A Gallery of Photos: To France to Paint (Again): Avignon

Looking across the Rhône to Avignon

As described in this blog, just a year ago, mid-October, I joined a group of local watercolor painters to take part in a week's painting trip to Provence. Can heaven provide any better activity in any better locale, I asked myself. Then, when the week was over and we Vermonters were home again, I promised myself that I would go again this year since the organizers were planning a repeat trip.  (In fact, half of last year's group decided to return.)

And that is just what I have now done, having arrived home just a few days ago.  This second trip was on a par with the glories of the first.  By that I mean:  great weather, gorgeous scenery, great co-painters, fabulous food and Côtes du Rhône wines.  And this time, going a month earlier, we hit upon the vendange, the grape harvesting.

Our organizers also added a few pre-trip days in Avignon so that we could get over jet lag before embarking on our week of painting in Provence's nearby Vaison-la-Romaine, a small town that boasts Roman ruins along with an entire medieval quarter.

So, I begin this series of four postings with a view of Avignon, a place that became a well-loved town back in the days when my husband was alive and our young daughter was getting a good view of the world as she traveled with us.  We three danced on the medieval Saint-Bénézet bridge as we sang "Sur le pont d'Avignon," attended the Avignon theater, film, and music festival, witnessed the Bastille Day fireworks.  So, one can well imagine that I was especially anxious to re-new old memories when I learned that Avignon had been added to this year's itinerary.

This trip, we stayed close in, in the sweet little Hotel Regina on the Place de l'Horloge, just near the Palais des Papes, the great medieval gothic Palace of the Popes, there since the 14th century when the papacy split between Rome and France.

To place it properly, Avignon is an hour's drive north of the Mediterranean city of Marseille.  Vaison-la-Romaine is another hour northeast of that, still in the Rhône River region.

Palace of the Popes

Looking up at the Palace of the Popes

Looking toward the Palace from the town across the river

Handsome plane trees and building

Note the trompe l'oeil painted in the upper window

Typical residence

Our hotel

Cups, cups, cups in a coffee and tea shop

Delightfully tempting pastries

Pork tenderloin and friends

This happened to be the very spot where our van's GPS said Avignon's TGV train station was located.  The GPS was subsequently given a scolding and turned off.  This is, of course, the middle of the Rhône River just a few miles down from the heart of Avignon.

Future postings:
Number 2:  Benedictine Abbey Gardens in Fort Saint-André, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon
Number 3:  Vaison-la-Romaine
Number 4:  Neighboring towns