Avignon

So, while awaiting news about my brother (since it's a 9 hour time difference and the doctors don't start rounds until about 8am in Arizona), Phil and I drove to Avignon (about 25 minutes from where we are staying in Velleron) to kill time and get our minds off things....

This place is really amazing. A walled city with an interesting past. So, my non-historian and over-simplified version is this.... At one point in 1306, Rome got too nutty for Pope Clement V, so he moved the Papacy to Avignon, France. He and several other popes after him loved it, so they stayed and that was the "See" or seat of Catholicism. Wild. Who knew. So, when they finally moved the Papacy back to Rome, the French weren't happy and they elected their own pope, who continued to live in Avignon. Again, who new we had two popes at one point. Well, there could not be two popes, so get this - they excommunicated each other and caused "The Great Schism" for about 40 years. All ended as we expected, i.e., the Papacy settled down into Rome and there is stays (well, actually in the Vatican, which is an independent state).

All this history has made me famished. Need more cheese and wine. Have I mentioned the cheese and wine in this place? Outrageous.