Avignon is certainly not a town in which to stay if you're enthusiastic about sightseeing the encompassing countryside and don't have much time. Once in Avignon, you wouldn't like to leave, as well as the town is too fascinating to let you go. Avignon is actually ancient, packed with history, life, youth, art, music and also activity. Just to "see" the town itself, you may wander the narrow streets inside the fortified walls for days without tiring of them.
The rock of Avignon has been inhabited ever since the earliest times; situated within the junction in the Rhone and also the Durance rivers, its ideal place causes it to be a great city to get a natural refuge, simple to defend and well suited for commercial traffic. Avignon therefore quickly becomes a prosperous city enjoying certain autonomy. In the Fourteenth Century, the town is one of the Count of Provence, Charles the second of Anjou, King of Naples and loyal vassal of the Church of Rome. The Venaissin County positioned close to Avignon continues to be, as early as the Thirteenth Century, a papal property thereby assuring a well balanced and peaceful city. At this time in Rome, as competitor groups are tearing each other apart, popes have no governing control, and in Italy, cities and small feudal states are in constant conflicts. Avignon is apparently the best city to welcome the future popes. 7 popes in all will ultimately succeed one another in Avignon, making it the capital of the Christian world.