Avignon

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Avignon was once the home of the papacy, for a 68 year period in the 14th century when Rome had become too unstable. At that time France as a nation state as we know it did not exist, and Avignon and the surrounding area belonged to the Popes. At this time the city became the centre of the western world. The huge fortress-like Papal Palace is testimony to the instability of the times, as well as the military power of the medieval Papacy. Today it is largely empty - vast, forbidding and cold - so different from the Baroque flamboyance of today's Vatican. The city is also famous for its music festivals, with many open air events, and the half collapsed medieval bridge, the subject of that hoary old French nursery rhyme, 'Sur le Pont D'Avignon, On y danse, On y danse' - describing how the children would dice with death by dancing on the ledges of its broken end, high above the swirling waters. Equivalent today, perhaps, to playing truant on a high speed railway line...

2 / 5 Review by member katie_f

‘Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace, Episcopal Ensemble and Avignon Bridge’

In the 14th century, this city in the South of France was the seat of the papacy. The Palais des Papes, an austere-looking fortress lavishly decorated by ... Read more »

4 / 5 Review by editor World Reviewer Staff

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