Avignon
in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur

The medieval walls still encircle the old city almost entirely, which gives Avignon a contained, layered quality unlike most French provincial towns. The Palais des Papes is the dominant fact of the place: the largest Gothic building in the world, built when the papacy relocated here from Rome in the fourteenth century and still occupying the skyline with the authority of somewhere that once considered itself the centre of the known world. The Festival d'Avignon in July fills every courtyard, square, and converted car park with theatre companies from across Europe, and the city during those three weeks operates at a pleasurable pitch of cultural overload. Outside festival season it is quieter and often better: good restaurants along the Rue des Teinturiers, the covered market on a Saturday morning, and the Pont Saint-Bénézet standing four arches into the Rhône as if the river simply changed its mind halfway across.