Sunaday's final stop was Avignon.
"Avignon is a city in the south of France (in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region), on the left bank of the Rhône, at the mouth of the Durance River. The Papal Palace (Palais des Papes) towers over the city (...).
The city is a major cultural and tourist center. Avignon has hosted a theater festival (Festival d'Avignon) every year since 1947."
"From 1378 to 1408, antipopes resided in Avignon.
The Palais des Papes in Avignon is not only a priceless and outstanding example of Gothic architecture. It is also a witness to an extraordinary history: a period when the Holy See was outside Rome, and the popes, dependent on the French authorities, resided in the south of France, in Avignon."
"An antipope (Latin: antipapa) – a person appointed to the papal throne by a group of clergy illegally, during the pontificate of a legitimate pope or when the papal office was vacant. Antipopes were most often elected due to theological disputes (...)."
Still another attraction in Avignon is the 12th-century bridge over the Rhône, known as Pont Saint-Bénézet.
"Of the 900-meter-long bridge, built between 1171 and 1185, only four spans and a Romanesque chapel remain; the rest was destroyed by numerous floods."
Ewa Demarczyk sang a song with lyrics by Kamil Baczyński:
Ewa Demarczyk-Na moście w Avignon(Poznań 1980)
On the Bridge in Avignon
This poem is a vein of sunlight on the wall
Like a photograph of all springs
I will bring you little canticles of rain
Fading notes in the sky's bell
Like water breathing in the wind
Gentlemen dance, invisible, on the Bridge in Avignon.
Green, old-fashioned music
Like anemic buds of silence
Breathe in the tree and you will hear
Like a ray of strained tone
As on the thinnest scale of the wind
The leafy dresses of maidens dance,
The leafy dresses of maidens dance on the Bridge in Avignon.
In the trees, in the green window frames
Through the ghosts of cities, silvery Gothic
Flaw-gold birds swirl
Like lutes that have escaped from the hands
In the green forests, white hinds
They recede into an increasingly quiet dance.
The gentlemen dance, the ladies dance on the Bridge in Avignon. Men are dancing, women are dancing on the bridge in Avignon.
Men are dancing, women are dancing on the bridge in Avignon.
And for dessert, we bought (without considering the cost) a local delicacy – nougat.
"Ordinary nougat appeared in Provence as early as the Middle Ages; it is believed that the recipe for this sweet was brought to Marseille by the Greeks. However, since the 17th century, the region has had its own, unique nougat, made not with walnuts, but with almonds. The true Provençal sweet is called Montélimar Nougat, after the city where the first almond trees appeared. In addition to almonds, Provençal nougat is prepared with sugar, lavender honey, egg white, vanilla, and pistachios."
This "our" nougat was called Nougat of the Popes.
