Many rivers to cross in Avignon

Apr 7 2010 By Adrian Caffery

Adrian Caffery visits three of the world’s most famous bridges during a miraculous week in Avignon.

We’d stayed in an apartment with a lovely sea view and we’d stayed in an apartment with a cosy log fire.

But until recently, my wife and I had never stayed in an apartment built on the orders of the Pope on the very spot where a bona fide miracle had taken place. The apartment, booked through VacationRentalPeople.com, was in the former church of Notre-Dame Du Miracle, in the historic French city of Avignon.

The story goes that on March 24, 1320, a man and a teenager, both accused of sodomy, were sentenced to be burned at the stake.

The older died in the flames but the younger, still proclaiming his innocence and imploring the Virgin Mary to show mercy, was unharmed.

At that time, Avignon was the centre of the Roman Catholic world – the papal court moved there from war-torn Italy in 1309 and didn’t return until 1377.

Pope John XXII heard about the teenager’s lucky escape, deemed it a miracle and had the church built on the place of the stake.

The church has long since ceased being a place of worship and our apartment was on the second floor of a facade added in the 18th century.

It was perfectly situated for exploring Avignon and the Provence region, being just a five-minute walk from both the city centre and central train station.

The apartment was within the well-preserved, medieval city walls which are three miles round and punctuated with 39 tower and seven gates. Sadly, visitors to Avignon could be forgiven for thinking the defensive structure was built to keep prostitutes out of the city centre.

The walls are lined with car parks which, come night time, are frequented by vans with little red lights on the dashboards.

It ruins what could be a romantic walk and is not something you’d expect to see in a city where seven popes built a mini-Vatican. The Pope’s Palace was richly decorated by artists and craftsmen from Italy. Today, its walls are mostly bare but the building’s scale is still overwhelming.

Further evidence of religious splendour can be found across the River Rhone, in Villeneuve-les-Avignon, where a charterhouse founded by cardinals is the oldest in France.