France, May 15-16, 2025

 

The weather in the Rhone valley continues to border on marvellous. Blue skies with the occasional wispy clouds in the morning, larger pillowy clouds drifting in during the afternoon and early evening. As with each port, there are a number of excursions available; from Tournon sur Rhone there are three trips available. Don & Ann chose the nine hour optional excursion to the Ardeche. They are gone the entire day. The ship departs Tournon sur Rhone after lunch, so they will be picked up at a stop at Pouzin. The rest of the group takes the two and one-half hour steam train up the Doux River gorge to Colombier-le-Vieux village. This is a very steep narrow gauge rail line that makes two runs a day, morning and afternoon. Although there is a winding road up to the village of 600 people, the steam train serves tourists. An engaging trip with scenery that is breathtaking. The forested hillsides are covered with acacia trees, and the hilltops feature chestnut trees, which are harvested for their nuts; then made into spread, butter, liqueur, and nuts for roasting.

The train returns shortly after noon and we take the coach back to the Viking Heimdal for the noon meal and a relaxing afternoon. The ship casts off at 1:00 PM for the next port - Viviers. There is an evening shore excursion walk into the town of Viviers. this is one of the best preserved medieval towns in southern France. It serves as the administrative and religious capital of Vivarais and is situated on a hill overlooking the river. It features narrow, winding cobblestone streets. In the center of Old Town sits St. Vincent Cathedral, the smallest active cathedral in France.

The cathedral is a blend of Romanesque style, its tower dates back to the previous century. In the 16th century, Bishop Claude de Tournon led the construction of the flamboyant Gothic apse.

The town of Viviers was founded in the 5th century. the former Roman settlement became the bishop’s seat and conflicts during the ensuing centuries required the town to be fortified. During the renaissance ca more stable period of wealth allowed many new houses to be built. some buildings date back to the Middle Ages, and time seems to stand still along the cobblestone streets of the Old Town.

Dinner this evening featured Quiche Lorraine as a starter, Potage Garbare, a soup of mixed vegetables, potato and croutons, and a main course of Marinated Rack of Lamb. Dessert was a Layered Coconut Mango Cake or a Creme Brulee. Outstanding as usual. Following dinner most of the team headed to the Viviers Walk and others stayed behind, retiring to their staterooms.

The ship sailed over night and  arrived in the early morning in Arles, of Vincent Van Gogh fame. Morning featured a walking tour of Arles, including to the hospital and the Café de Nuit, of the famous painting. Many of his paintings are displayed in the Old Arles Hospital, now renamed the L’Espace de Van Gogh. 

Arles is also home to Les Arenes Amphitheater, a roman era structure, part of a UNESCO World heritage site. the arena was built in the 1st Century to seat 21,000 people. Wild beasts old be run into the center of the arena to battle gladiators. there were also chariot races and hand-to-hand battles of gladiators. It is now primarily a venue for the traditional spectacle of corridors, bullfights. This less bloodthirsty form of local bullfighting is called Course Carmarguaise, in which the bull is not killed. 

In the afternoon, most of the members took an optional excursion to Les Baux & Carrier es de Lumieres. Les Baux is a small village located in the Alpiles mountains northeast of Arles. It sits atop a rocky outcrop that is crowned with a ruined castle. From the village name the word bauxite was coined for the aluminum ore when first discovered there by geologist Pierre Berthier in 1821. The village has over 1.5 million visitors per year, although it has only about 20 residents in the upper part of the commune and 315 for the whole commune.

The Carrier es les Lumieres is a light show projected on the walls of the old quarry. Beautiful colors and images of the impressionist and post-impressionist painters famous to the region of Provence. If you look closely at the photo below, you will see Ann & Don Hosford n the bottom of the photo.

May 12-14, 2025, Rhône River

Tuesday and we are sailing through the Rhône river valley.We start our morning with eggs, coffee, croissant and an offering of other pastries. Sausage (chicken, beef and pork), bacon and oatmeal are also available.  At 9:00 AM, we set out on a motorcoach panoramic tour of Lyon. We walk through the old town shopping area, in 1466, Louis XI set up Lyon’s first silk manufactory. Due to the roads and rivers,  Lyon, emerged as the largest French producer of silk cloth. In 1540 Lyon was granted a monopoly on silk manufacture by Francois 1, and by 1620, there were over 10,000 looms in the city. At the height of Lyon’s silk production during the 18th century, it is estimated that more than 15,000 workers were involved in the industry. Lyon based designer Phillip de Lasalle invented a device called the semple, a key part of the mechanism that controlled the pattern woven on an individual loom; this led to the development of the Jacquard loom in 1801, which could be programmed to weave even more complex patterned textiles.

We wandered out of old town and after the tour, we stopped at a sidewalk cafe for a coffee and a glass of wine. then back to the ship for another sumptuous dinner. As there is a lot of food on this trip, we will try not to bore our readers with pictures and descriptions of food at every stop. Trust us to say that the food has been amazing. We will continue to feature some special highlights.

Lyon lies just to the south of the province of Beaujolais, divided into 12 appellations and further subdivided into three categories of wine; Beaujolais, Beaujolais Villages and Beaujolais cru. The wine making region is larger than any single district in Burgundy, with more than 55,000 acres of vines planted in a 34 mile stretch of land 7-9 miles wide along the Rhone. Beaujolais and Beaujolais Noveau wines are from the southern half of the region and the none of Noveau wines can be made using grapes from the cru regions. Wines from the Beaujolais Villages appellation are higher quality and represent 25% of the total production. Beaujolais cru wines are the highest quality available.

Lyon has a great culinary history stemming from the 16th century marriage of French king Henry II to Italian Catherine de’ Medici. Catherine brought her own cooks from Florence who began using local ingredients for the royal food. Bringing such traditional dishes as potatoes Lyonnaise, coq au vin and any number of specialty sausages. the fruity Beaujolais wines or a bold Rhone red augment all of these foods.

The Viking Heimdal casts off from Lyon at 2:30 PM and heads down river to our next port, Vienne. 

Wednesday morning we are docked in Vienne,  having arrived around 6:00 PM the previous evening. The offering today is a walking tour of the town of Vienne, one of the oldest towns in France. There were two types of walks, the easy one and the gruelling one.  Everyone but Don, Deb and Mark took the gruelling one because they like to show-off their senior agility skills.  Don took the easier walk but, as he has a bum knee, that was to be expected.  Mark also has a good excuse, as he spent 4 nights in hospital with pneumonia.  Deb, on the other hand, is just lazy but used Mark’s illness as a reason to skip the walk.  Somethings never change!

There are still Roman artefacts dating from the 1st century, and it is considered the gateway to the French countryside. Its Roman amphitheater, nestled in the hills of Mont Pipet is one of the best preserved in the nation. Other landmarks include the Abbey of Saint Pierre and the Church of Saint-Andre’-le-Bas.

The St. Maurice Cathedral, also known at the Cathedral Saint-Maurice occupies a spot where a church has stood since the 4th century. The current cathedral, begun around 1130, rises majestically from a terrace overhanging the Rhone; it is a national monument of France. It took almost 500 years to construct the entire cathedral, but was damaged by the Protestants in the French wars of religion (1562-1578.) 

In 1312, Pope Clement V organized the council of Vienne, whose principal outcome was a papal edict abolishing the Knights Templar. the Pope was strongly pressured to do this by Philip IV of France who owed the Templars money and coveted their land. during the first centuries of the current era, the city embraced Christianity; its first Bishop is said to have been a disciples of the Apostle Paul.

After learning all of the above, we were exhausted (the wine at lunch did not help) so we all went our separate ways which included Mark wandering around, Howie for a nap, Lee wandering around, Glenda rounding up the passengers for a sing-a-long and then, possibly, for a mutiny due to only marginally good food.  Don was napping (but not with Howie), Ann was on another tour or looking for another tour and Deb was trying to find a quiet spot to put her feet up.  This did not happen and she ended up talking to a woman from New Jersey who wanted to tell her how wonderful her entire life is non-stop.  Where was Glenda when Deb needed her??  She showed up and made a comment about Trump.  That stopped the tirade. 

Dinner this evening included Coq au Vin, Cream of Chestnut soup, Pike Perch with a parsnip purée, and a delicious Potato & Chanterelle mixture in a pastry wrap, with a creamy mushroom sauce. The dessert of favor was a Cassis Bavarois - moist sponge cake with layers of black currant jam and mousse.   

During the afternoon, we had cast off and by the early evening, we were docked at our next destination, Tournon sur Rhone.