On y danse, on y danse, sous le pont d'Avignon...

And so, the harsh reality of Monday morning bites again after an absolutely wonderful weekend that none of us were quite ready to leave behind.  This week will mostly be filled with tedious activities – lectures, presentations and translation – although I will also try to squeeze in some fun stuff, particularly as the realisation that I only have four weeks left in Lyon before returning to England for Christmas has now hit rather hard and there is still so much for me to do here!

Anyway, enough of boring plans for the week ahead and back to the adventures of a weekend spent with friends in Avignon…

We arrived on Friday after a rather long and crowded train journey from Lyon and spent the first part of the evening at a bar in the main square in Avignon catching upon on two months worth of Erasmus gossip and silliness before moving on to Delirium – a rather sophisticated jazz club housed within a deceptively rundown building.  Once inside, this place, with its live music, interesting décor and waitresses in 1930s style dresses, was essentially my idea of heaven.  I could happily spend many more evenings enveloped in this incredible atmosphere, if only it could somehow be transported to Lyon?!

Saturday was largely spent sleeping and sitting in various cafes drinking coffee, interspersed with occasional bursts of energetic sightseeing until it all became too much and we settled for dinner and then drinks at another bar on the main square.  We were soon feeling sufficiently fed and refreshed and so ventured on to the infamous ‘Redzone’, having been told that it was a necessary part of the Avignon experience.  And experience it certainly was – the place was absolutely packed and played a bizarre range of music, but we still managed to dance and giggle for several hours, until our feet and eyes began to grow weary and we decided it was time to call it a night.

Having done a considerable amount of sitting, drinking and dancing so far, we felt that Sunday should be a ‘cultural day’ and so embarked upon a whistle-stop tour of all the important sights in Avignon, ending with a quick dance under the Pont d’Avignon.

Once we were all tourist-ed out and feeling in need of some serious nourishment, we found yet another café to provide us with fizzy drinks, tartines and an array of delicious desserts and stayed there until the time came to jump on our train back to Lyon.  Fortunately the train was not nearly as busy this time, we managed to grab some seats and were quickly back home, feeling rather worn-out and ready to crawl in to bed.