Frequently asked questions

Priority entry at the Place du Palais gate, full access to the 25-room palace circuit (Great Chapel, Pope's Chamber, Stag Room, Consistory, Grand Audience Hall, terraces with city views), and the HistoPad AR tablet in your choice of 11 languages. The Pont d'Avignon is included only on the combo tier.

A tablet provided at entry that, in each room, shows a 3D reconstruction of how it looked under the 14th-century popes — frescoes as they were, furniture, figures. 11 languages including EN/FR/DE/ES/IT/JP/ZH/KO/RU/PT/AR. Kids-mode available. Included in every ticket tier.

Yes. The Pont Saint-Bénézet ('the bridge of the Avignon song') is 500m from the palace, takes 30 min to walk, and completes the UNESCO listing. Our combo bundles entry to both — the simpler option for first-time visitors who want the full UNESCO pairing. Most first-time visitors do both.

2–3 hours for the palace with the HistoPad at a steady pace. Add 30–45 min for the Pont d'Avignon. A full Avignon morning or afternoon if you include lunch in the old town between the two.

Peak-summer (Jul–Aug) weekend queues hit 40–60 min at the main gate. Mornings (09:00–10:30) and late afternoons (after 16:30) are quieter. Skip-the-line cuts any queue to under 5 minutes.

Doable as a long day — TGV Paris Gare de Lyon → Avignon TGV in 2h40m. Better as an overnight with Pont du Gard or the Luberon. From Marseille or Lyon: easy day trip.

Tickets are issued for a specific date and are non-transferable once issued. If your plans change, reply to your confirmation email at least 48 hours before your date and we will rebook your visit to any open slot in the operator's calendar.

Yes — kids 8+ tend to love the HistoPad (kids' mode), the Stag Room frescoes, and the ramparts views. Under-8s are free at the gate; the family tier bundles the paperwork. The palace has significant stairs — strollers are tough, a carrier works better.

The Palais des Papes entrance is on Place du Palais, on the western (river-facing) side of the palace. Skip-the-line ticket holders go to the dedicated priority lane to the left of the main entrance — staff scan the QR code on your PDF. There is no separate meeting point with us; we are your booking concierge, not an on-site tour.

The Palais des Papes is largely covered. Internal courtyards (Cour d'Honneur, Cour de Bénoit XII) are open to the sky but small. Heavy rain affects the rooftop terraces only — the rest is indoor. The HistoPad still works the same. The Pont d'Avignon is fully exposed; combo visitors usually do the palace first, then the bridge if rain breaks.

The HistoPad tablet replaces the traditional audio guide. It plays narrated room-by-room commentary in 11 languages and shows AR reconstructions of how each room looked in the 14th century. There is no separate audio-guide product. For visitors who prefer audio-only, the 'Les Clefs du Palais' WebApp is available in 6 languages on your own phone.

Yes — the Palais des Papes runs scheduled English-language guided tours (90 min) on most days during the high season. These are separate from your skip-the-line ticket and not bundled in our concierge service. If you specifically want a guide, message us before booking and we'll point you at the right time slot.

Small bags and daypacks are allowed through the security check. Large suitcases and backpacks over roughly 30 litres must be left in cloakrooms or at your accommodation. Avignon Centre station has 24-hour automated lockers if you arrive by train.

There is a café in the Grand Tinel (one of the great halls) that serves drinks, light snacks, and a small lunch menu. For a full meal we recommend leaving the palace, walking 5 minutes to Place de l'Horloge or Rue des Trois Faucons, and choosing from the old town's restaurants. Many travellers do palace 09:30 → lunch in old town → Pont d'Avignon.

There is no formal dress code. Comfortable walking shoes matter — the palace has uneven medieval stone floors and significant staircases. Layers are useful: the stone interiors stay cool even in summer, while the rooftop terraces are exposed.

The Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes) is a vast Gothic palace-fortress in Avignon, in the south of France, and the largest Gothic palace ever built in Europe, covering roughly 15,000 square metres. It served as the residence and seat of government of the Catholic popes throughout the Avignon Papacy, when the papal court sat in Avignon rather than Rome between 1309 and 1377. The structure visible today was raised mainly between 1335 and 1364 under two popes: the austere Benedict XII, who built the fortified Old Palace, and Clement VI, who added the more decorated New Palace. Highlights include the Great Chapel, the Consistory, and the papal apartments, where the Stag Room preserves rare fourteenth-century frescoes. Since 1995 it has formed part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Historic Centre of Avignon.

The Palais des Papes stands on the Place du Palais in the heart of Avignon's walled medieval city, in the Provence region of southern France. Avignon has two railway stations. Avignon Centre, inside the city walls, is about a ten-minute walk from the palace through the old town. Avignon TGV, the high-speed station, lies a few kilometres outside the walls and is linked to the centre by a frequent shuttle train. Fast trains reach Avignon directly from Paris, Lyon, Marseille, and other French cities, making the palace easy to combine with a wider Provence itinerary. Drivers arriving via the A7 motorway should not attempt the narrow, partly pedestrianised streets inside the walls; several car parks sit just outside the ramparts, with shuttle links into the centre. Once inside the walled city, every part of historic Avignon, including the palace, is comfortably reached on foot.

Choose a tier above, pick your date and time slot, and pay; we then book your skip-the-line ticket directly with the operator and email the QR code, usually within hours and again the morning of your visit. At the Place du Palais entrance you use the priority lane to the left of the main gate rather than the standard ticket-counter queue, which can run 40-60 minutes on summer weekends. Security screening still applies to everyone, so allow about 10 minutes from the lane to your first room.