We failed to check the train schedule before heading out this morning. There are trains every 20 minutes in the morning headed for Nimes. Because Avignon is beyond Nimes but in the same direction, we assumed that we could catch every other train or so for Avignon. No such luck. We missed the morning Avignon train by about 15 minutes, and the next one didn’t leave until noon. So we bought our tickets and ran errands around Montpellier, then went back to the apartment to rest before striking out again for the train station. It was almost 2:00 when we arrived at Avignon, and the first thing we did was look for lunch. Unfortunately, the only thing open at that time are sandwich shops, so we stopped at one and had a passable lunch. On the way up the main street before lunch, we spotted an ice cream shop, so we went there for glacé. While Jane and Mary Ellen sat eating their ice cream, I pulled Aaron around the corner to check out a gallery which Roger and I saw a year and a half ago. At that time they had some wonderful paintings of glass shelves and roses, but they were not there today. There were, nevertheless, several interesting paintings and sculptures.
We returned to collect Mary Ellen and Jane and headed off to see what time the tourist train departed. We just missed it, and the next one did not leave for 45 minutes. So we dropped into a virtual exhibit on Akhenaton, an Egyptian temple whose ruins remain a mystery today. We returned to catch the train in front of the Palais de Papes. It made a steep descent to some gardens above the Palais de Papes, and we were grateful we did not have to climb it. After the 40-minute tour, we headed back down to the gare to take the real train back to Montpellier. Since we had time to spare, we dropped into a garden where Roger and I often ate our breakfast when visiting in Avignon 18 months ago. The same cat came and asked to be petted, so we obliged. Then it was off to the train station and home.
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