ew. No head phones and I was kind of not okay with putting
a communal object close to my face. Also, if someone had their volume up to
loud, the whole room could hear it, because castles tend to echo), was that a
lot of the castle has been reconstructed. I guess I’m spoiled from Eastern
State’s policy of “semi-ruin” where the story of the building through time is
visible and also important to understand the building in terms of space and
time. In France, they are not too keen on that idea and prefer to restore the
building to its “original” state. I don’t know; everyone is entitled to their
own opinion. Also, there’s the tourist factor, but I digress. Enjoy some
pictures!
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Oh look, a studded door! |
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For hiding secret pope things |
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Original painting decor of the room, which was later whitewashed |
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More hiding places for lot's of holy money! |
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A little courtyard at the back |
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Huge feast hall |
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Kitchen... |
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...with giant flue |
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There were artist installations in the Palais. This was about princess and the pea |
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OMG THERE WAS A CAT! He was chilling on the precipice of doom, in between the plexiglass and the staircase |
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On the roof! |
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France is really into giant golden Marys |
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Hogwarts Great Staircase |
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And the Great Hall |
And then we went to the Pont d’Avignon! Well, we couldn’t
find it at first because the signs were for Pont Saint-Bénezet, which is the
actual name of the bridge. This bridge is super old! Also, I was totally
expecting a full bridge, but it was only about 100 yards long. We found out
that it was actually 21 arches when it was built and was a true engineering
feat. Unfortunately, over time, the river moved land and sediment, creating new
land formations and the rough waters destroyed a lot of (and by that I mean
most of) the bridge so only 4 arches remain. Once I learned that, I was
significantly more impressed by the remnants of the once colossal bridge.
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A small place to pray on the side of the bridge |
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Meg and I |
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More ice cream because it was so good! |
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The bridge from the other side of the river. You can count the arches. |
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Entrance to the city |
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Our Hogwarts Express train cabin |
Sorry about being super late! More to come!
Best wishes!