This is not a city for everyone. Lawrence Durrell, in the novel Justine, described Avignon as a stinking armpit, Le Pont d'Avignon sticking out in the water like an amputated finger. Other literary figures have expressed similar disgust with the city, but, but, they all also loved it.
That would be close to my experience there, and I found that its seedier side was somehow appealingly real rather than precious, like so much of France. Yet the city has a pulse and a style that juxtaposes well-dressed, fashionable people with the harsh blackened walls that surround the city. The Palais du Papes is astonishing. The sheer size alone threatens to overwhelm the city but somehow doesn't, standing as it does against the openness of a very large square.
The exhibits, especially of the popes' own quarters are fascinating, and the museum on the other side of the square contains an almost obsessively collected array of Madonna and child canvasses.
Many of the cults of Mary were popular here in the 16th century. I came back many times during a month in Provence, whether it was to watch the Carousel whirling madly in front of me while I drank pastis or beer or coffee in unhurried comfort or the grandeur of the buildings that towered over us all like pyramids in Egypt. I think it was the streets, finally, that brought me back, because they were all different, all promising something, if not seedy, well at least dark in the most mysterious way--like Avignon itself.