Ruth Paget: Avignon

Visiting Avignon, France, the City of Dissenting Popes and the Famous Bridge with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Avignon is famous for its summer theatre festival, which uses dramatic lighting on the Porte des Champeaux entrance to the Palais des Papes (Pope’s Palace) as background.

My husband Laurent and I visited Avignon during their equally crowded Christmas festival and market. We secured the last parking spot in the garage by our hotel for this festivity and did not mind our walk to the hotel in the pedestrian district amidst all the revelry.

Getting to the hotel made us appreciate how the city within the ramparts built during the 12^th to 14^th centuries was set up for defense and secret messengers; narrow, one-way streets abounded with what the French call “ruelles” leading off from the streets. Ruelles are meant for one or maybe two pedestrians to pass where horses would have had trouble navigating.

Many of the one-way streets were closed due to the Christmas Festival, which had our GPS navigating system going haywire. We spent a good half hour just trying to reach our hotel. A call to the hotel outside the ramparts helped us find our way to the garage by the Pont d’Avignon (Avignon Bridge).

The Palais des Papes, which is right behind the Pont d’Avignon, is a Gothic structure that was built in the 14^th century. It sits on a hilltop and is a multipurpose compound with a residence and church that also served as a fortress. It was a fort within a walled city.

The Palais des Papes served as the papal see, a type of French Vatican, from 1309 to 1377. This period in the history of the Catholic Church is referred to as the Avignon Papacy. During this time, seven French popes held court at Avignon.

The first pope to live and rule from Avignon was Clement V (1264 – 1314), who refused to move to Rome and made Avignon a papal enclave. Avignon was also the residence of antipopes, who resided there from 1378 to 1408. Antipopes lived during the time of the Great Schism (1378 to 1417) in the Western Church when two or three different popes ruled in different regions. Avignon was home to several rivals for control of the Catholic Church.

Today the French remember Avignon for its famous bridge, the Pont d’Avignon, which has been immortalized in a children’s song. The famous lyrics for the song follow:

Sur le Pont d’Avignon,

On y danse,

Tous en rond.

(On Avignon Bridge,

We dance,

Together in a Circle)

(Literal translation by Ruth Paget)

The Pont d’Avignon’s official name is Pont Saint-Bénezet (Saint Benedict in dialect). Benedict was a shepherd, who left his flock in the care of angels to build this bridge in the 12^th century. It is huge tourist draw for French families.

The Italian poet Petrarch (1304 – 1374) captured Avignon’s forbidding beauty in his sonnets to the beautiful Laura, whom he saw in church. He wrote poetry for her in his Rime Sparse. My souvenir from Avignon is a pledge to myself to read these sonnets in Italian.

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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