vignon is famous for the Palace du Papes. It served as the residence of the Sovereign Pontiffs during the 14th century. We toured the facility. While the architecture is impressive we found most of the rooms barren and of little interest. It seemed to me that the church has abandoned the Palace as a relic of a time they would as soon forget.

Doris and I visited Avignon in 1998. It did not impress us then. We had difficulty in finding a decent place to eat. Beware of the restaurants on the main plaza! Avignon has atmosphere that seemed to say "rip the tourist".

Fearing we were missing something, we scheduled a full day for Avignon on this trip.

After leaving St. Remy we checked our car in at the TGV station and took public transportation into the old walled city. We checked into the Ibis Hotel at the in-town train station. (€ 82.70 as compared to € 50 in St. Remy). We chose to do this so that we could take an early train to Lyon on the following day and because we were uncertain about the time and directions for driving from St. Remy to the train station. (Turns out there is one tricky turn that is easy to miss, otherwise it is a straight forward half hour trip.)

The Ibis was a nice enough hotel - sort of like a Holiday Inn - absolutely no charm. Being next to the train tracks they had three layers of windows to keep out the sound. It worked but the room was also stuffy. We opened window.

This time we gave Avignon our best. We walked the entire town inside the wall. We took a tour, we checked out the shops, we ate away from the tourist areas. We have no interest in returning to Avignon.

Avignon does serve as the transportation hub for the Provence so it may be necessary to go near the city, but that is close enough for us.

Next is Lyon.

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