Current Time in Avignon, France

Avignon is a historic city in the Vaucluse department of southern France, situated on the left bank of the Rhône River near the point where the Durance River joins it. The city is world famous as the seat of the Catholic papacy during the 14th century, a period when the popes abandoned Rome and established their court in Avignon, leaving an extraordinary architectural legacy dominated by the massive Palais des Papes. The historic center of Avignon, along with the Pont Saint-Bénézet, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995.

With a population of approximately 95,000, Avignon is the prefecture of the Vaucluse department and a major cultural and tourism center in Provence. The city hosts one of Europe's most significant theater festivals, the Festival d'Avignon, founded in 1947 by the theater director Jean Vilar, which each July transforms the city into one of the most important venues for contemporary theater in the world, with hundreds of performances in venues ranging from the grand courtyard of the Palais des Papes to intimate theaters throughout the city.

The history of Avignon is marked above all by the Avignon papacy, the period from 1309 to 1377 when seven successive French popes resided in the city rather than Rome, a consequence of the political turbulence and insecurity of Italy during this period. The presence of the papal court made Avignon one of the most important and cosmopolitan cities in Europe, attracting artists, scholars, diplomats, and merchants from across Christendom. The wealth and influence of this period are visible in the extraordinary scale and grandeur of the Palais des Papes.

The Palais des Papes is the largest Gothic palace in the world, a massive fortified complex covering an area of 15,000 square meters built between 1335 and 1364. Its towering walls and buttresses, rising to 50 meters in some places, create an impression of overwhelming power and scale within the historic center. The interior, largely stripped of its original furnishings but retaining significant frescoes in the private apartments of Pope Clement VI, provides an extraordinary insight into the scale of ambition and resources of the medieval papacy. The Rocher des Doms, a public garden above the palace on a rocky outcrop, offers magnificent views over the Rhône and the Pont Saint-Bénézet.

The Pont Saint-Bénézet, known in the famous French nursery rhyme as the Pont d'Avignon, was originally a 22-arch bridge spanning the Rhône, built in the 12th century. Today only four arches remain, giving the ruined bridge one of the most evocative silhouettes in France, standing above the river with the Palais des Papes rising behind it. The surrounding city walls, built in the 14th century and remarkably complete, enclose the entire historic center in a circuit of towers and crenellated ramparts.

Avignon's museums include the Musée du Petit Palais, which houses an exceptional collection of medieval Italian paintings and Avignon School works, and the Musée Calvet with important collections of decorative arts and paintings. The surrounding Luberon and Alpilles landscapes, with their hilltop villages, lavender fields, and provençal vineyards, make Avignon an excellent base for exploring one of France's most beautiful rural regions.

Avignon is connected to Paris by TGV in approximately two and a half hours and to Marseille and Lyon by high-speed and regional services. Its combination of papal history, magnificent Gothic architecture, world-class theater festival, and Provençal setting make Avignon one of southern France's most compelling and internationally significant cities.