Avignon hands away most of its best hours: the city museums' permanent collections are free, the Barthelasse ferry costs nothing, and Les Halles feeds two for €12. Three days inside the ramparts on well under €25 a day.
A former cardinal's livrée at the top of Place du Palais holding 327 Italian primitives, including Botticelli's Virgin and Child. The permanent collection is free year-round; open 10:00–13:00 and 14:00–18:00, closed Tuesdays.
Gothic Saint-Pierre keeps its 1551 walnut doors carved with the Annunciation, and costs nothing to enter. Three minutes north, the 15th-century Palais du Roure opens its Provençal folk-art courtyard free on weekday mornings.
The fine-arts museum fills an 18th-century hôtel particulier on Rue Joseph Vernet with Vernet seascapes, Soutine, Manet and Egyptian bronzes — permanent collection free. Next door, Requien's natural-history halls are free too.
A walled medieval orchard of fig, olive and quince trees hidden behind the library, open free until 20:00 in summer. The Ceccano library itself is a 14th-century cardinal's palace where anyone can sit under painted ceilings.
Forty stalls behind the vertical-garden façade: Mont Ventoux goat cheese, Nyons olives, rotisserie chicken and €4–6 sandwiches. Open 06:00–13:30 Tuesday to Sunday, closed Monday. A picnic for two comes to roughly €12.
The plane-tree square where Avignon's students eat. Ginette et Marcel serves tartines around €6.50 and a glass of Côtes du Rhône for about €3.50; the bakery on the corner undercuts everyone with €3 pissaladière slices.
Sunday brocante under the arcades of the 14th-century Carmelite cloister — vinyl, linen sheets, Provençal quilts and enamelware from about €5 — with a flower market on Saturday mornings. The cloister is free to wander any day.
The old dyers' street runs along the open Sorgue canal past four surviving 14th-century waterwheels. Canal-side bars pour pastis around €3 and wine from €4, and the vegetarian plates at the small kitchens here land near €10.
The municipal ferry crosses the Rhône from the quay below the ramparts to Europe's largest river island, running roughly every 15 minutes from about 10:00 to 18:15 in season. No ticket, no booking, three minutes each way.
Farmland, poplar tracks and a gravel bank facing the city. From here the four broken arches of the Pont d'Avignon sit against the Palais skyline — the angle tour boats charge for, from a picnic spot that charges nothing.
The 1302 royal tower that guarded the French end of the bridge: a spiral stair to a terrace over the Rhône, the whole walled city laid out below. Entry is about €2.60, and Orizo bus 5 from Place de l'Horloge costs €1.40.
The 14th-century fortress crowns the hill above Villeneuve. The approach road, the twin drum towers and the scrub ridge outside the walls cost nothing to walk, and the low sun lights the Palais des Papes across the river.