Avignon: The Pope Slept Here

It just so happens that the Avignon post office is the first building on the left as one enters the city walls. You can't miss it or the postmen dashing by on bicycles with baskets brimming with letters. After a tour of the Pope's Palace and hours of walking the streets, the kid and I jaunted back to the post office and mailed off a few of the obligatory post cards. Going back down the city's main street, a woman stopped me. "Excuse-moi. Ou se trouve le bureau de poste? Est-ce que la?" she said, pointing toward where we had just come. Without blinking, I replied, "Mais oui. Tout droit et tournez adroit." She thanked us and went on her way. Me? I stood on the street exhilarated beyond description. Had I pulled off every traveler's dream? Did I really fit in and look like one of them? No camera with a zoom lens sticking a foot out on my chest. No map or Rick Steve guidebook in my hand. Mais oui! What else can a Francophile ask for?

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The Hotel Innova did not have a room ready when we dropped in sans reservations. Some repairs were being made and a new door was being hung on the room that would be ours. But they said we could leave our luggage behind the counter while we toured the city. The room was small with just enough space to maneuver around the double bed and the writing table.

The bathroom is the kind where the shower, toilet and sink are all lined up neatly, as if originally the intended space for a closet!

Such things do not bother me. I don''t go for five-star hotels when I travel. Is it clean? Yes. Courteous, accommodating proprietor? Yes. Will they work with me in my halting French? Yes, another plus.

And besides, not every hotel has a cat like Beluga, a 30-pound fuzzy gray ball that loves to be cuddled.

The cinema at Avignon is the first movie theater I've ever walked into with a bottle of wine in my hand. So, from the beginning I knew it was going to be a different experience...

There were no subtitles with the movie. I knew the general premise and most things could be figured out from the visual. My experience in the theater was with that of a very subdued crowd. Typical French? I'm not sure. I couldn't understand the fast dialogue and yet even I recognized humor. But the audience barely chuckled. My cackles filled the theater. I tried to tone myself down. After all, when in Avignon, do as the ... well, you know.

When the movie was over I asked my teen-age daughter what it was like to watch a show without understanding the conversation. She said she was quite frustrated because she couldn't follow the plot line of all the discussion centering around 'with sex' or not 'with sex.' Sex was obviously the only English word she picked out. So she thought. Wessex, I said. Wessex, that was the character's name! We had a good laugh en route to our hotel room. And I was in a very good mood.

Even passing the homeless man sitting on the street didn't dampen my spirits. I was still carrying my bottle of wine left over from supper. He reached out his hand toward me. He may have thought we were of kindred spirits: I mentally stepped back and looked at myself - walking jauntily, carefree, with a half-empty bottle of vin rose in hand. Does this story have a happy ending? Well, depends upon one's point of view. I didn't give him my wine. But I made it to my motel room without the aide of a designated driver, inebriated with the spirit of Avignon.

Sometimes great travel moments need a little bit of help from the director. I had the right stage and the perfect scene: on the Bridge of St. Benezet sticking out over the Rhone River. Perfect clear skies, a warm sun and a breeze. There was only one thing missing. I needed the right background music.

You know. Like when Elvis starts to sing and a guitar is thrown miraculously from the audience and he's accompanied by an invisible 56-piece orchestra!

Fortunately, this director was prepared. I put on my headphone sets, punched the cassette player clipped to my hip pocket and listened to Songs of the Sephardim, traditional music of the Spanish Jews. Not that the Bridge of St. Benezet has anything to do with Spain or Jews, but the music, a gift from a friend, sounded as old as the bridge and with each step, I stepped farther into time, to the mid-12th century when the bridge was built.

Back then it actually made its way across the Rhone to Villeneuve-les-Avignon. But in 1669, half of the bridge fell into the river and it was never rebuilt. So the story goes, the bridge was the product of a vision of a shepherd boy named Benezet.

OK. Maybe stalking the Japanese woman wasn't very nice. But she looked so out of place, dressed in her brightly colored kimono, bed-pillow bow and all. A little Geisha doll - in the town of the Pope's Palace? So, we stalked, uh, I mean, we followed her. Long enough to click a couple of photographs before something else caught our attention.

Because that's the way Avignon is. Just start walking the streets and you're sure to find something entertainig. We were the first to gather around the Mime wearing a white mask and a Revolutionary's tricorn black hat. His street act was putting on a silent show featuring feline gymnastics with his two cats, one black, one calico.

And not all the art is framed and neatly tucked away in a museum. The trompe l'oeil (tromp lay) painted over windows on one side of a building was definitely an eye-catcher.

After walking down many streets and side allies, no map but just following our nose, we thought we were lost. But in typical small French town charm, we made a sharp turn to our right and easily found our way back to the city center, activity bustling around the carousel. Of course, I had to dish out 10 francs and find my favorite white steed. This street walker needed a rest.