Avignon - Palace of the Popes

When Pope Clement VI threw his coronation party in 1342, he built wine fountains in the streets of Avignon. They ran for four weeks. Guests inside the palace drank 160,000 litres — and Clement was just getting started. He spent the next decade turning this fortress into the largest Gothic palace on earth, mostly because he needed a cellar worthy of his appetite. Seven popes lived here over 67 years, and their thirst created an entire appellation: Châteauneuf-du-Pape exists because the papacy needed something world-class within carting distance.

What to do there

4 things to do

1. 1 Stand on the Sacred Rock That Was Old When Rome Was Young History · Free

   The Rocher des Doms is where Avignon's story begins — not in 1309 when the first pope arrived, but 5,000 years before that.

   Where: Jardin du Rocher des Doms — the public garden directly above the Palais des Papes. Enter from the gate on Place du Palais, adjacent to the palace's north wall. Free, open daily. The climb takes 5 minutes.

   What: This limestone rock rising 30 metres above the Rhône has been humanity's chosen high point for at least 5,000 continuous years. In 1961, archaeologist Sylvain Gagnière dug here and found a Chalcolithic stele — a small sandstone figure with a stylized human face and eight radiating solar lines, carved in the Copper Age, before the Bronze Age had even begun. Before that, Neolithic farmers. Then the Cavares Celts, who made it the capital of their entire tribal territory in the 5th century BC. Then Rome: in 121 BC the Roman legions arrived, the Cavares surrendered without resistance, and Avenio became a Roman city. By the 3rd century AD the Romans had transformed the entire rock into a military castrum — a fortified garrison protecting the road below. When Pope Clement V fled to Avignon in 1309 and chose this precise rock for the papal seat, he wasn't making a new choice. He was endorsing 5,000 years of previous human consensus: this is the place that commands everything. Stand at the belvedere viewpoint facing north-west. Below you, the Rhône bends around the city — this was Rome's primary inland highway connecting the Mediterranean to central Gaul, the road along which wine, soldiers, tax collectors, and ideas all moved. Look left: you'll see the broken arches of the Pont d'Avignon. Look right: the rooftops of the old city, and below them, buried under the café tables of Place de l'Horloge, the remains of what may have been a Roman theater larger than Orange's.

   How: Free and always open during daylight. Takes 15–20 minutes to absorb. On clear days you can see the white peak of Mont Ventoux and the ridge of the Luberon. Bring water in summer — the rock gets hot.

   Backup: If the garden gate is temporarily closed for maintenance, the view from the ramparts along Rue du Rempart du Rhône (the city walls, free) gives an equivalent north-facing perspective over the river.

   Log Memory
2. 2 Walk Across the Floor of a Roman City That Nobody Can See Adventure · Free

   Every café table on Place de l'Horloge sits on top of what was probably the largest Roman theater in southern Gaul. Nobody looks down.

   Where: Place de l'Horloge, Avignon — 300 metres south of the Palais des Papes, 5 minutes on foot. Then walk east along Rue de la République to find the Via Avenio km 0 marker at 31 Cours Jean Jaurès.

   What: When Rome made Avignon a colony — first Colonia Julia Augusta Avennio under Julius Caesar, then upgraded by Emperor Hadrian to Colonia Julia Hadriana Avenniensis in the 2nd century — the city covered 46 hectares and housed 25,000 people. It had temples, a senate building, triumphal arches, thermal baths, and at its center, a major public civic structure. Where that structure was: right here, under your feet. Rescue archaeology since the 1960s has excavated deep beneath Place de l'Horloge whenever foundations are dug for modern buildings. What they keep finding: Roman terracing, house floors, and evidence of a massive civic building — with some archaeologists now arguing it was a theater exceeding the capacity of Orange's famous theater, one of the best-preserved Roman theaters in the world. The entire square is, in effect, a ghost. Every tourist eating crêpes and drinking pastis is sitting on top of a Roman city that never fully left. From Place de l'Horloge, walk 10 minutes south to 31 Cours Jean Jaurès. In a small park you'll find the Via Avenio km 0 marker — the surviving reference point of the Via Agrippa, the Roman road Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa built under Augustus to connect Lyon to Arles through Avignon. This was the spine of Roman Gaul. Every military movement, every trade caravan, every imperial communication that passed through southern France passed this point. Stand at the marker and face north: the road went directly up through what is now the city center, past the buried theater, past the Rocher des Doms, and on to Vienne — where Pliny the Elder documented the wine that Rome couldn't get enough of.

   How: Both locations are free and always accessible. No ticket, no queue. The marker has informational plaques in French and English explaining the road's history.

   Backup: If you want to see actual Roman artifacts from Avignon, the Musée Lapidaire (27 Rue de la République, €5) holds Roman inscriptions, sculptures, and the Chalcolithic stele found on the Rocher des Doms. Open Tuesday–Sunday.

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3. 3 Enter the Palace That the Popes Built on Rome's Foundation History · Price: moderate

   The Palais des Papes is the largest Gothic palace on earth. What nobody tells you: it was built on top of a Roman castrum, in a Roman colony, by men who believed they were heirs to the Roman Empire.

   Where: Palais des Papes, Place du Palais, Avignon. Book online at palais-des-papes.com — combined Palace + Bridge ticket is €14.50. Queue at the door in summer can run 45 minutes; online booking avoids this. Collect your free Histopad AR tablet at the entrance.

   What: The popes didn't choose Avignon randomly. They chose the capital of a former Roman colony — a city the empire had already proven was worth defending, administering, and building in. The Rocher des Doms had been Rome's castrum for four centuries before Clement V arrived. The Via Agrippa ran through the city's center. The soil around the city had fed Romans for 300 years. When the papacy relocated here from Rome in 1309, they were, in a very literal sense, moving into the Roman inheritance. Inside, two things to find that carry the longest thread: First: the papal bedroom in the Tour du Pape (Pope's Tower), painted 1337–38 under Benedict XII. The ceiling and walls are sky blue. The decoration: grapevine scrolls, oak-leaf tendrils, painted birds and squirrels — the same decorative vocabulary that Roman villa owners had used for their private chambers a thousand years earlier. The most powerful man in Christendom slept surrounded by vines. Second: the Grand Tinel — the 48-metre banqueting hall where Clement VI's coronation feast took place in May 1342. Accounts record: 118 roast oxen, 1,023 sheep, 914 lambs, 7,428 chickens, 1,195 geese, and 160,000 litres of wine consumed in this building alone, with wine fountains running free in the streets of Avignon for four weeks. This is what happens when the inheritors of Rome decide to throw a party.

   How: Use the Histopad AR tablet — point it at the walls of the Grand Tinel to see how Matteo Giovannetti's frescoes looked before they were destroyed. Spend at least 20 minutes in the Grand Tinel; most visitors rush through in five. The papal bedroom is on the upper floor of the Tour du Pape — follow the Histopad route markers.

   Backup: If the palace is unexpectedly closed, the exterior walls from Place du Palais and the Rocher des Doms garden tell the scale story without entry.

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4. 4 Taste the Wine Growing on Rome's Old Farm — as Pliny Knew It Would Wine · Price: moderate

   Drive 12km north to Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The popes planted these vines in the 14th century. But the Romans were farming this land 1,200 years before John XXII was born.

   Where: Château La Nerthe, 4213 Route de Sorgues, 84230 Châteauneuf-du-Pape — 15 minutes north of Avignon by car on the D17. GPS: 44.0496, 4.8585. Book ahead: +33 (0)4 90 83 59 04 or visit@chateaulanerthe.fr. Closed Sundays and public holidays.

   What: The hill above Châteauneuf-du-Pape village was almost certainly a Roman castrum — a military camp and administrative point on the route between Avignon and Orange. The vineyards below it were producing wine in the Gallo-Roman era, centuries before the first written record of this land in the 1100s. When Pope John XXII built his summer castle here in 1317 and expanded the vineyards to supply the papal table, he was resuming what Rome had started. In his Natural History (Book XIV, 1st century AD), Pliny the Elder praised the wine of the Allobroges — the Rhône valley tribe north of Avignon — as a wine that fetched high prices in Rome. The Roman wine corridor ran directly through this landscape: Avignon (Avenio) to Vienne (Vienna) along the Rhône, with wine stored in bulk at Villa du Mollard near Donzère before being shipped downriver to the Mediterranean. The quartzite pebbles now covering the vineyard floors — the galets roulés — were laid down by the Rhône itself during the Ice Age glaciations, carried from the Alps and deposited in flat, river-bend soils exactly like those of Châteauneuf. Every stone you pick up here is a product of the same river that carried Roman wine to Rome. Château La Nerthe is the estate to do this at. First documented in 1590 — the oldest documented estate in the appellation — on vineyard land with Roman-era agricultural roots. Since 1998, fully certified organic. All 13 appellation grape varieties still planted. Book the Terroir Experience: a 90-minute guided cellar tour followed by 7 wines including the Cuvée des Cadettes — their benchmark Châteauneuf — for €50/person. Ask your guide to pour one wine from galets roulés soils and one from sandy clay, then taste them side by side. The pebbles are not decoration. They are the winemaking. Before you leave: walk up through the village to the castle ruins (free, 10 minutes from La Nerthe). Only the south wall and the dungeon survived after August 20, 1944, when the retreating German garrison detonated the north half. From what remains, the view over the vineyards to the Rhône valley is unobstructed. This is what John XXII saw in 1317. It is what a Roman camp commander saw 1,300 years before that.

   How: Reservation required for guided tastings year-round. Walk-in free tastings available May–September (no Sundays). Discovery tasting (4 wines, 1h): €25/person. Passion experience (8 wines, candlelight, private cellar): €100/person. The Vinothèque de Châteauneuf-du-Pape in the village center is the walk-in backup with no reservation needed.

   Backup: If Château La Nerthe is fully booked, VINADEA Vinothèque (Place du Portail, village center) offers a structured appellation tasting — 5 wines representing different soils and producers — with no reservation required.

   Log Memory

Insider tips

• The Palace of the Popes is Europe's largest Gothic palace

• The wine bars inside the walls are excellent

• Festival d'Avignon (July) transforms the city

• Cross the bridge to Villeneuve for views and wines