Legendary bridge of Avignon over the famous river - Rhône
I knew this song when I was kid, I still remember that with my 3 teammates I even danced when we had a competition in our Scout. It was in the Zoo's park, near to a garden's pond, two among us were dressing as girls because there was no girls in the Scout at that time. That was long ago!
If you surely never heard about this song, check the video with Raffi, a famous Canadian singer of children songs, I found him just by chance on the internet and quite like his performance,"Sur le pond d'Avignon" was the second song, he sang in both French and English. By the way, the song was created way long ago, back to 1500s, the lyrics were different, changed for few times, until 1843 the new lyrics were created, very close to the one we know now.
I left Carcassonne early in the morning and arrived to Avignon, before noon. The weather was perfect with sunshine, the city was so joyful, warmly-welcome, unlikely some other towns I've been before. Maybe now I went more down to the South?
As usual, I went to the Office of Tourism, tried to get some information, or at least the city map. There was so crowded there, I was wondering people came here only for the Pond d'Avignon? Of course not! Palais des Papes could be the most attractive spot in Avignon along with the Art Festival in July.
First thing I did was to to find a good place for lunch. As one of my eating habits, I love hot soup, but to my surprise, not many restaurants could offer the soup along my journey. Anyway in Avignon I got the fish soup which was quite good, a bit spicy but that I needed after many days eating the baguette-sandwich with cold cuts. And the other dish that I ordered - the salad Nicoise was awesome as it served with...rice!
After a very good lunch, I was heading to Pond d' Avignon (another name - Pond de Saint Bénézet), it took me a while to find the way to the riverside...it was not far but I took a wrong turn, so I needed to go back a little bit. And when the bridge appeared in front of me, I had a kind of mixed feelings, it was indescribable - touched, surprised...I lay down on the grass nearby, partly to relax, partly to let my mind going back to my childhood's memories. It was a good sunshiny noon with super fresh breeze right from the river, I almost fell to sleep...
There was a legend that a 12-year old shepherd, Bénézet, heard the voice of the Lord, instructing him to have a bridge built...that's why the bridge still have this name - Saint Bénézet.
I stayed in Avignon only for one night, the hotel I booked was not far from the train station, it was a small boutique hotel, when I checked in, they gave me three keys: one key to my room, one key to the hotel building and the last one for the shared toilet! The hotel closed at 9:00 PM.
The road behind the Palais des Papes
Talking about the light show in France, it seems that every city, every town tried to create a light show to introduce their town history. I've been in Blois and watched the show there but I had to admit the show in Avignon, in Palais des Papes - much better. I took a lot of photos but then realised the video - way better, so I did record for few minutes. Later at home I found another video for almost 30' - the whole show, so I would suggest you to check this video, it's very much worth!
One night in Avignon, short but enough for me to fall in love with this town. Many reasons, some explicable, some inexplicable. This town brought me back to my childhood, where the word "Avignon" seemed strangely close to me...and the city charm, the image of the old bridge. I don't promise to myself that I will come back to Avignon, just because I want to keep deep inside my first feelings about this town. Goodbye, Avignon! Goodbye, the bridge of my childhood!
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