Saturday 2 nd September
It was a beautiful sunny day for our drive to Avignon. We made one stop on the way and that was to see another Roman monument, Pont du Gard , a Roman aqueduct from the first century and it was a most impressive structure. This was a most popular site, drawing lots of visitors, who also were picnicking and swimming in the River Gardon that flowed underneath the aqueduct. There was a Porsche enthusiast club group there as well which made for an interesting site in the car park.
It was just after 1 pm by the time we left Pont du Gard and 350 Celsius. It was a 30 minute drive on to Avignon and we took a route along the back roads that went through pretty vineyard territory where the bones were very plump. Harvest is due to start over the next couple of weeks and these vines looked ready today.
Avignon is a sight to behold, once it finally comes into view, and is a most picturesque medieval walled city sitting along the Rhone River and our hotel, the Hotel d’Europe, was located just inside the city walls of Old Town. We found the place easily enough and were pleasantly surprised to be told we had been upgraded to a Junior Suite for the night. The hotel was absolutely beautiful and was a 16th century mansion that had been converted to an hotel in 1799. Apparently, we were in good company here as previous guests included Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo and, more recently, Julia Roberts. Our room (room 118) was palatial, and the problem now was that neither of us wanted to leave again! However, we only had the afternoon and early hours of tomorrow to explore the area so we had to drag ourselves out of the luxury of our room.
We headed out at around 2.30 pm and explored the town using an online walking tour rote provided by GPS My City as there weren’t any audio or live guided options for us. This took us to all of the major places of interest in the city including Place du Palais, Palais des Papes, the Cathedral, The Town Hall and St Peter’s Basilica as just some of the stops. We also hopped on the Avignon Tourist Train that did a 45 minute loop around the city and this was useful to enable to see some parts of the city that we would not have reached today on foot.
Given we had only been a few hours we think we gave the sight seeing a good shot with the walking tour and the train and we plan to do a bit more discovering in the morning on our walk before breakfast. We were very glad we had decided to stay here the night rather than returning to Montpellier. That would have been a big step awkward as Avignon is just so magically pretty and enchanting and our hotel is sheer luxury.
We made it back to our hotel with enough time to enjoy a G&T on our balcony and another beer for Mark down in the hotel courtyard bar before heading off to dinner. Our 7 pm reservation was for a little restaurant just around the corner called Le Gout du Jour and this was fabulous. They had a very limited menu and we chose the 4 plate offering but we struggled to even get through the main as there were so many bonus offerings. All of the dishes were absolutely delicious and presented like works of art so it was a most fitting way to celebrate the end of our day in Avignon.
It was a glorious morning that we woke to and so we headed out for a walk along the Rhone where they have a lovely wide and sealed walking track running alongside the river. I had initially thought our hotel might be too out of the way but the location was just perfect; it was away from the hustle and noise of Place des Papes and easy to step out of the city walls and enjoy the river walk. I could have done with another day here but this is probably somewhere we would come back to and we would definitely return to Hotel d’Europe and Le Gout du Jour too!
