Au Revoir Avignon...

After an entire month of living in Avignon, it's time for us to say our goodbyes.

This ancient city in the South of France felt like home the moment we stepped off the train. We spent the next 30 days experiencing as much of its magic as we possibly could. We leave incredibly content with it all.
This post is a series of images capturing various components that filled our last week with bliss.



There is something very magical about living in a walled city. This will be missed!







Each neighborhood offered such varied sights to see. We seriously tried to discover them all, which I'm pretty sure we didn't even come close.

A must for me is always a visit to a town's cemetery.
Along with Paris' Père-Lachaise cemetery, Avignon's Cimetière Saint-Véran is one of the oldest in France, and a veritable open-air museum of sculpture and funerary art.

A big name here is John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), an English philosopher, political economist, politician and civil servant. Considered one of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism, he contributed widely to social theory, political theory, and political economy. He conceived of liberty as justifying the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control.
Next to him lies his wife. He wrote so lovingly of her, "To the beloved memory of Harriet Mill, the dearly loved and deeply regretted wife of John Stuart Mill. Her great and loving heart, her noble soul, her clear powerful, original, and comprehensive intellect made her the guide and support, the instructor in wisdom and the example in goodness as she was the sole earthly delight of those who had the happiness to belong to her. As earnest for all public good as she was generous and devoted to all who surrounded her. Her influence has been felt in many of the greatest improvements of the age and will be in those to come. Were there even a few hearts and intellects like hers, this earth would already become the hoped for Heaven. She died to the irreparable loss of those who survive her at Avignon, Nov. 3, 1858." Wow, right?

Unique to this particular cemetery visit was the discovery of these ceramic flowers adorning numerous gravesites. Turns out the French tradition of decorating graves with these flowers is basically unknown outside of France, Brussels and Switzerland. It’s a lovely tradition. Creating ceramic flowers that will never die assures these cemeteries will be filled with color and joy year round. Known as Majolica, it became a ceramic sensation in the latter half of the 19th century when it was introduced at the Great Exhibition of 1851.
In an otherwise monochrome setting, the everlasting flowers provided hues of cheerfulness. I loved them.



We have enjoy Avignon more than we thought possible. As we leave here, we will experience a little sadness and most likely a bit of mal du pays (homesickness). That said, we're ready for our final adventure... Five days in Edinburgh, Scotland.

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