The Rue des Teinturiers — "Street of the Dyers" — runs along a canal branch of the Sorgue River in the southern part of the old town. The street is lined with plane trees, and two original waterwheels still turn in the stream below. In the 15th and 16th centuries the street was occupied by workshops that dyed fabric for the papal court and the city's thriving textile trade; the water powered the wheels that drove the equipment.
Today the street has galleries, craft workshops, cafés, and a local feel very different from the tourist-facing streets near the Palais. It is one of the most photographed corners of Avignon — the combination of the old stone houses, the trees, the moving water, and the wheels is genuinely picturesque without being staged. It is also, unusually for Avignon, a place where people actually live and work as well as visit. Walk the full length from the Place des Corps-Saints to where it meets the wider streets near the Porte Saint-Lazare.