In April , my husband and I headed to Provence for an early spring weekend getaway. We wanted to explore Avignon, the former Papal capital during the Middle Ages. We arrived at the station two hours before departure time and ascended the wide curving staircase to the historic restaurant on the second floor, Le Train Bleu. It overlooks the tracks of incoming and outgoing trains, on one side, and the city of Paris, on the other.
The first order of business was to relax in comfortable ambience before the train departed. Fisher who wrote stories about this restaurant from the ss. Le Train Bleu is always grand, but mostly empty in the early mornings.
A few scattered travelers may show up to drink coffee or tea, but the white tablecloth tables and red leather banquettes are unavailable until lunch. We were seated at an unadorned table near the trackside windows. We invited friends, Sally and John, to join us even though they were not travelling. They were first timers to Le Train Bleu, and we knew they would enjoy the historical elegance with a light breakfast, too.
Parma ham is no longer a choice, but whole grain brown baguettes with butter and jam are still traditional. We breakfasted leisurely, ordering a second round of coffees. As our friends left to return to their apartment in Montmartre, we boarded the train going south. Exiting the station, the train picked up speed passing sooty graffiti-walled cityscape. Then came the banlieue [suburbs] with blocky cement apartment buildings and finally pastoral countryside dotted with farms and grazing animals.
When the Catholic Church moved the papacy from Rome to Avignon in the 14th century, it became the center of Christianity. Avignon was still under papal control until the time of the French revolution in Afterward, it was used as a barracks and then as a prison for many years.
