Avignon

Bonjour all,


I forgot to write about Avignon...

Several weeks ago, Armand and Chelle were wonderful and took me to see the city of Avignon.

About the city: Avignon is a city of many different faces. For over a century it was home for the papacy and has been forever crowned by the medieval Palais des Papes and encircled by an ancient city wall and filled in moats. It was a centre of scholarships and artistic excellence. Today this city is very artistic and has a lot of theatre, music, exhibitions, festivals, etc, throughout the year.

History: Avignon was born during the dying phases of the Neolithic period (9000-8000 b.c.). It was a settlement, really, laying in the cradle of the Rocher des Doms. Rocher des Doms is a tall rocky clif that falls steeply into the Rhone River. I did not get a picture of the cliff, but I was on top of it. The view is gorgeous!

Anyway, under Roman rule, Avignon was a port city and then in the 12th century it began to think BIG. Towers were built, a Romanesque catherdral, and the St. Benezet bridge across the Rhone River, along with an ancient wall around the city and moats. In 1306, Clement V (a french pope) moved his court from a turbulent Rome to the quiet and safety of the independent, vatican-owned region around Avignon. This region was called Comtat Venaissin. After Clement V died, the following 6 popes saw no reason to relocate to Rome. The Italians called this the "Babylonian Captivity" and it lasted for 68 years. Scholars, artists, architects, jewellers, weavers.. all flocked to Avignon to find commerce and trade... while Petrarch* sniffed and called it "a sewer". Personally, I think he was wrong.
*Francesco Petrarch was an Italian Renaissance humanist. He is called the Father of Humanism.

Sometime around/after 1370, Gregory XI was pestered by St. Catherine of Siena (who has her own crazy story which I am not going to recite but will say that it is rather interesting and full of soft drama) to move the papacy back to Rome. Shortly after he moved back to Rome, he died and the Romans elected a Roman pope. The French were not about to lose their hold on the reins of power and elected Clement VII asap in Avignon. Now there were 2 popes!! They excommunicated eachother, sparking the Great Schism which lasted for 40 years! The Great Schism ended when all sides agreed on one pope, Martin V, in 1417.

Avignon was papal territory even after the popes returned to Rome. It was far enough away from Rome to escape the Vatican checks and was not under French censorship so it flourished greatly becoming an artistic, religious and great publishing center. It wasn't until 1791 that Avignon was returned to France.

Below are some pictures:

This is the Palais des Papes and to the left is the Cathedrale Notre-Dame-des-Doms (12th century) with its golden statue of the Virgin Mary on the top.

The other half of Palais des Papes. It was too big to fit into one picture.

This is the courtyard from within the Palais des Papes.

This is what used to be the Pope's dining hall.

The Palais is full of all sorts of statues. This is one.

Avignon is a city laden with artistic treasures. This is the Municipal Theatre.

This is a street view.. 

This is cathedrale in Avignon. Unfortunately I forgot the name of it.

This is the interior of the Cathedrale. All of the other cathedrales that I have visited in France look just as elegant as this one on the inside. Most of them have organs that cover an entire wall!!! The organ is not visibile in the picture, just an FYI.

This is the 12th century bridge across the Rhone River. Only part of it remains. It is called Pont Saint-Benezet.

That is all for now, as my internet is extremely slow and uploading pictures is pain in its purest form. As I wrap up my last two weeks in France, I will try to post at least once or twice more about Paris, the nuclear research facility in Cadarache, and my conclusions on the research (maybe).

Once again with tired typing fingers and extremely heavy eyelids, au revoir.

Oksana