Observations on France:

Photos from my trip to Avignon and points south

I visited three different places on my trip south of Grenoble. The first was Avignon, where the Popes of the Western (or Roman) Catholic Church established a residence (called the Palais des Papes) in the early 14th century, and where in the late 14th century the "non-Roman" Western Catholic Popes had their residence during the times of major schism when there were two (or briefly three!!!) Popes. Avignon was referred to as "Rome" when the recognized Popes were in residence because the belief at the time was "Rome is where the Pope is". There is also a the remains of a bridge, the Saint Bénezet bridge, referred to in French as Pont d’Avignon (bridge of Avignon), which was of great importance for Provance (this area of southern France) during the dark and middle ages. Provance was not always under the control of the French kings, and control of the bridge had implications both strategic and commercial until the central government was able to establish their primacy.

The second place I went to was les Baux de Provance. This village and fortress (the Citadelle des Baux) are named after a geographical feature in the language of Provance, which is related to French, but is NOT French. The best translation I can give of les baux is "the ridges" or "the cliffs" or at best "the prominent, elevated rocks". Trying to talk about this area in French has given me no end of trouble, because when I say in French "I visited Les Baux" I don't say "Les Baux" because the "Les" in the name is an article, and the noun referred to is plural, so it modifies the preposition I have to use to say I visited it. (for anyone who is curious, I have to say J'ai visité des Baux de Provance.) The name has resonated far beyond the former importance of the fortress here, though. Bauxite (the ore that is refined to produce aluminum) was first discovered in the in this area, and that mineral was named after the village of les Baux de Provence. Back to the actual site, though. The citadel/castle was built on this eponymous ridge, and they were very creative because the area was quarried for stone to build both this castle and other fortresses in the area. The ridge that they quarried was turned into one wall of the fortress. You can see the remains of rooms carved into the rock in some of the photos. If I recall correctly, the fortress was first constructed in around 900 or 1000AD, added to and modified over the centuries until it was finally destroyed by order of the French king in the late 17th century once the kings of France finally established their authority over Provance.

Finally, I visited the Pont du Gard, or "Bridge of the Gard (river)". This "bridge" is actually part of a Roman aqueduct that was built in the neighborhood of 20 BC. This amazing example of Roman engineering was featured in a commercial for the new Volkswagen Beetle when it was re-introduced a few years ago.

Some notes for the less web-savvy: If you got here from a direct link (in an email, likely), scroll down to see all the photos. Click on any photo for a larger version. If you arrived at the main page (www.randomfate.net), click on the "continue reading" link below to see the thumbnail photos. There are a lot (over 20) so scroll down to see them all.

This first photo is of the farthest northern part of the Palais des Papes (Popes' Palace, or as I prefer to translate it, Palace of the Popes). There is a small chapel/cathedral on the far left with a gold figure on the peak.



The photo below is of the main doorway to the Palace of the Popes. It was taken from approximately the same position as the first. To give you an idea of the scale I was about 50 meters (or yards if you prefer) away from the door, and I had to turn about 45 degrees from the first photo to take this photo.



This next photo is of the southernmost part of the Palace. The main doorway can be seen on the left in this picture. The part of the building on the very far right that is sticking out just a bit is a cathedral that is the largest room I have ever been in with the exception of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.



In the center of this photo the clock tower on the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) can ben seen. The open area is the place (plaza) in front of the Palace of the Popes.



This is a fortress that was across the Rhone river from the Palace of the Popes. Unfortunately, I don't know the name of it.



Here is the Saint Bénezet bridge. Obviously, it no longer is much of a bridge since it no longer reaches the north bank of the river. There is a chapel actually on the bridge that was also used as a toll house. There is a song that goes with the bridge as well, but I didn't understand it since it was in French and my vocabulary is still limited. This photo was taken from a defensive wall that was just north of the Palace of the Popes.



This is a tower on the side of the Palace of the Popes opposite to the photo above. They are difficult to see, but those features sticking out of the tower near the top are gargoyle rain spouts. If my reckoning is correct, the windows you can see are from the rooms used by the Popes as their living quarters.



There were "audioguide" tours of the Palace and the bridge. The bridge tour was around 45 minutes to an hour, and the Palace tour was at least 2 to 3 hours. There were sub-topics that would give more detail for each point of interest. I listened to many but not all of the sub-topics because after a while the amount of information was almost overwhelming. I don't recall when the Roman Catholic Church lost control of the Palace of the Popes, but I do know that after the last period of schismatic Popes (when there were three rival Popes) no Pope has established residence outside of Rome. I suspect that it was during the French Revolution that the Palace of the Popes was wrested from the Church. The Palace was repeatedly used as military barracks in the 19th century. There were several places inside that were vandalized during the French Revolution and later, and fires both before and after that period had destroyed a lot of the wood inside. I did not take any photos inside the Palace because it was remarkably bare, essentially a giant, hollow stone edifice with little of visual interest. The only place where there was significant decoration was inside the main entry doors, and that stonework had been so badly damaged from the vandalism during the French Revolution that it was difficult to imagine how it once appeared.

The next set of photos are from les Baux de Provence. This first photo is of the inside of a gate in one of the walls that surrounds the village on the plateau that is just below the fortress.



This view is from the far southern part of the upper plateau looking north towards the fortress. In the center of the photo is a reproduction of a trebuchet, an old siege engine used against fortresses like this one. The trebuchet wouldn't have been up here, it would have been in the valley used by forces trying to assault the fortress.



This is the fortress, or rather the ruined remains of it. The large stone formation on the left is the ridge that was used as one of the walls of the fortress. As I wrote earlier, they were very creative in using this ridge. Stone was quarried from the area in the center of this photo, and then the remaining rock was shaped to create rooms used in the fortress. The photos don't really do it justice, and unfortunately I wasn't able to get good photos of the models they had showing the evolution of the castle.



From the top of one of the remaining towers you can look down onto the village (which is no longer really a village but a giant tourist gift shop).



This is the only roof remaining in the fortress. It is half of the chapel that was in the center of the fortress. It originally had a barrel vault ceiling (the remains of which can been seen on the walls but didn't photograph well). You can see the "new" vaulting in the ceiling here.



These are some flowers growing at the edge of the ceiling of the chapel. I thought they looked interesting.



This was taken from the remains of northernmost tower looking roughly south-southwest at the cliff wall and the ruins. The village is to the far right.



This is looking out the remaining wall on top of the ridge over the eastern valley/plain. There is an appellation for this valley where they produce both red and white wine, along with a unique olive oil that uses the oil from several varieties of olive.



In addition to eating chickens and hunting wild fowl, in that period they kept rookeries for birds they would eat (including pigeons, if I recall the audioguide tour correctly). This is the arch leading to the rookery for this castle that the birds used to fly into and out of this tall, narrow chamber. The many holes in the wall behind the archway are for the birds nests.



The view from the courtyard immediately in front of the keep doesn't really convey the scale of the place. Although it is not overwhelming in size, it is mostly obscured from this vantage point. This was the best view I could get of the remaining wall of the keep, which is in the left foreground.



This is another view from the courtyard in front of the keep, this time with the northernmost tower on the left. This is the tower that I took a photo of the courtyard, the cliff wall, and the village from that is posted above.



This is from just outside the southernmost extension of the central castle, looking north to the main fortress. It was taken out of a window in a room that was carved from the rock that made up a smaller ridge that runs laterally across the plateau from the north-south direction of the main cliff. This smaller ridge has the southernmost tower that is visible in some of the photos looking south from the northernmost tower.



The previous photo was taken from a room carved out of the smaller lateral ridge. This is another room that was carved out of the same ridge in a slight depression at the base. These rooms are referred to as the "troglodyte housing" because they were living areas carved out underground. I found the arches in the roof that resembled those in the chapel very interesting.



Finally, the Pont du Gard. This is an aqueduct bridge built in approximately 20BC that is used in many textbooks as a prime example of Roman architecture with the use of the arch (apparently, the word for building design arose out of the word "arch" - "architecture"). This bridge is also featured in a commercial for the new Beetle, where a man is standing and extolling the virtues of the arch with the Pont du Gard in the background being used as a prime example of the strength of this structure. A Beetle drives up, with the roof line of the car exactly mirroring one of the arches. This is a broad view of the bridge from the north.



In this photo you can see the bridge that was built in the 18th century to carry traffic across the river next to the Roman aqueduct. People could climb over onto the ancient structure, but this was outlawed in 2000. There is graffiti that dates back to at least 1780, if the date next to a deeply carved name I found was correct.



Here is the view from the pedestrian bridge next to the aqueduct. The arch blocking the sun seemed to make a good picture. This arch is in the middle tier, you cannot see the top tier from the pedestrian bridge.



This a photo of the south side of the aqueduct bridge taken from near the channel on the west side. I liked the way the vegetation framed the view.



I have even more images, but these took long enough to upload, and I'm sure those on dial-up connections will have a hard enough time downloading even thumbnails, so that's enough for now.