Explorer Villeneuve-lès-Avignon

Fort Saint-André is a 14th-century fortress on Mont Andaon above Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, built by the French kings facing papal Avignon across the Rhône. Its curtain wall enclosed a Benedictine abbey and a village; visitors enter through the twin-towered gatehouse, walk the ramparts and look out over Avignon and the Palais des Papes.

The Pont Saint-Bénézet, the Pont d'Avignon of the children's song, was a stone bridge across the Rhône, rebuilt from 1234 with 22 arches over about 900 metres. Floods brought arches down and it was abandoned in the 17th century; four arches survive, carrying the Chapel of Saint Nicholas on the second pier, and visitors can walk out along them.

The Rocher des Doms is a rocky outcrop above the Rhône beside the Palais des Papes, settled since the Neolithic. Its summit holds a 19th-century English-style garden of about 3 hectares with a pond, statues of local figures and a terrace 30 m above the river looking over the Pont Saint-Bénézet and the Rhône valley.

The Palais des Papes was the residence of the popes in Avignon during the 14th century, built mainly between 1335 and 1352 under Benedict XII and Clement VI. The fortified Gothic palace joins the Old and the New Palace, and the visit leads through great halls, chapels and papal apartments, some painted with frescoes by Matteo Giovannetti. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.