Palais des Papes & Pont d'Avignon

Firstly, I will mention that the event in this post took place in France. France! It is a place I have always wanted to go to and it was very beautiful. So, you would imagine that on the way there I was very excited.

Goofing around with Fin

We drove though the Alps (literally. We went through a whole ton of tunnels) to get to France. The mountains were unlike anything that I had ever seen before. Instead of pyramid-esque shapes, they seemed to be dark grey lines jutting up into the clear sky (well, partly clear. Every time that we came out of a tunnel,  the weather was different.), topped with crisp white snow. After the longest tunnel ever, we passed into France. From there we found the simply beautifully countryside of France known as Provence. After driving down winding country roads littered with poppies on the side, we found our temporary home. It came complete with dogs, donkeys and a trampoline.

The central area of our bed and breakfast

One of the dogs (there were three)

Afterwards, we went to the Pope's Palace, a residence of the popes for 60-70 years. Honestly, it looked more like a medieval castle than a palace. My favorite parts were the ancient (middle ages kind of ancient) frescoes on some of the ceilings and walls- of course the only place that you couldn't take pictures was in the rooms with frescoes. Bellow are some pictures of the Palace of the Popes....

The Pope's Palace from the front (and Dad's head from the side)

The golden Mary on top of the Palace

The treasure room (the treasure was hidden beneath the floor's stone slabs

a view of one of the palace's courtyard

The grand dining hall

the chimney in the kitchen

One of the many gothic windows

details from a doorway

All of the buildings seemed to be one with the rock, which was quite cool. After that, we went to see the town's other attraction, the Pont d'Avignon, a bridge that is apparently featured in a French nursery rhyme type of song. The thing that is unusual about it is that it abruptly ends before crossing the river completely.

houses built into the rock

The Pont d'Avignon

You can see my shadow standing on the shadow of the end of the bridge

 Lastly, Sean, Dad, Griffin, and I walked a small way along a medieval wall that faced the river.

a view out of an arrow hole in the wall

That was Avignon. 
Until next time,
Ciao!
-Hailey