Wheelchair access

I%26#39;m planning to come in to Avignon via TGV from Lyon and stay overnight in town. I use a manual wheelchair and am wondering what%26#39;s the best plan for getting around town. Are curbs cut like in Paris and Lyon? Will I be able to use the public buses? Are taxis easy to hail(I can fold my wheelchair %26amp; put it in the trunk)?

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Hi found ur post and wondered how u got on I am taking my mum to Avignon and wonder how we will manage with her huge wheelchair!

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Hi there,

I actually didn%26#39;t end up taking the TGV. We ended up renting a car which meant I didn%26#39;t have to use the buses. The TGV station is outside town but the shuttle buses that go from there to the center are wheelchair accessible like the ones in Paris. According to what the local transit authority told me when I e-mailed them, the regular city buses are not equipped with ramps but maybe you can get on through the back entrance if they stop at a good curb...never bothered to try them out.

The good news is that Avignon is extremely small (15-20 minute walk from end to end within the wall and nothing much to see outside the wall) and you won%26#39;t really need the buses. The curb cuts in Avignon are great, no problems at all! In fact, many of the curbs are low and curved toward the street so in many areas we could just jay walk. Also, many of the side alleys don%26#39;t have curbs or have very narrow ones but the generally sparse traffic made it okay to walk in the street. The cobble stones by the Palais ded Papes were terrible though, really a pain to go over and according to the tourist office there%26#39;s no accessible entrance though I did see what looked like a big cobble stoned ramp, not sure if there were steps at the top as I didn%26#39;t attempt to go in.

If you want to see nearby villages and your mom can get in and out of a regular vehicle and store the chair in a trunk/luggage compartment then I suggest you take one of the many local tours. If you like wine I highly recommend Francois%26#39; wine tour (#1 on Avignon activities on here). I took the Thursday tour and all of the wineries we visited were very accessible and only one had a step going in. Do tell him about the chair, he did his homework beforehand and we didn%26#39;t have to wait a minute for an accessible entrance to be found because he had everything prepped for us before we even arrived.