Traveling to Avignon and light up the night

Thursday  1/10/15  
Today we had to be up early to try to avoid the Paris traffic.  We left Paris at 7.30am and had a comfortable trip down to Avignon with a couple of rest stops and a lunch stop. We saw the famous french vineyards and quite a few Chateaux and a famous fort built at the top of a rocky outcrop on a hill. We arrived in Avignon at 5.15pm and headed out for a guided walk at 6pm.

The main part of Avignon is surrounded by a huge wall that is about 1 km long on each side. It was built to protect the castle of course. We walked to a beautiful but uncompleted bridge that had been built many centuries ago. Unfortunately following a bad flood much of it had been washed away. The story goes that the town started to rebuild it but ran out of money so it stops in the middle of the river. From here we went to see the le Palais des Papes. For about 60 years, this castle/palace once had Popes living there until they moved to the Vatican. It was another impressive castle. We then went to a lovely restaurant where the whole group had dinner together. This was another dinner that was

included. After dinner we walked back to the palace as there was going to be a special light show on and we had tickets for the 9.15 session. We all gathered in the large courtyard of the palace with about 500 others. The lighting show was spectacular with the projections being done on all the four walls surrounding us. The music was great as was the visuals and the floor even vibrated at appropriate times. The commentary was in French so we struggled a little but we worked out that it was about the history of France. After this wonderful night we returned to our accommodation around 10.30.