Festival of Avignon
A famous theater festival is held annually in Avignon.
Founded in 1947, the Avignon Festival comprises both
traditional theatrical events and other art forms such as
dance, music and cinema, making good use of the town's
historical monuments. Taking place every summer, approximately
100,000 people attend.
Avignon is commemorated by the French children's song, "Sur le
pont d'Avignon" ("On the bridge of Avignon"), which describes
folk dancing. The bridge of the song is the Saint Bénezet
bridge, over the Rhone River, of which only four arches (out
of the initial 22) starting from Avignon side remain. In
fact people would have danced beneath the bridge (sous le
pont) where it crossed an island (l'Ile de Barthelasse) on
its way to Villeneuve-lès-Avignon.
The bridge was initially built between 1171 and 1185,
with an original length of some 900 m (2950 ft), but it
suffered frequent collapses during floods and had to be
reconstructed several times. Several arches were already
missing (and spanned by wooden sections) before the
remainder was damaged beyond repair in 1660.
Credits
: This article is licensed under the
GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from
the Wikipedia
article "Avignon".
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