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Avignon Theatre Festival
Avignon Theatre Festival has often been compared to Edinburgh Festival for its lively atmosphere and its day- and night-long street entertainment… with sunny skies, shady squares, whispering fountains and the sound of the cicadas as a natural setting!
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Avignon Festival
The Avignon Festival dates back to 1947, making it one of the oldest and most famous theatre festivals in the world. For 3 weeks in July, the best of contemporary performing arts are staged in the most prestigious of locations, many of them outdoors (within the walls of the Palace of the Popes, in medieval cloisters…). This is what the regular visitors have come to call the “IN” (official) festival. As for the “OFF” (fringe) festival, it invades the whole city with over 150 shows. Some of these are dance, music or cabaret shows and therefore require no special knowledge of French, and the street atmosphere makes it worth spending at least a day (and a night!) there. |
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Accommodation
Accommodation can be hard to find in Avignon during the festival. However, depending on the dates and length of your stay, you should be able to find something (a couple of nights here and there, last-minute cancellations..), if not inside the city, at least not very far away:
> www.provence-resa.com
(
select Avignon or Monts de Vaucluse as location in the form) |
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| Mini-break at the Avignon Festival |
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Coach and minibus excursions out of Avignon
If you don’t have or want to hire a car, you can take a break from the city buzz by taking one of the almost-daily excursions which run from Avignon to all neighbouring tourist sites or towns (lavender fields, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Aix-en-Provence for the special Cézanne 2006 exhibition, Arles and the Carmargue, Pont du Gard, etc). Three operators run these excursions:
- Provence Réservation – Minibus tours all year round from 2 people upwards(« Visit Provence”), and coach tours in June and July (“Les Provençales”)
> Send an email
> View the website
- Provence Tours – minibus tours all year round from 2 to 8 people
> Send an email
> View the website
- Provence Vision – coach excursions from April to October
> Send an email
> View the website
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| Take a cycling tour out in the countryside (departing from Avignon) |
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