Bonjour! When we awoke we were in the port of Marseille. As we learned from our various tour guides, the Greeks had a tremendous influence in this area and founded the city over 2600 years ago. It is the oldest city in France. Today was the first of our planned excursions and we needed to hustle to make our 8:00 am muster time. We would leave the ship and board a bus which was going to take us to the city of Avignon where we would also tour the Palais des Papes (Pope’s Palace). Avignon is on the banks of the Rhone River. In order to ensure the safety and stability of the Catholic Chuch hierarchy the papacy moved to France in 1309 and stayed until 1377. The palace is one of the largest and most well preserved examples of medieval architecture. There is also a vibrant arts community in Avignon & there was actually an art exhibit being held in the palace. It was an exhibition titled, “To Life, to love” by the french street artist known as Miss.Tic.
Our guide was a petite woman with a vast knowledge of the medieval period and the palace itself. She spoke softly in a lilting French accent that was sometimes drowned out by the crowds around us. She did make attempts to bring us into areas that were less occupied while she was explaining the sites. The palace was actually 2 adjoining buildings: the old palace and the new palace. Built on a rocky outcrop that overlooks the river the interior was lavishly decorated with frescoes, tapestries, paintings, statues and ornate wood ceilings which remain in place to this day.
There is also available a digitally recreated rendering of what the 25 different areas would have looked like before the contents were lost to antiquity. It helps fill in the gaps when you’ve been looking at a lot of empty spaces. Our guide provided us a lot of information about what the specific rooms were used for and how they would have been decorated. (Lavish for a medieval Pope but a far cry from what we would witness at the Vatican when we were in Rome.)
We also had some time to wander around the historical part of the town before we returned to the bus. Kim & Doug even had time for a quick beer.
We hugged the Rhone River for a short while on our drive back to port passing through pictureque countryside which is the home to vinyards and farms. Tomorrow would be a full day excursion while we toured Nice, Eze and Monaco. Another early call with a tender port. This called for some relaxation back at the ship, a show, dinner & some not to late night entertainment if we were going to have the energy to pound a lot of pavement tomorrow.
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