French wine country, on the cheap - The Globe and Mail
During the 1300s, the papacy moved from Rome to the southern French city of Avignon. For decades, a series of popes, cardinals and clerics led lives of luxury in the fortress-like Palais des Papes overlooking the Rhône River – and after a split in the church, epic battles between kings and cardinals, the French papacy reluctantly gave in and returned home to Rome.
