Le Palais des Papes, the Pope's Palace, in Avginon

We had a good outing on Sunday.

Our destination was the city of Avignon. Specifically, we wanted to go to the Palais des Papes (the Pope's Palace)., which was hosting an installation by Lee Ufan, a Korean artist. A couple of years ago we visited this same artist's museum in Arles, and we wanted to see more of his work.

 Our American friends Debra and Kate eagerly accepted our invitation to join us.

One weekend a month local train travel is offered at 1€. That means we can go anywhere in Occitanie (the area of French where we live, in the south-west) for a very low price. Paula organized our trip to Avignon around these train tickets: it only cost us €2 (about $2.50USD) round trip each!

So, at 10 AM on Sunday found us at the train station in Montpellier, climbing aboard for our trip to Avignon. 

I like riding the train. I like the large comfortable seats, the wide aisles. And, it has a bathroom you can actually turn around in. Plus the ride is very smooth and quiet. This trip took about an hour and a half, so a little before noon we were walking past the ancient walls into the city of Avignon.

Kate, Paula, and Debra heading for the Avignon city walls. As usual, I'm lagging behind...

Le Hotel de Ville, the City Hall of Avignon, on a winter's day.

While our town of Montpellier has an incredible historic center dating to the 14th century, Avignon's downtown area is not quite so old, with wider streets and buildings dating to the late 18th and 19th centuries. We found it a very comfortable town, very pleasant. We had strolled just few blocks from the train station when we encountered the Lapidary Museum, a former Jesuit church now given over to stone carvings.

A table displaying artifacts from Greece in the Musée Lapidaire.

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A colorful carved stone; from Egypt, no doubt!

There were many works from Egypt and Greece, apparently acquired by the museum from private collections. Also of interest were Roman statues and other artifacts that had been found locally. (The Romans were all over this part of France! Julius Caesar defeated the Gauls, as the Celtic people here were called, in about 50 CE.)

The building itself, a former Jesuit church, displayed some pretty impressive stone work.

A vase from ancient greece.

I really liked this articulated, armless doll.
About two inches high, it's one of the many Roman artifacts found in this part of France.

We cut our visit short because we realized we needed to move on to the Palace of the Popes, our primary destination, and had to get lunch first. Here in France lunch time is from noon to 2PM, and if you miss that window it's a long time to dinner! So we continuecd up the street and soon arrived at the Palace.

Another view of Le Palais des Papes.

So why exactly is there a Pope's Palace in Avignon? At the beginning of the 14th century a great schism developed in the church. For a time there were two popes, one in Avignon and one in Rome. The papacy in Avignon lasted about 70 years, and resulted in the construction of this magnificent palace. Today it's a national monument open to the public, and is often used for art installations.

We had a great lunch at a very fine restaurant, and headed over to the palace. Unfortunately, we found the art installation to be disappointing.

No, not the restaurant we went to (this one is closed); but the name is a reminder that prepositions,
for all their small size, are hard to get right!

The main part of the installation was a vast room paved with slate. It looked very ordinary, certainly not inspiring. It reminded me of so many plazas and other open spaces paved in stone; hardly special. Worse, we had been here about one year earlier for a different art installation, and this same room had been filled with blue glass bricks. Now, that was interesting, in strong contrast to this opaque black slate. We couldn't get away from the feeling that "it was better before". 

A huge area paved with slate. Not so interesting, I don't think...

...and up close, it's no better!

It wasn't until right near the end of our visit, after we'd finished touring the palace, that we saw a video about the construction of this particular installation that was illuminating. 

The artist explained his vision, and why he was drawn to this part of France. The video also showed the construction of this piece, this vast field of slate, which entailed people—men, specifically beefy men—hauling huge slabs of slate up the large flight of stairs. Each guy would climb up a couple of stairs with a massive chunk of stone, hand it off to the next man, and go back down to get another. Others would place the stones and finally, at the end, women seated on the floor carefully broke up the slate to fill the spaces between the larger blocks. Tremendous, tremendous human effort.

That, I thought, was a real story, and I wish they'd emphasized it more because the static display was just not compelling 

One last effort: in the courtyard, a giant stainless steel ring...?
Still no; it's ok but...meh.

We finished our visit to the Palais des Papes and started the trek back to the train station, winding our way through the narrow back streets of the city, lined with many interesting shops. Today was Sunday, so of course the shops were closed. I remember commenting that this walk would have taken us a lot longer if those shops had been open, because we would have been stopping often. As it was, we ended up near the train station with about an hour to spare, so we stopped at a cafe and enjoyed tea, coffee, and hot chocolate. We were soon back on the train, heading home to Montpellier in the gathering dusk.

A narrow back street of Avignon.

A not-so-narrow street. Plenty of interesting shops!

Well, we'll try again. Maybe next time we'll take the 1€ train to Arles and re-visit Mr. Ufan's museum. Or, come back and spend the night in Avignon, and explore more than just the Palais des Papes. We'll return when the shops are open...

The famous bridge in Avignon, seen in the distance from a tower of the Palace.
Sur le pont d'Avignon,
On y danse, on y danse.