Avignon Vacations, Avignon Vacation Reviews, Tourism Guide

Avignon Vacation Guide

Avignon is a city in Southeastern France in the region known as Provence. Avignon is most famous for the Palace de la Papes, or Papal Palace where several Popes and Antipopes lived in the 13 and 1400s. The exterior of the Palace of the Popes has the appearance of a true fortress with very high walls which are opened here and there by very narrow windows. The half bridge of Avignon or the "Pont St. Benezet" is also somewhat famous for a common children's song "Sur la Pont, d'Avignon". The building of the bridge began in 1177 and was completed in January 1185. It fell in 1226 and was almost completely destroyed, was reconstructed in part until it was definitely abandoned in 1680. All that remains today of the bridge are four arches with a small chapel on the second pier, made up of a Romanesque chapel surmounted by a Gothic chapel flanked by a 16th century apse. The body of Benezet was buried here and in 1674, was translated to the church of the Celestines but disappeared during the stormy years of the French Revolution