The grand tour of France in a motorhome 2022 September 15th

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Its an exciting day. A Papal Palace tour has been recommended to us by our son. He says it won’t disappoint. He’s a historian so we are taking him at his word! We have 10am tickets, an early start to get ahead of the tour groups that will arrive later. We enjoy another morning stroll along the river bank and up over the bridge to the small gate entrance to the walled city. Petit dejeuner is at le Café Luberon, a nice little outside café hidden in an alley way in the main pedestrianised shopping area. It's quirky and the welcome is warm and the food lovely. Five euros gets you warm croissants, a choc au pain, a to die for apricot smoothie and a great latte.

So, does the Papal Palace live up to all the hype about it? Well yes…..and no! Some of the rooms are ornate but they are in a minority. The tablet with an interactive map and information display of all the palace rooms left us feeling bemused. And no we are not technophobes. Such cutting edge technology has been part of our daily working lives for decades. We just couldn’t decide whether it enhanced or distracted from our experiences at the palace. You need to bring your own headphones and there is no warning about this on the official ticket websites. Very irritating as you immediately lose any sound commentary.

So, let’s start with positives. The scale of the buildings are huge and very impressive. Architecture is stupendous. The two rooms with their original mural artwork, truly breath taking. The original flooring tiles are exquisite. The information on the tablet is interesting once you have got your head around how it works. However, it feels weird wandering around holding a tablet up to view an invisible room with hundreds of other tourists milling around you. There are great roof top views across the city.

The Amazonia rainforest exhibition was astonishing.

The negatives? Most rooms are empty, occasionally you find an odd chest. You have to pay extra to enter the palace gardens. It gets really crowded in there and very hot!

We revisit Café Le Luberon again for the third time in only two days. Now we are being greeted like old friends.