Friday, April 5, 2019

Today we took a 9.5-hour optional tour to the Gorges of Ardèche, so we missed seeing the town of Viviers and its cathedral. The Ardèche is a 78-mile tributary of the Rhône. Our guide for the day was a British expat by the name of Jeanette. She was quite a character. She has lived in this part of France for 37 or 38 years with her French husband.

Our first stop was to the Lavender Museum near St.-Remèze, where we saw an introductory film and toured the museum. The lavender wasn't yet in bloom, but we couldn't wait until July to see it at its peak. I did, however, enjoy all of the potted plants they had outside the buildings.

We then drove on to the gorges, where we stopped at a lookout point for a spectacular view of the limestone cliffs, and went past the Pont d'Arc, the very impressive natural rock arch. We passed a marker from a flood from the early twentieth century, and it was probably ten feet above the highway, which was already way above the river bed. The river is prone to flooding (they had to evacuate 1,600 campers in 2018), but it was hard to imagine the water level could get that high.

We returned to the Pont d'Arc to lunch at an adjacent restaurant, the Auberge du Pont d'Arc. After lunch we walked over to the river's edge and enjoyed some free time, watching a few kayakers.

We then drove to the tiny village of Vogüé, designated a national "beautiful village of France." We walked through the narrow alleys, to the church, past the chateau,

Bridge crossing the Ardeche

Since the boat left Viviers in the early afternoon, we met up with it at La Voulte-sur-Rhône where it made a short stop to let us on board. We then cruised on to Tournon-sur-Rhône. We freshened up after our long day and made it to the lounge to hear Alexandra give a port talk about tomorrow events, followed by dinner in the restaurant. We opted out of heading back to the lounge for entertainment by Roddy.

This greeted us on our return to our room.

Thursday, April 4, 2019

I should not have had the chocolate cake. I slept only one hour and 42 minutes last night. [Also, I am very frustrated that I can't figure out how to insert my photos where I want them. I'll never finish this blog if I spend any more time on it, so bear with me and keep scrolling down.]

This morning we had a three-hour walking tour of Avignon. Our guide was Martine, and I'm pretty sure she is the same excellent guide we had on one of our walking tours when I traveled to France with The Hyde Collection in 2001. (She did tell me that she was doing tours back then.) We walked the short distance from the boat into the walled medieval city.

Avignon, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is dwarfed by a massive palace, The Palace of the Popes. It is the largest Gothic building of the Middle Ages. From 1309 to 1377 the papacy was relocated here from Rome and seven popes lived here during what was a controversial time in the Catholic Church, apparently. We toured the palace and the Avignon Cathedral. The gilded statue of Mary was placed on top of the cathedral in 1854. Inside the palace you could see markings on several walls that were etched by workers to designate where they had finished for the day so that they could be paid for their work.

Cathedral with gilded Mary on top

Inside wall of the palace with worker markings

We also walked through the Place de l'Horloge, the main square, and to the Basilique Saint-Pierre.

The most impressive place we went, however, was Les Halles, the indoor market, which, along with the beautiful old apartment buildings with their wrought iron balconies, prompted me to suggest to Gord that we rent a place here for a month or two. I'm sure it won't happen, but it certainly would be a great way to improve our French while immersing ourselves in the culture. The market had every kind of seafood you could imagine, all fresh, as well as equally beautiful produce and meats of every kind. And flowers. The boat's program director, Alexandra, met us at the market for an olive and pickled garlic tasting before our tour ended and we headed back to the boat for lunch.

After lunch, we ventured up on the "sun" deck for a quick look at the small putting green, shuffle board, and the beautiful herb garden, and to enjoy the view before our optional afternoon tour, the Chateauneuf-du-Pape wine tasting.

We went by bus with our guide Aurilien, first to the beautiful vineyard of the Famille Perrin, the leading organic wine grower of the Southern Rhône Valley. We enjoyed an al fresco tasting of white grenache, Chateauneuf-du-Pape Les Sinards, and then went in for a tour of their immaculate winery. The best room was the one they aptly called the cathedral.

Cathedral Room

Cathedral Room

We tasted two reds, Chateauneuf-du-Papes from different years to compare. One was a young 2017 and the other was I think a 2009. The older one was predictably better due to age. Of course, at the end of the tour, we had to exit through the gift shop. I purchased an apron and two wine pouring discs, one for my father. We didn't buy any wine as we didn't want to schlepp it home. [We did enjoy some at dinner on the boat some nights later as Alan and Lyn, a couple who were on the tasting tour with us and who later became our cruise "besties," bought some and shared it with our table.]

Our tour then took us to the town of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, which translates as "the pope's new castle." Pope John XXII had the castle built in 1316 as a summer residence for the Avignon popes. We went up to the castle ruins to enjoy the views of Avignon and the Rhône Valley, and then walked down into the town where we had some free time.

On the way back to Avignon and the boat, we stopped at an area that afforded nice views of the bridge. I can't get the song "Sur le Pont d'Avignon" out of my head for days after. We learned that it was originally "Sous le Pont d'Avignon," or under, not on, the bridge. The Pont St. Bénézet is its official name, in honor of a young shepherd who apparently heard a voice telling him to build a bridge over the Rhône. The bridge was built in 1185, surviving frequent floodwaters until a flood in 1668 swept most of it away.

Pont d'Avignon

Pont d'Avignon

Avignon with Cathedral and Popes Palace

Pont Edouard Daladier

Avignon city view from front of our boat

Back on the boat, we attended the pre-dinner happy hour/port talk while the boat left Avignon for Viviers. Our on-board entertainment was Roddy, a combination Rod Stewart/Barry Manilow lookalike from Bulgaria. His was not the most exciting gig, as he could barely be heard over the people in the lounge, and he had to operate the audio/visual on a laptop that kept malfunctioning. On the plus side, his hours were shorter than anyone else on the crew,from what we could tell.



According to the Viking Daily that was delivered to our room every evening, dinner was a Taste of Provence buffet, but I have no memory of it. We opted to skip the evening entertainment again.