Once you get to the square where the Palais des Papes is, you are overwhelmed by the building's size. It is huge! As we approached the entrance, a young man dressed as a jester (we later found out his costume was an original Pope's guard uniform from the 1300s) looked at us in awe. "Are you Tahitian? You're very beautiful," he said to us. He had clearly never seen a Tahitian before because neither of us have ever been mistaken for that in our lives, but it was very nice of him (and extremely funny for us).
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| The Palais des Papes from the square |
Anyway - the 'palais' was incredible. It was an enormous fortress in the middle of the city where six papal conclaves were held from the early to late 1300s. It's actually made up of two buildings: the old Palais of Benedict XII and the new Palais of Clement VI. It took us a good two and a half hours to see it all.
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| View from the top of the palace |
What was interesting was that there was a modern artist being featured in the palace. His unusual works were hung all over the wall. It gave the big, bare walls color but the nude female subjects seemed extremely out of place in the religious landmark.
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| Some of the art on the palace's walls |
After our tour in the Palais des Papes, we walked to the Pont Saint-Bénézet (better known as the Pont d'Avignon). We had a great time, despite the wind blowing extremely aggressively.
By the time we finished up at the bridge, we were exhausted. So we went and got some ice cream, naturally, and then made our way back to the train station to wait for our ride back to Lyon!
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