Avignon 7 Day Itinerary

Two train stations serve Avignon and mixing them up is the single most common mistake visitors make: Avignon TGV, out on the edge of town, handles the high-speed lines from Paris in about 2.5 hours, while Avignon Centre sits right inside the medieval walls. A shuttle train connects the two in about 4 minutes for a couple of euros, or a taxi from TGV into the old town runs roughly 20 to 25 euros for a 15-minute ride. If your train ticket says Avignon TGV, do not walk toward the ramparts expecting to arrive in ten minutes, you will not.

Day 1: Arrival & Palais des Papes

  • Check into a hotel inside or near the ramparts. Hotel Cloitre Saint Louis occupies a converted 16th-century Jesuit college with a modern wing bolted on; Hotel d’Europe has hosted guests since 1799, including reportedly Napoleon’s family.
  • The Palais des Papes, the largest Gothic palace ever built and former seat of the papacy during the Avignon exile of the 14th century, now costs 12 euros for the palace alone or 17 euros for palace plus bridge plus gardens combined. Buy online ahead in summer, the queue at the door in July can eat half an hour.
  • Dinner at a bistro near Place de l’Horloge rather than chasing outdated addresses; look for a fixed-price Provencal menu around 25 to 35 euros, most kitchens here still run a proper lunch-and-dinner service rather than all-day menus.
  • Tip: the Avignon Passion pass, available free from the tourist office once you buy your first paid attraction, discounts every other sight in the city by 10 to 50 percent, and it is criminally underused by visitors who never ask for it.

Day 2: Pont d’Avignon & Rocher des Doms

  • Walk out onto the Pont Saint-Bénézet, the famous half-bridge of the nursery rhyme “Sur le Pont d’Avignon,” which has stood broken since floods washed out most of its arches in the 17th century. Admission alone is 5 euros, audioguide included, or get the combined Palace-and-bridge ticket to save a few euros if you’re doing both.
  • Lunch at a market bistro near Les Halles, the covered food market on Place Pie, where local producers sell truffle products in season, roughly November through March, so a summer “truffle tasting” is mostly for show.
  • Climb Rocher des Doms, the limestone outcrop above the palace, free to enter, for the best panoramic view over the Rhône and the bridge below, plus a small pond and gardens that most day-trippers skip entirely.
  • Dinner at Chez Pipo or a similar traditional Provencal address near the Halles for daube or aioli.
  • Avignon’s Festival d’Avignon runs through July, transforming the entire city into a stage, with the famous Saturday morning market on Place Pie rather than Place de la République, an easy detail to get wrong if you’re going off memory.

Day 3: Les Anges & Place de l’Horloge

  • Visit the Cathedral of Notre-Dame des Doms, next to the Palais des Papes, rather than a “Church of Saint-Louis,” free to enter, with a gilded Virgin statue visible from across the city.
  • Lunch at a bistro near Rue des Teinturiers, the old dyers’ street with its still-turning water wheels, one of the most atmospheric lunch spots in the old town.
  • Spend the afternoon at Place de l’Horloge, watch the carousel, and wander the cobbled lanes toward Rue des Marchands for independent boutiques.
  • Dinner at La Mirande, the Michelin-starred restaurant set in an 18th-century townhouse steps from the Palais, where tasting menus run three, five, or seven courses and easily clear 150 euros a head; their more casual Mirage tavern next door offers mains for 22 to 26 euros if the main dining room is out of budget.
  • Reservations for La Mirande’s gastronomic room should go in at least two to three weeks ahead in high season, not just “early.”

Day 4: Day Trip to Châteauneuf-du-Pape & Luberon Villages

  • Châteauneuf-du-Pape sits about 20 minutes north of Avignon by car and produces some of the Rhône Valley’s most prized reds, a legacy of the popes who planted vineyards here in the 14th century. Most domaines offer free or low-cost tastings if you buy a bottle after.
  • Lunch at a village auberge serving Provencal game dishes and local wine pairings.
  • The Luberon villages, Gordes perched dramatically on its hillside, Roussillon with its ochre-cliff houses, and Bonnieux with sweeping valley views, are best reached by rental car since public transit between them is sparse and slow.
  • Return to Avignon for a relaxed dinner.
  • Renting a car for this one day only, rather than for the whole trip, usually works out cheaper and avoids the headache of parking inside Avignon’s narrow one-way old town.

Day 5: Musée Angladon & Place Jean Jaurès

  • Skip the Dalí museum, that one lives in Figueres, Spain, and has never been in Avignon. Instead visit the Musée Angladon, a small private collection inside a 1920s townhouse holding a genuine Van Gogh, along with works by Cezanne, Picasso, and Modigliani, for around 8 euros admission.
  • Lunch at a bistro on Place Jean Jaurès, the wide boulevard leading from the train station into the old town, lined with cafes good for people-watching.
  • Browse the boutiques and small galleries around Rue Joseph Vernet, one of the better shopping streets for local design and homewares.
  • Dinner at a modern French address with Asian touches near the Halles district; Avignon’s dining scene has quietly diversified over the past decade beyond classic Provencal.
  • Evening stroll along the Rhône riverbank for views of the illuminated bridge and ramparts, one of the few free, unticketed pleasures the city offers after dark.

Day 6: Day Trip to Arles & Camargue

  • Arles, about 40 minutes south by car or a similar time by direct train, holds a working Roman arena still used for bullfighting-style spectacles and events, admission around 9 to 10 euros, plus the sites tied to Van Gogh’s 15 months living there, though his actual Yellow House was destroyed in World War Two bombing and only a plaque marks the spot now, not a preserved building to tour.
  • Lunch at a Provencal bistro in central Arles.
  • The Camargue wetlands south of Arles are genuinely one of Europe’s odder landscapes: pink flamingos, semi-wild white horses, and black bulls grazing salt marshes. A guided 4x4 or boat tour through the Parc naturel regional gets you closer than a self-drive along the main roads.
  • Return to Avignon for dinner at your own pace.
  • Buy the combined Arles museum pass if you’re doing more than two sites, it pays for itself after the arena and one museum.

Day 7: Departure

  • Leisurely breakfast, then check out.
  • If you’re departing from Avignon TGV, allow the shuttle train time plus a buffer, missing that connection because you assumed the two stations were the same place is a genuinely common and avoidable mistake.
  • Take the train back toward Paris or onward through Provence, and if you have a spare hour, spend it on Rocher des Doms rather than in the station cafe, the view is a better goodbye.

Transportation: Avignon proper is compact enough to walk end to end in under half an hour, so once inside the ramparts, leave the car parked. Bikes are available for rent near Place Pie for exploring the riverside paths, and buses run to the TGV station and outlying villages, though schedules thin out on Sundays, worth checking before you plan a Sunday day trip.