Palais des Papes visitor guide — everything you need to know before visiting

At a glance

Address

Place du Palais, 84000 Avignon, France

Coordinates

43.9509° N, 4.8075° E

Built

1335–1364, under Popes Benedict XII and Clement VI

Floor area

Approximately 15,000 m² — the largest Gothic palace in Europe

Annual visitors

~600,000 per year

UNESCO World Heritage

Listed 1995 (Historic Centre of Avignon: Papal Palace, Episcopal Ensemble and Avignon Bridge)

Operator

the Palais des Papes (on behalf of the City of Avignon)

Opening hours (Mar–Oct)

Daily 09:00–19:00; last entry 18:00

Opening hours (Nov–Feb)

Daily 09:30–17:45; last entry 16:45

Annual closure

25 December

Standard visit duration

2–3 hours with the HistoPad at a steady pace

Skip-the-line

Official 'coupe-file' priority queue for online ticket holders, on the left of the main Place du Palais entrance

What is the Palais des Papes?

The Palais des Papes is a 14th-century Gothic palace-fortress in Avignon, southern France, that served as the official residence and administrative seat of the Catholic popes from 1309 until 1377. It is the largest Gothic palace ever built in Europe — approximately 15,000 square metres of floor space arranged around two main courtyards, with walls up to 4 metres thick and twelve defensive towers. The palace is open to the public daily and is one of the most-visited monuments in France outside Paris, drawing roughly 600,000 visitors a year.

Two distinct buildings make up what we call 'the palace' today. The Palais Vieux ('Old Palace'), built between 1335 and 1342 under the austere Cistercian Pope Benedict XII, is the heavy fortified north section. The Palais Neuf ('New Palace'), built 1342–1352 under his successor Clement VI, is the more decorated south section. Together they housed the pope, his court, the Apostolic Chamber (the medieval Vatican treasury), the Consistory (the cardinals' assembly), the papal kitchens, the great audience halls, two chapels, and the private apartments where Clement VI's preserved frescoes still survive. UNESCO inscribed the palace as part of the Historic Centre of Avignon in 1995.

Why was the papacy in Avignon, not Rome?

In 1309, a Frenchman named Bertrand de Got — Pope Clement V — moved the Holy See from Rome to Avignon, a small Provençal town then part of the Comtat Venaissin (a papal territory bordering France). The reasons were political. Rome was unstable: the powerful Roman aristocratic families (Colonna, Orsini) were at war with each other and with the papacy; Clement V had been crowned in Lyon under heavy French pressure; and his predecessor Boniface VIII had been violently humiliated by the French king Philip IV at Anagni. Avignon was safer, closer to French royal protection, and more administratively manageable.

What was supposed to be temporary lasted 68 years. Seven successive popes — Clement V, John XXII, Benedict XII, Clement VI, Innocent VI, Urban V, and Gregory XI — all reigned from Avignon. They centralised papal taxation, professionalised the curia, and built the palace you visit today. Pope Gregory XI returned the papacy to Rome in 1377 under pressure from Catherine of Siena and Italian political reformers. He died the following year. The disputed election that followed triggered the Western Schism (1378–1417), during which a parallel line of antipopes — Clement VII and Benedict XIII — continued to rule from Avignon for another forty years, making the palace the seat of papal authority for, depending how you count, 68 to 108 years total.

What do you actually see inside?

The visitor circuit covers approximately 25 rooms across both palaces and takes 2–3 hours at a steady pace with the HistoPad. The route begins in the Cour d'Honneur (Honour Courtyard) where summer's Festival d'Avignon stages its lead productions. From there you climb to the Consistory — the audience hall where the cardinals' college met — and the Saint-Jean and Saint-Martial chapels with their original Matteo Giovannetti frescoes from the 1340s. The Grand Tinel (Great Banquet Hall) is one of the largest medieval banqueting rooms in Europe at 48 metres long.

The two highlights of the private papal apartments survive in their 14th-century painted state. The Chambre du Cerf (Stag Room), Clement VI's study, is decorated with hunting and fishing scenes painted directly onto plaster — uncommonly intact secular medieval murals. The Chambre du Pape (Pope's Chamber) carries a deep blue ceiling fresco of stylised oak leaves and birds, with painted niches and squirrels on the walls. After the apartments the route passes the Great Audience Hall (with Giovannetti's Prophet frescoes on the vault), the kitchens with their distinctive octagonal chimney, and finishes on the rooftop terraces with views over the Pont d'Avignon, the Rhône, and the rooftops of the medieval city. A temporary exhibition usually occupies the upper floor of the Palais Vieux.

Read the full guide: What to See Inside the Palais des Papes: A Room-by-Room Guide →

How does skip-the-line actually work?

Skip-the-line at the Palais des Papes is an official the Palais des Papes product, not a third-party shortcut. When you book online, your ticket carries a QR code and a designated time slot. At the palace entrance on Place du Palais, there are two queues: the standard ticket-counter queue (which can hit 40–60 minutes on summer weekends) and a much shorter priority lane signposted for online ticket holders. You go to the priority lane, staff scan your QR, you pass security, and you are inside the palace within 5 minutes regardless of how busy the standard queue is.

The skip-the-line does not skip security screening — bags are checked for prohibited items (large knives, glass bottles, etc.). Allow 10 minutes total from arrival to entering the first room. There is no separate meeting point with us as your concierge; we are not on site. We send your QR ticket by email approximately 24 hours before your visit, and again as a reminder the same morning, with the PDF attached so you can show it directly at the gate even without a phone signal.

What is the HistoPad and is it worth it?

The HistoPad is a tablet device handed out at the start of the visitor circuit and returned at the end. In each of the major rooms you point the tablet at marked positions and the screen shows a 3D reconstruction of how that room looked in the 14th century — frescoes filled in where they have faded, furniture replaced where it was looted, even figures in period dress placed where the cardinals or kitchen staff would have stood. It runs in 11 languages including English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, Russian, Portuguese, and Arabic. There is a kids' mode that simplifies the narration and adds light gamification (treasure-hunt prompts) for children aged roughly 8–12.

The HistoPad is included in every ticket tier we sell. The reason it matters is that, after centuries of neglect — the palace was used as a Napoleonic army barracks for over a century — many of the rooms are now bare stone with only fragments of their original decoration surviving. The Stag Room and Pope's Chamber are exceptions, with most of their 14th-century paintings intact. For the rest, the HistoPad is the difference between 'a series of empty Gothic halls' and 'the actual living space of a medieval European court'. We strongly recommend using it; visitors who skip it consistently report finding the visit less engaging.

How long should I budget for the visit?

Plan on 2 to 3 hours for the palace itself with the HistoPad at a steady pace. Visitors who skim through can finish in 90 minutes; visitors who watch every HistoPad reconstruction in full and read the room-by-room signage can spend 3 to 3.5 hours. The route is largely linear with a few branches, and the staff close the rooftop terraces 30 minutes before the official closing time, so plan to arrive at least 2 hours before closing if you want to see everything.

If you book the Palais + Pont d'Avignon combo, add 30 to 45 minutes for the bridge. The two sites are 500 metres apart — about a 7-minute walk along the medieval rampart road. Most visitors do the palace first (cooler in the morning, especially in summer), have lunch in the old town between Place de l'Horloge and Rue des Trois Faucons, then walk down to the bridge in the afternoon. A full Avignon morning-and-afternoon centred on the palace and the bridge fills naturally.

Should I add the Pont d'Avignon combo?

Most first-time visitors should add the Pont d'Avignon. Both the palace-only ticket and the combo ticket include the Pontifical Gardens (the Palais des Papes bundles them with palace entry by default), so the combo's added value is the Pont Saint-Bénézet itself — the bridge of the 'Sur le pont d'Avignon' nursery rhyme. The official the Palais des Papes combo rate represents a meaningful saving over buying components separately, so adding the bridge costs only a small supplement at operator prices. The Pont d'Avignon is a 12th-century medieval bridge, originally 22 arches across the Rhône, of which only 4 arches and the Saint-Nicolas chapel survive today; it has been a UNESCO listing in its own right since 1995. It takes 30 to 45 minutes to walk and photograph.

Skip the combo if you have less than three hours total in Avignon, or if you actively dislike short outdoor sites. The bridge is fully exposed, so heavy rain or extreme heat (Avignon regularly hits 38°C in July) can make it uncomfortable. The palace is largely indoors and weather-independent. For visitors with mobility limitations, the bridge has a flat surface but the palace's rampart walk is the more accessible photo opportunity. Combo visitors usually report the Pont d'Avignon as the trip's photo moment, but the Palais des Papes as the trip's intellectual highlight.

When is the palace busiest, and when should I go?

The Palais des Papes is busiest from late June through August, particularly during the Festival d'Avignon (early to late July), which doubles the city's population for three weeks and turns the Cour d'Honneur into a major theatre venue. On peak July and August weekends, the standard ticket-counter queue can reach 40 to 60 minutes; the city itself becomes notably crowded, restaurant tables require reservation, and accommodation prices roughly double. Skip-the-line holders bypass the queue entirely but still encounter a busier interior and longer waits at the most popular HistoPad stations (Stag Room, Pope's Chamber).

The quietest months are November through February, when the palace switches to winter hours (09:30–17:45) and the city is wonderfully empty of tour groups. Spring (March to mid-May) and early autumn (mid-September to October) are the best months to visit overall — the palace operates on summer hours, the weather is mild, and the queues are manageable even at the standard counter. If you must visit in summer, choose a weekday, arrive before 10:00 or after 16:30, and avoid Festival d'Avignon dates if you want a calmer experience.

Read the full guide: The Best Time to Visit Palais des Papes in Avignon →

How do I get to Avignon?

Avignon has two railway stations: Avignon Centre, in the medieval city walls, 10 minutes' walk from the palace; and Avignon TGV, the high-speed station 4 km outside the walls. A free shuttle train runs between them every 15 minutes. From Paris Gare de Lyon, the TGV reaches Avignon TGV in 2 hours 40 minutes, with departures roughly every hour during the day. From Marseille Saint-Charles, the journey is 30 to 35 minutes by direct TGV — easy as a day trip. From Lyon Part-Dieu, it is 1 hour 10 minutes. From Barcelona, direct TGV takes about 4 hours.

If you arrive by car, do not attempt to drive into the medieval old town: the streets inside the walls are narrow, partly pedestrianised, and parking is genuinely scarce. Use the large Parking des Italiens or Parking de l'Île Piot just outside the walls (hourly rates vary seasonally; current pricing on the operator's website; free shuttle into the centre). Avignon's nearest airport is Avignon-Provence (small, mostly seasonal); Marseille (MRS) and Nîmes (FNI) are the practical airports for international arrivals, with TGV or coach connections of 60 to 90 minutes to Avignon.

What to expect on the day of your visit

On the day of your visit, arrive at the Place du Palais entrance 10 to 15 minutes before your booked slot. The square is large, with a bell tower (the Tour de l'Horloge) and the Notre-Dame des Doms cathedral on the north side. The palace entrance is on the western (river-facing) side. Have your QR code ready — either on your phone or on the printed PDF we send. Skip-the-line ticket holders use the priority lane to the left of the main entrance; staff scan, you pass through security (small bag check, no large luggage), and you collect your HistoPad inside.

Inside the palace, expect uneven medieval stone floors, multiple staircases, and consistently cool indoor temperatures even in summer. Comfortable walking shoes are essential. Photography is permitted without flash, tripod, or drone. Restrooms are available in the courtyards and at the end of the visitor route. If you booked the Palais + Pont d'Avignon combo, your bridge ticket is on the same QR — keep it for after the palace, then walk 7 minutes to the Pont Saint-Bénézet entrance on the river. We recommend checking back into your hotel or returning to your TGV at least 90 minutes before train departure to allow for getting through Avignon Centre's old-town streets.

The seven Avignon popes, year by year

Seven canonical popes reigned from Avignon in unbroken succession between 1309 and 1377. Clement V (1305–1314), a Frenchman from Bordeaux, was the founder of the Avignon residency: elected in Perugia, he never travelled to Rome and settled the curia at Avignon in 1309 under the protection of King Philip IV of France. John XXII (1316–1334) was the great administrator — he professionalised papal taxation, created the Avignon curia as a permanent bureaucracy, and accumulated the treasury that would later fund the palace construction. He died at Avignon at the age of ninety. Benedict XII (1334–1342), a Cistercian monk, began the palace itself: between 1335 and 1342 he built the heavy fortified Palais Vieux on the Rocher des Doms, intended as a permanent papal seat rather than a temporary residence.

Clement VI (1342–1352), a worldly French aristocrat, doubled the palace by adding the decorated Palais Neuf between 1342 and 1352, commissioning the Matteo Giovannetti frescoes and the Stag Room. He bought the city of Avignon outright from Queen Joanna I of Naples in 1348 for 80,000 florins, converting the residence from rental to freehold. Innocent VI (1352–1362) reinforced the city walls — the medieval ramparts that still encircle Avignon's old town — against routier mercenary bands wandering France during the Hundred Years' War. Urban V (1362–1370) briefly returned to Rome in 1367 but was forced back to Avignon in 1370 by Italian instability. Gregory XI (1370–1378) finally returned the papacy to Rome in January 1377 under pressure from Catherine of Siena. He died in March 1378, and the disputed conclave that followed triggered the Western Schism.

Palais Vieux vs Palais Neuf — two palaces, one fortress

What guidebooks call 'the Palais des Papes' is in fact two adjoining palaces built thirty years apart by two very different popes, and the contrast is the single most useful frame for understanding what you are looking at. The Palais Vieux ('Old Palace'), built 1335–1342 under Pope Benedict XII, is the heavy, austere, fortress-like northern half. Benedict was a former Cistercian monk who believed papal architecture should reflect monastic discipline; his palace has thick defensive walls, narrow windows, square towers at each corner, and almost no surface decoration. The Tour de Trouillas (54 metres) and the Tour des Anges (where the papal treasury was housed) belong to this phase. The plan is medieval-fortress orthodox: a rectangular cloister around a central courtyard, with the Consistory, chapel, and refectory occupying the principal wings.

The Palais Neuf ('New Palace'), built 1342–1352 under Clement VI, is the decorated, courtly, gracious southern half. Clement was an aristocrat, a former Benedictine abbot of La Chaise-Dieu, and the most spendthrift pope of the Avignon line. His palace is taller, with larger windows, vaulted ceremonial halls (the Grand Audience Hall is one of the largest medieval vaulted spaces in Europe), elaborate stone tracery on the southern façade, and the painted private apartments — Stag Room, Pope's Chamber — that are the visit's artistic highlight. Together the two palaces enclose two courtyards: the Cour d'Honneur between them (which now hosts the Festival d'Avignon's main stage) and the smaller Cour de Bénoit XII inside the older fortress. The architectural seam between Benedict's fortress and Clement's palace is visible from inside both courtyards, and the HistoPad reconstructions make the contrast explicit.

Read the full guide: Palais des Papes vs Pont d'Avignon: Which Should You Choose? →

The HistoPad in more detail — how it actually works

The HistoPad is a 7-inch Android tablet issued at the start of the visitor circuit and returned at the end. Histovery, the French company that designed it, has installed similar systems at the Château de Chambord, the Conciergerie in Paris, and Notre-Dame de Reims. At marked positions in eleven of the palace's rooms you raise the tablet and the screen renders a 3D reconstruction of that exact room as it stood in roughly 1370: ceiling frescoes reconstructed where they have faded, tapestries hung where the walls are now bare, furniture replaced where it was looted during the Revolution, and period figures (cardinals, kitchen staff, ambassadors, the pope himself) animated in the spaces they would have occupied. The reconstructions are based on inventories from the Apostolic Camera, archaeological evidence on the surviving wall surfaces, and the unfaded fragments of original paint where they survive.

Eleven languages are supported: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Arabic. You select the language when you collect the device and can switch mid-visit. A separate kids' mode (currently English and French only) simplifies the narration, removes some adult-level historical content, and adds a treasure-hunt mechanic with virtual stamps collected room by room. The tablet itself is roughly 600 grams, has a wrist strap, and is robust enough that families with small children use it without concern. Visitors who prefer to keep their hands free can also load the 'Les Clefs du Palais' WebApp on their own phone, but it is audio-only and does not include the AR reconstructions. We recommend the HistoPad over the WebApp for first-time visitors; the AR layer is the single biggest reason the palace visit feels different from any other medieval-fortress tour in Europe.

The Pont Saint-Bénézet — the half-bridge of the song

The Pont Saint-Bénézet, almost universally known as the Pont d'Avignon, is the half-ruined medieval bridge celebrated in the French nursery rhyme 'Sur le pont d'Avignon, on y danse, on y danse'. The bridge sits about 500 metres downstream of the Palais des Papes on the Rhône and is part of the same UNESCO World Heritage listing (Historic Centre of Avignon, inscribed 1995). According to a legend recorded in the 13th century, a young shepherd named Bénézet was instructed by an angel in 1177 to build a bridge across the Rhône; he gathered enough support to begin construction, and the bridge was completed by 1185 — making it one of the oldest stone bridges in medieval Europe. Bénézet was canonised after his death and his relics rested in the small chapel of Saint-Nicolas that still stands halfway along the surviving span.

The original bridge had twenty-two stone arches and crossed nearly 900 metres of river. Over the centuries the Rhône's regular flooding destroyed section after section, and after a particularly catastrophic flood in 1668 the city abandoned repairs. Today four arches and the Saint-Nicolas chapel survive, ending mid-river in a way that surprises every first-time visitor. The 'Palais + Pont' combo ticket bundles entry to both monuments at a small discount versus buying them separately; the bridge takes 30 to 45 minutes to walk and photograph, and the classic angle for photographing the bridge with the palace on the cliff behind is from the opposite (Île de la Barthelasse) bank, reached by a free pedestrian shuttle boat in summer or a 15-minute walk across the Édouard Daladier road bridge year-round.

The Festival d'Avignon — what summer does to the visit

The Festival d'Avignon, founded in 1947 by Jean Vilar in the Cour d'Honneur of the palace itself, is one of the oldest and largest performing-arts festivals in the world. The main festival ('In') runs roughly 5 July to 25 July each year and uses the Cour d'Honneur as its lead venue: a 2,000-seat open-air theatre is built temporarily against the south façade of the Palais Neuf, and a different play, ballet, or opera is staged there nightly during the three-week run. A parallel 'Off' festival ranges across more than 130 smaller venues across Avignon's old town and triples the city's daytime crowds.

If you visit Avignon between roughly 5 and 25 July, expect the palace itself to remain open as a museum during the day, but the Cour d'Honneur is partly restricted in the late afternoon for stage preparation and is unavailable at all in the evenings. Accommodation prices roughly double, restaurants require reservations, and the Avignon Centre station handles three to four times its off-season passenger volume. If your interest is the palace as a historical monument, May or September is a noticeably better visit experience. If you want to see the palace and a major theatre production in the same trip, the Festival d'Avignon is one of the great combined cultural experiences in Europe — book accommodation in February or March, and book Festival tickets the day they go on sale (typically late April).

Where are the Avignon popes actually buried?

A question we get from visitors more often than we expected: where are the seven Avignon popes buried? The answer is scattered, and not where you might guess. Clement V (the first Avignon pope) is buried in the Collegiate Church of Uzeste in his native Gironde region of southwest France. John XXII has a tomb in Avignon Cathedral (Notre-Dame des Doms), the cathedral directly beside the palace on Place du Palais — his is the most prominent papal tomb in Avignon itself. Benedict XII, the builder of the Palais Vieux, was originally buried in Avignon Cathedral too, but his tomb was destroyed during the French Revolution; only fragments survive in the cathedral today.

Clement VI, builder of the Palais Neuf, was buried at the Abbey of La Chaise-Dieu in Auvergne, where he had been Benedictine abbot before his election. Innocent VI lies in the Charterhouse of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, just across the Rhône from Avignon — visitable as a half-day extension if you have the time and an interest in medieval funerary sculpture. Urban V's tomb is in the Abbey of Saint-Victor in Marseille. Gregory XI, the pope who finally returned to Rome, is buried in the Roman basilica of Santa Francesca Romana in the Forum. So of seven Avignon popes, only one (John XXII) has his tomb in Avignon itself; the others are spread across France and Italy. The palace itself contains no papal burials — it was a working residence and administrative seat, never a funerary monument.

Châteauneuf-du-Pape — the wine the Avignon popes invented

About 12 kilometres north of Avignon sits the village of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, whose name translates literally as 'the Pope's new castle'. The summer residence built there in the 1320s by Pope John XXII (the second Avignon pope) gave the village its name, and the vineyards on the surrounding stony plateau, planted under papal patronage to supply the Avignon court with table wine, evolved into one of the most famous appellations in France. The Châteauneuf-du-Pape AOC was the first wine appellation formally codified in France (1936) and the model on which the entire French Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée system was built. The papal castle itself was destroyed twice — by Protestant forces in the Wars of Religion and by retreating German troops in 1944 — but the medieval keep still stands above the village.

Visitors who care about wine often pair an Avignon day with a half-day Châteauneuf-du-Pape tasting visit, either by guided tour from Avignon (numerous operators offer afternoon transfers including three to four winery tastings) or by self-drive (parking in the village is straightforward and a dozen domaines run walk-in tasting rooms). The classic Châteauneuf-du-Pape is a powerful red blend of up to thirteen grape varieties dominated by Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvèdre, and is structurally different from anything produced elsewhere in southern France. The village is 20 minutes by car from the Palais des Papes and the connection to the palace is direct: the wine is literally named after the popes who built that palace. We do not arrange winery transfers ourselves, but visitors interested in adding this to their trip can ask us for current operator recommendations.

What was the Western Schism and why does it matter?

After Gregory XI returned the papacy to Rome in 1377 and died the following year, the cardinals elected an Italian pope (Urban VI) under what they later argued was duress from a Roman mob. A few months later the same cardinals, having fled Rome, declared the election invalid and elected a second pope, Clement VII, who returned to Avignon. The Catholic Church now had two rival popes simultaneously — Urban VI in Rome and Clement VII in Avignon — each claiming sole legitimate succession from Saint Peter, each excommunicating the other, and each commanding the loyalty of about half of Catholic Europe. France, Scotland, Castile, and Naples backed the Avignon line; England, the Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, and most of Italy backed Rome.

The Western Schism lasted thirty-nine years (1378–1417). Two further Avignon antipopes succeeded Clement VII: Benedict XIII (the famously stubborn Pedro de Luna, who refused to abdicate even when most of his supporters had abandoned him) and Clement VIII (briefly, before submitting to Rome). The Council of Constance finally resolved the schism in 1417 by deposing both lines and electing a single new pope, Martin V. For the Palais des Papes itself, the schism meant that the building continued to function as a fully active papal palace — court, treasury, chancery, garrison — for another forty years after the canonical Avignon Papacy had ended. When you visit the palace today, the seven canonical popes plus the two main Avignon antipopes mean the building housed nine papal claimants in total over roughly a century of continuous papal use.

Frequently asked questions