Avignon is a pretty big city…. and it also has a place where popes used to live.

The Palace of the Popes is a huge complex.  In the 1300s the Popes moved here from Rome as the Catholic  Church bought Avignon and turned it into a papal palace.  There is no furniture, much of the tapestries and frescoes are gone or faded, but it is still an impressive building.

There is also a bridge in Avignon that is the center of a French nursery song. "On the bridge at Avignon we will dance, we will dance.  On the bridge at Avignon we will dance all in a circle."  The bridge itself once bridged the Rhone River, but a few hundred years ago a flood washed out part and it was never replaced.

Now tourists come by the hundreds to walk on the bridge and if their heart so chooses, to dance around……

Dan and I did not know the tune.  So when we were eating sandwiches I went over to a group of school children and asked their teacher if they could sing the song.  She gathered up her kids…ages maybe 5/6….and they sang the song for us. 

Then the teacher said we had to sing to them!

So we sang a verse of Old McDonald and the kids stared at us … and chuckled.

We said he had a duck and should have said canard…..but next time.

From the top:  Avignon bridge of nursery rhyme fame; three shots of the Palace of the Popes....note the size of the halls:  Dan doing a little window shopping....and no, we did not go in....they were closed; me dancing my heart out on the Bridge at Avignon.