(2024-05-18/20) Avignon is the tenth stage of my tour, but my secret destination was La Ribaute, Anselm Kiefer's 200-acre retreat, his monumental artist's studio in the former factory in Barjac. Visit dates are booked out for many months, but why do I actually ride an off-road motorcycle? No fence, no marshland, no guard dogs could prevent me from approaching the site. At least that's how the photos of the "Towers of the Seven Heavenly Palaces" were taken. Anselm Kiefer has been awarded numerous prizes and honors and is now one of the ten most important contemporary artists in the world. Paul Celan is considered one of the most important German-language poets of the 20th century. The symbiotic relationship between Paul Celan's poetry and its artistic realization by Anselm Kiefer is incredibly fascinating for me, and this long before the 3D documentary film "Anselm" by Wim Wenders.
Back to Avignon! We had four European Capitals of Culture (Antwerp, Lille, Paris, Avignon), one (Bourges), which will become one in 2028, but not the other one (Montpellier). And then there is the Capital of Comics (Angoulême), the World Capital of Eine (Bordeaux), the Capital of the Spanish Exile 1939-1945 (Toulouse) and, last but not least, the Capital of the Kingdom of Majorca 1276-1344 (Perpignan). But Avignon has even more to offer, as the seat of nine popes with its Gothic Papal Palace and UNESCO World Heritage-listed old town. On this sunny Whitsun weekend, countless other tourists - apart from me - see it that way too.
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