Avignon sits on the left bank of the Rhone in Provence, inside four kilometres of intact fourteenth century walls, and for most of the fourteenth century it was the seat of the papacy. Seven popes ruled from here between 1309 and 1377, and two more antipopes during the Western Schism that followed, which is why a town of about 90,000 people contains the largest Gothic palace in Europe.
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The Palais des Papes is genuinely vast and genuinely empty, because the furnishings went during the Revolution and it spent the nineteenth century as a barracks. What you are looking at is the architecture: twenty-five rooms, enormous halls, the pope's private chambers with surviving fresco, and a roof terrace over the whole city. It is UNESCO listed along with the historic centre and the bridge.
That bridge is the other thing everyone knows, and it is worth knowing the truth before you arrive. Four arches of the Pont Saint-Benezet survive out of an original twenty-two; the rest were taken by the Rhone in a series of floods and never rebuilt. So it is a bridge that stops in the middle of the river. And the song says "sur le pont", on the bridge, while the dancing actually happened underneath it, on the Ile de la Barthelasse.
What you pack is set by fierce dry summer heat on stone, the mistral, and a July festival that changes the town entirely.
The Palace, the Bridge and the Walled Town
One enormous palace, half a bridge, and a rock garden with the best view in Provence.
Give the Palais des Papes two hours. The audio guide is a tablet that reconstructs the rooms, which matters here more than usual because the halls are bare. The Place du Palais in front of it is the largest open space in the walled town, with the cathedral of Notre-Dame des Doms beside the palace and the Petit Palais, now a museum of medieval painting, at the far end.
Above both is the Rocher des Doms, a rock outcrop laid out as a garden with a pond, ducks and a terrace looking over the Rhone, the broken bridge, the Ile de la Barthelasse and across to Villeneuve-les-Avignon. It is free, it is the best view in the city, and it is where to be an hour before sunset.
The walled town behind the palace is a grid of lanes that gets quieter the further south you go. The Rue des Teinturiers, where the Sorgue runs in an open channel past the old dyers' waterwheels, is the most atmospheric street in Avignon and where the bohemian end of the restaurant scene is. Les Halles, the covered market, has a vertical garden on its facade and is open every morning but Monday.
Across the river, Villeneuve-les-Avignon is a separate and quieter town with the Fort Saint-Andre above it and the Chartreuse, a large Carthusian monastery. It is a twenty minute walk over the modern bridge and almost nobody does it.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
The Festival, and Using Avignon as a Base
July is a different town, and the rest of Provence is at the door.
The Festival d'Avignon runs for about three weeks in July and is one of the largest performing arts festivals in the world. Alongside the official programme, the fringe, Avignon OFF, puts well over a thousand productions into courtyards, chapels, cellars and schoolrooms across the walled town. The population roughly doubles, every wall is covered in posters, performers hand out flyers in the street, and the whole place runs until two in the morning.
This is wonderful and it is also the single most important planning fact about Avignon. Accommodation books out months ahead and prices multiply. If you want the papal palace in peace, do not come in July. If you want the festival, book in February.
Outside that, Avignon is the best-connected base in Provence. The TGV station puts Paris at two hours and forty minutes, and the local line reaches Arles and Nimes in under an hour, both of which are live on this site. Orange and its Roman theatre, the Pont du Gard aqueduct, Chateauneuf-du-Pape and the Luberon villages are all within an hour by road, and the Dentelles de Montmirail and Mont Ventoux are the serious walking and cycling.
Getting around the walled town is on foot; it is about a kilometre and a half across. A free shuttle boat crosses to the Barthelasse island in season.
When to Go
April to June and September to October. July is the festival; August is hot and quieter than July.
Spring, April to June, is the best window. Temperatures move from the high teens into the high twenties Celsius, the countryside is green, the palace and the ramparts are comfortable to walk, and prices are normal. Late May and June are the most reliable.
July is the festival and should be treated as its own category: hot, crowded, expensive, exhilarating and impossible to do spontaneously.
August is hot, routinely into the mid thirties, and noticeably calmer than July because the festival has ended. The town holds heat badly, being enclosed in stone walls, and the palace is cool inside while the squares are not. Lavender in the wider region peaks late June into July and is finished by mid-August.
Autumn, September and October, is excellent: warm, quiet, with the vineyards in harvest and the light at its best. Late October brings heavy rain.
Winter, November to March, is cold, bright and dry, around 10 to 13C, and this is the mistral's season. The wind comes straight down the Rhone valley and Avignon sits in it; it blows for days, brings brilliantly clear skies and makes the apparent temperature far lower than the figure. The palace is empty and the town is cheap.
Is Avignon Safe for Women Travelers
Avignon is a comfortable small city, with the usual caveats about a station area and a festival crowd.
The FCDO publishes no advised-against areas anywhere in France, and its terrorism wording is the strongest it uses: terrorists are very likely to try to carry out attacks in France, with shopping centres, entertainment venues, sporting events, transport hubs and crowded gatherings named as possible targets. The everyday risks are more specific than that sounds. Pickpocketing is organised on the Paris Metro and on trains, typically in pairs with one person distracting you, and the FCDO records SERIOUS ASSAULTS on RER lines B and D, which matters because line B is the train most visitors take from the airports. Drink spiking is named with the drugs rather than hinted at: be alert to the possible use of date rape drugs including GHB and liquid ecstasy. Strikes and demonstrations happen at short notice and can stop trains and close roads, usually peacefully. And wildfires affect the south in hot dry summers.
The RER line B and D warning is Paris-specific, though it matters if you route through Paris since line B is the airport train. In Avignon the theft risk concentrates in three places: the station approaches, the Place du Palais and the market in season, and the festival crowds in July, which are dense, nocturnal and distracted by exactly the kind of street performance that makes a pickpocket's job easy. A closed bag worn in front of you handles nearly all of it.
The drink-spiking warning naming GHB and liquid ecstasy applies with real force during the festival, when the town drinks outdoors until the small hours, and modestly the rest of the year.
Day to day the walled town is comfortable and busy, and a woman walking or eating alone is entirely unremarkable, particularly on the Rue des Teinturiers where that is the norm. Violent crime against visitors is rare. The area immediately outside the walls around the station is scruffier and less pleasant after dark, which is true of most French station quarters and argues for choosing a route rather than worrying.
Two practical points. The strikes the FCDO notes affect the TGV, which is the city's main connection. And during the festival the walled town is effectively car-free and extremely crowded until two in the morning, which is safe but exhausting, and worth knowing if you booked for the palace and not the theatre.
The physical risks are heat, stone and wind. The ramparts, the Rocher des Doms steps and the palace's spiral stairs are worn and slick in rain. Provencal summer inside stone walls is draining rather than pleasant. And the mistral on the Rocher terrace or the bridge is strong enough to unbalance you.
France is in the EU, so a UK Global Health Insurance Card or an EU European Health Insurance Card gives you state-provided medically necessary care on the same terms as a resident, which means you pay the same patient share a French resident pays rather than nothing. That is not the same as free and it does not cover repatriation, so travel insurance sits on top of it. French hospitals are excellent and a pharmacie, marked by a green cross, handles minor problems without an appointment and will tell you where the duty pharmacy is out of hours. Tap water is drinkable everywhere. Dial 15 for a medical emergency or 112 for anything.
The Avignon Packing List
Base layers, for the widest range in Provence
Avignon's comfort range is wide: 35C on a stone square in August, a palace interior ten degrees cooler, and a January day at 11C that feels like 3C in the mistral. Merino at 160gsm handles all of it because it regulates rather than insulating at one level, moving moisture while you climb the Rocher and continuing to work when the wind hits you at the top, which is exactly where damp cotton turns cold. Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron with no synthetic blend. A long sleeve merino wool base layer for women covers the palace, the ramparts and a festival evening with one garment.
Shoes with grip
Walking shoes with grip. The palace has spiral stone stairs, the Rocher des Doms is stepped, the ramparts walk is uneven, and the lanes are polished limestone that is slippery in rain. During the festival you will walk a great deal more than you intend. Merino wool socks for heat and distance.
A windproof, for the mistral
A packable rain jacket for women, which in Avignon earns its place mainly against the wind. The mistral is the defining weather here outside summer, and this also covers the short heavy autumn rain.
A warm mid layer outside summer
A fleece mid layer for October to April, for palace interiors in any season, and for festival evenings, which cool sharply once the sun goes.
Sun protection
A wide brim sun hat with a chin cord, because the mistral removes anything loose, plus high SPF sunscreen and real sunglasses. The Place du Palais, the ramparts and the bridge have no shade at all and the pale stone reflects.
If you are walking Ventoux or the Dentelles
Waterproof hiking boots for Mont Ventoux or the Dentelles de Montmirail, which are limestone with loose footing and exposed summits. The town itself needs nothing beyond walking shoes.
The small things
A refillable bottle with real capacity. Something to cover shoulders for the cathedral and the Chartreuse. Cash in euros for Les Halles and the smaller places. A European two-pin adapter. Earplugs if you are staying inside the walls in July, which is practical rather than a joke. And festival tickets and accommodation booked months ahead if that is why you are coming.
Essential Resources for Women in Avignon
Emergency numbers: 112 for police, ambulance and fire, free from any phone including a locked mobile, with operators who will find an English speaker. It is the single number across the whole European Union.
Non-emergency police: the Police Nationale cover the city. A theft needs an in-person report, the plainte, to produce the document an insurer will require, and the central commissariat is used to visitor reports, particularly during the festival. Dial 17 for police directly or 112 for anything.
Main hospital or clinic: the Centre Hospitalier Henri Duffaut in Avignon has a full emergency department, with Marseille and Montpellier within reach for anything specialist. Dial 15 for a medical emergency, which reaches the SAMU ambulance service. A pharmacie with a green cross handles minor problems without an appointment and posts the duty rota.
Official health authority: Sante publique France. A UK GHIC or EU EHIC gives you state-provided care on the same terms as a French resident, meaning the same patient share rather than nothing, and it does not cover repatriation
US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Paris. Paris, with a consulate general in Marseille about an hour away, which is the nearer post
Official tourism authority: Atout France, the national tourism body. With the Avignon tourist office for the Palais des Papes opening hours, the combined palace and bridge ticket, and the Festival d'Avignon and Avignon OFF programmes, which determine whether a room exists in July at all
The festival, in July: the official Festival d'Avignon plus the Avignon OFF fringe roughly double the town's population and fill every room inside the walls. Book months ahead or avoid July deliberately. The walled town runs until two in the morning throughout.
The mistral: the cold northerly that funnels down the Rhone valley, blowing for days at a time. It brings clear skies, drops the apparent temperature sharply, and is strong enough to unbalance you on the Rocher des Doms terrace or the bridge.
Strikes: industrial action can disrupt the TGV, which is Avignon's main connection. Leave a buffer before a flight.
US State Department travel advisory: the France advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.
Solo women safety assessment: Avignon is a comfortable small city for a woman travelling alone. The walled town is about a kilometre and a half across, busy and lit in the evening, and the Rue des Teinturiers in particular is somewhere eating alone is completely normal. Violent crime against visitors is rare and street harassment is mild and mostly verbal. Theft is the realistic risk and it concentrates in three places: the station approaches, the Place du Palais and market in season, and above all the July festival crowds, which are dense, nocturnal and full of exactly the street performance that distracts people from their bags. A closed bag worn in front of you deals with most of it, and the drink-spiking warning naming GHB and liquid ecstasy carries real weight during festival nights when the whole town drinks outdoors until two. The area just outside the walls by the station is scruffier after dark, which argues for choosing your route rather than worrying. What will actually shape your trip is two things that have nothing to do with crime: the festival, which doubles the population and must be planned around in either direction, and the weather, since a stone-walled town in a Provencal August is draining and the mistral outside summer is strong enough to unbalance you on an exposed terrace.
Reading On
For the country-level picture, start with the France travel guide for women. For why fine wool covers a 35C square and a mistral morning in one layer, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
