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Few cities in France carry their history as visibly as Avignon. The medieval ramparts that ring the old town are among the best-preserved in Europe, and the Palais des Papes, the vast Gothic fortress-palace that dominates the city's skyline, is a reminder that for much of the fourteenth century this was the seat of the Catholic Church. Seven popes ruled from here between 1309 and 1377, drawing artists, theologians, and merchants from across the continent and leaving behind a city whose ambitions were, for a time, greater than Rome's. That weight of history is not merely decorative; it shapes the way Avignon feels to walk through, with grand ecclesiastical architecture giving way to narrow lanes, sun-warmed stone, and squares that have been gathering places for centuries.

The Rocher des Doms, the rocky promontory above the Palais des Papes, offers one of the most orienting views in Provence: the Rhône below, the Pont Saint-Bénézet reaching out across the water and stopping abruptly mid-river, and the Alpilles in the distance on clear days. The bridge, immortalised in the French nursery rhyme Sur le Pont d'Avignon, originally had twenty-two arches when it was completed in the twelfth century; only four remain, which makes it, if anything, more photogenic than it would be intact. Entry to both the Palais des Papes and the Pont d'Avignon is available as a combined ticket, and the palace's interior, stripped of most of its furnishings during the Revolution but still extraordinary in scale, rewards time spent inside rather than simply admired from the square.