Midevil Cities, The Pope's Palace, and Wine

This has been a jam-packed 24-hour period going from Sunday evening through Monday afternoon.  Sunday evening we docked in Viviers, a mid evil city.  After dinner and after dark, we met our tour guide for a late night walk through this historic town.  It was weird as the city of 3,000 almost seemed deserted.  The only thing out in any numbers were lots of cats.  We were able to see all the narrow streets, the buildings, and the climb to the top of the city.  Once we arrived at the top we were greeted by our Program Director and the ship's staff who offered us nougat candies and rum punch.

Monday morning we were up and running on our walking tour of Avignon, one of the few completely walled cities remaining in the world.

We toured the town which included the main square outside the city hall.  The name of the city hall in most French cities is Hotel Deville with means "building of the city."  

Our next stop was the Papal Palace.   There were nine popes who made their home in Avignon instead of Rome.  Eight of the nine were French.  Just as at the Vatican, each Pope had to "create their own" to outdo the previous Pope,

One artifact that stood out was a three dimensional work of Christ carrying his cross.  The guy on the far left is the person who commissioned this work for the palace.  If you were willing to pay for a piece of art there was no problem including yourself in a scene from history.

Below is the private chapel of one of the early Pope's.  Again this one was added because the chapel of the previous pope was too small and took dark.

There are many churches in the walled city of Avignon.  We went into the one below that was beautiful with much of the alter gilded in gold.

In the afternoon we did an optional tour to the wine country of the Rhone.  We first stopped at a point where we could look at the vineyards among the ruins of the summer home of the popes.  

We visited the town of Chateunauf du Pape (meaning new castle of the Popes), and then tasted wine at one of the wineries in the region where we were instructed on how to taste wine followed by a tasting of their wines.  Too bad it was close to 100 degrees today as it zapped all the energy out of us.

Tomorrow is our last full day on the riverboat.  We have a morning walking tour of Arles, and an afternoon tour of a cave where they project famous French art on the walls using state-of-the-art projectors (a high-class light show).  This may be the last post before we return, as I may not have time to post tomorrow and I'm not sure if I'll have access to the internet while in Nice for the rest of the week.  Anna and John have to depart the boat at 3:30 am on Wednesday to drive to the Marseilles airport, and we leave at 8:30 for Nice.  We depart our hotel at 4:00 am on Saturday for our 6:30 return flight to Portland via Amsterdam.

Hope you have enjoyed traveling with us.  As much fun as we are having, we also look forward to returning back to Oregon to family and friends.   Bon jour.