avignon

We spent a few hours in the beautiful old city of Avignon. For almost 70 years in the 1300s it was the seat of the Papacy instead of Rome.

The church is massive and cost 13 Euro to tour so we left that for another day!

The Pont d'Avignon was built between 1171 and 1185, with an original length of some 900 m (2950 ft), but it suffered frequent collapses during floods and had to be reconstructed several times. Over the centuries, it became increasingly perilous as arches collapsed and were replaced by rickety wooden sections.

The bridge was finally put out of use by a catastrophic flood in 1668, which swept away much of the structure. It was subsequently abandoned and no more attempts were made to repair it. Since then, its surviving arches have successively collapsed or been demolished, and only four of the initial 22 arches remain intact today.

Part of the wall around the old city.