Where We Have A Leisurely Morning Sailing On The Rhône To Viviers, Which Might As Well Have Been Around The Corner.

We had a leisurely morning cruising on the Rhône, which was very relaxing for a change – no rushing to eat breakfast and hopping on the bus. Bus hopping was for later in the afternoon.

One of the locks was now open, which allowed us to sail to Chateauneuf du Pape Orange. It didn’t take very long – maybe 90 minutes? It might as well have been around the corner. But we did get to go through the lock, which was fun.

The afternoon’s activity was a walking tour of Viviers. This walking tour was originally scheduled as an optional tour in the evening, but it was canceled when Viking learned there would be no street lighting. Now it was the included tour during the day. Susie, Janet, and I signed up for the “easy” version of the tour, and Andy signed up for the regular tour that would go to the top of the hill to the cathedral.

It was about an hour drive to Viviers, but the buses made a pit stop about half way there, because public bathrooms are hard to find (i.e. don’t exist) in Viviers.

When we arrived, we split into our respective groups. The “easy” group could see the cathedral from the road

We arrived in the town square lined in London Plane trees.

After a brief visit to a shop or rest on bench, we started our tour of the old city.

The tour guide told us the story of Noel Albert – standing in front of the house Noel renovated the front facade – the Maison des Chavaliers According to the little booklet Andy bought: “On the four floors it displays a combination of Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders, as well as busts of men and women in roundels”. That about sums it up. Noel Albert was arrested and executed in 1546 when he sided with the Protestants. Much later, after the fact and way too late, his titles were restored to his family.

In Andy’s version of the walk, he saw this statue to “Marianne” – the national personification of the French Republic since the French Revolution.

He also saw this fantastic old door.

We came to the home of one of the tour guides who graciously opened their home to the tour group. There were 2 full flights of stone steps (!) just to enter their home. It was beautiful! One of the challenges was heating and cooling – but since their home is one of the historic buildings, they can’t modify the roof with solar. Their options are limited.

The house Andy visited had a hidden tunnel where people in the French Resistance were hidden during WWII

Andy also visited St Vincent’s Cathedral.

We all met back at the bus for the 2 hour bus ride back to the ship.

Before dinner, Lisette presented the options for Thursday:

(1) 2 hour bus ride to the Steam Train (a 1 hour train ride), lunch at the mansion where we stopped the other day, and a 2 hour bus right to Avignon

(2) 2 hour bus ride to Tournon for a walking tour, then lunch at the mansion, followed by a 2 hour bus ride to Avignon

(3) Stay on the ship to sail back to Avignon with the opportunity for free time in Avignon to wander wherever we wanted and maybe go shopping.

Susie, Janet, and I opted for (3) – the idea of 4 hours on the bus and lunch at the mansion was unappealing. Andy went for option (1).

After dinner we played a hilarious game of “Majority Rules” – 10 questions and the “right” answer is decided by the number of teams having the same answer. We did not win, but tied for second with a bunch of other teams.

Tomorrow: Cruising and bussing along.

Where We Have A Very Long Day On The Bus And FINALLY Board Our Ship (Hallelujah!)

The morning was a bit of a scramble, because we had to bring our own bags down to the lobby to hand them off to Viking staff, so they can go on the truck to Avignon. The elevators were jammed – we were lucky, because we came down from the 7th floor relatively easily, but we had to bypass people on lower floors. Apparently people on lower floors eventually figured out the trick – take an elevator going up in order to come down, resulting in the higher floors seeing full cars. It’s been obvious since we arrived that this hotel, though called a “conference center”, isn’t really prepared to deal with large numbers of people all at once.

I can only imagine the work the Viking crew has been putting in to create an experience that at least vaguely resembles what we were supposed to have. If we had been on board the ship in Lyon, we would have sailed over night to <somewhere I’ve already forgotten where>, where the default/included/freebie excursion was a visit to the Beaujolais wine country for wine tasting. This is not something we would have normally picked voluntarily, since neither of us are big wine drinkers. BUT there was no choice – the buses were picking us up at 8:30 a.m., and we ALL going to Beaujolais for wine tasting.

Our tour guide was obviously a wine expert – she rattled off the terminology quite naturally. It’s all Martian to me.

One of the few things I remember our guide saying was the description of the still-dormant vines – these were “goblet” style vines. Very traditional.

Her very detailed explanation went right over my head. After a few minutes, I toddled back to a spot where I knew there was a bench and listened to her talk via the “QuietVox” devices provided by Viking. I was joined on the bench by a couple of other people who were more interested in relaxing in the sun than wine grape cultivation.

The rest of the group soon came towards us, long enough for the guide to let us know they were going down into the basement to see the casks – 15 steps down, 20 steps back up. Nope, no thank you. I’ll stay here in the sun.

After the group came up from the wine cellar, it was time for the actual wine tasting. We all took seats in a large room filled with concrete vats filled with fermenting (?) wine. We tasted 4 wines – one white, 3 reds. Apparently 95% of the wines produced in Beaujolais are reds. Once again, the explanation went right over my head.

We were given glasses and small samples of each wine, dumping out the remainder of the previous sample (if there was any), and adding a bit of the next one. We were also provided bread. Of the four, I liked the white wine the best, which is unusual. Even though I only took tiny sips, by the fourth wine I could feel the alcohol starting to upset my stomach (which is what alcohol has always done to my stomach, which is one of the many reasons why I drink virtually no alcohol).

That was the end of the excursion. It would be a 2 hour drive to lunch, so many people took advantage of the bathroom before climbing back onto the bus.

It was very difficult to stay awake during the drive, so I didn’t bother to fight it.

We stopped at this beautiful venue – the Chateau de Fontager. Exactly where this was located, I couldn’t tell you. It was a huge mansion that had been converted into a hotel. This venue could easily mange a couple hundred people for lunch.

Unfortunately the food wasn’t very good – the chronic problem with feeding massive numbers of people: the food is bland and/or overcooked. After a couple of days of “chicken breast in cheese sauce” or “chicken breast in mushroom sauce {with cheese lurking somewhere}”, it was getting tiresome. BUT the dessert was great!

Another couple of hours on the bus to go – but a different bus, bus driver, and no tour guide. Our original bus and tour guide headed back to Lyon.

Another couple of hours on the road to Avignon…lots of farms to see along the way, including cherry tree orchards. I couldn’t get a good photo of one – the trees were all maybe 5 ft tall to make it easy to pick the cherries.

We also saw this interesting formation:

We arrived at the ship right around 5:00. During lunch we had all checked our Apple AirTags and saw that our luggage was already in Avignon. The Viking Buri crew had already distributed our luggage to the rooms. Several Viking longships were stacked up side-by-side (no surprise, because none of them could go anywhere), so we had to walk through one Viking ship to get to our ship. YAY ON OUR SHIP AT LAST YAY!

Before dinner, we were introduced to the crew. Our program director, Lisette, explained what the plan is for tomorrow (Wednesday): we sail (YAY) at 9:00 a.m. to Chateauneuf-du-Pape, where we will dock. At 2:00 p.m. we will board buses to take us Viviers, where we will have our previously scheduled city walk AND also now a home visit. Apparently bathroom breaks will be tricky, so one has been built into the drive for just before we arrive in Viviers, and then also during the home visit. I’m very pleased that they worked hard to build in the bathroom visits. Too many times I’ve been on excursions where breaks were an after-thought.

Another bit of good news – Lisette announced up front about the “leisure” version of the walk. In the past it had not been announced to everybody – news of it spread by word of mouth. Which makes zero sense. Anyway, Susie, Janet, and I are now all signed up for the “leisure” versions, freeing Andy to go on the regular version and walk at a normal human pace.

Then it was time for dinner – the crew was ever so excited to see us! We could just imagine how bored they must have been, once the previous cruisers had left and before we arrived. We all had something that was NOT “chicken with cheese sauce”.

Tomorrow: a leisurely morning, and a walk in the medieval town of Viviers.

Where We See A Bit Of Lyon And Hear Some Good News For A Change

When you go on a cruise, you see snippets of many places. Today’s snippet was Lyon. We had our included Lyon city tour in the morning, then Andy, Susie, and Janet had an additional excursion to the medieval city of Perouges.

There were 3 buses – one was for the people going on both the city tour and Perouges excursion, the other two for the morning tour only. So which bus do *I* go on? Fortunately, the organizers and Program director had the correct answer – I stay with my group on the Perouges bus for the morning, and ride back to the hotel after lunch on one of the other buses.

Before we departed Lisette came on board and announced that Tuesday we would be heading to the ship in Avignon – program of the entire day in the works. Looking better for some sailing during the week. Yay!

Our tour guide Christian, early history of Lyon – the original Roman name of the city was Lugdunum, which eventually morphed into “Lyon”. It was a city of merchants, known for the silk trade. Over the centuries as the silk trade faded, the city transitioned into industry instead.

We drove to the top of Fourviere Hill, where the Basilica of Notre Dame resides. Here are views from the top of the hill:

The origin of the church is unique in France during <a war that I don’t remember>, the people of the town prayed that if the town was spared from the war, they would pay to build a church. The town was spared from the war, and the church was built with public funds – in only 30 years! To this day public funds support the basilica – the only church in France with public support.

Christian our tour guide told us the story of the origin of the croissant: originally from Vienna, hundreds of years ago bakers would bake the daily bread in bakeries outside the city to keep fire outside the city walls. The bakers saw the incoming Turkish invasion and warned the city officials in time to thwart the invasion. In celebration, the bakers created a new special treat in the shape of the Turkish symbol the crescent – and thus the croissant was born! The croissant was brought to France by Marie Antoinette. Whatever else she did, at least she got that right!

Obligatory bathroom story: in the bathroom located in the courtyard of the basilica, it took me way too long to figure out how to get water to flow from the faucet. The on/off mechanism was a lever on top of the spigot that I had to push all the way back over the top of the spigot and then let it go. I’ve never seen anything like that anywhere, and considering how many European bathrooms I’ve been in, that’s say A LOT.

It was time to get back on the bus and drive down the hill towards the old city. Christian pointed out the view of the basilica from down below – fondly referred to as the “upside down elephant”

Continuing our drive to the old city, Christian pointed out the decorative troupe-l’oeil paintings on the side of the buildings, depicting assorted moments in French history. We didn’t actually stop and get out, so I took the photo through the bus window. It’s hard to see what’s going on.

When we arrived in the old city, Christian lead us through the cobble stone streets to the entrance of the first of 3 “traboules” – 16the century tunnels hidden within the old city’s buildings.

cobblestones hard to walk on and lots of standing, historic puppet store front,

The cobblestone streets were extremely difficult to walk on, and it didn’t help that we stood still for 10 to 15 minutes at a time with no place to sit. With great relief, we arrived at the restaurant for lunch.

As Christian had described, we sat shoulder to shoulder and most of the food was sent out in bowls for people to pass around. The first course included 7 appetizers: two kinds of potato salads, pickled beets, charcuterie meats (not particularly attractive), and lentils. I’m missing a couple here, but you get the drift. We noticed that the bowls tended to stay at one end of the long table, and we had to constantly ask them to send them down our way.

The main course – described as “cheese with chicken” – proved to be accurate: grilled chicken nuggets drowning in a melted brie sauce. And cheesy potatoes. The main course was delivered already plated, so we didn’t have the “send the bowl, please!” problem.

Though it resurfaced with dessert: meringue, rice pudding, prunes in wine, pears in wine, BUT NO CHOCOLATE. What!

After lunch, I separated from our group and went back to the hotel on a different bus. I had a great conversation with this large family group, regaling them with stories about our Australian cruise debacle. I assured them that whatever nonsense we were going through now was nothing in comparison.

While I was taking a nap in the room, Andy, Susie, and Janet were walking on even more cobblestones in the medieval town of Perouges (peh-ROUGE). At the end of the visit, they were treated to a specialty of the town.

They arrived back right around 6:00ish. I was waiting for them in the lobby, reading the program for tomorrow. We agreed to meet for dinner at 7:00.

Due to the location of the hotel – several miles away from the town center – logistics made it basically impossible to go anywhere but the assigned restaurant for dinner. Unfortunately.

Knowing how quickly Viking put everything together, it was impressive that anything worked at all. But the restaurant was woefully unprepared for the large number of people showing up on their doorstep. We arrived shortly after 7:00 p.m. – I was chasing after a server to get us a menu 30 minutes later. I think we finally got our food some time after 8:30. We were disappointed in the meal – though the dessert was excellent. We are seriously looking forward to the ship on Tuesday!

Tomorrow: We board buses and head towards Avignon, first completing what would have been the included excursion for whatever port we would have docked at, if things had been “normal”. Then lunch, followed by a 2 hour drive to Avignon – and then, the ship!

Where We Sadly Leave Paris Though Looking Forward To Lyon, And We Begin The Non-cruising Cruising Part Of The Adventure.

With Much Confusion, As Is Tradition

The bus taking us to the Gare de Lyon train station was scheduled to depart at 8:00 a.m. Our bags had to be out in the hallway at 6:30 a.m. So we had to be up at 5:00 a.m. to take showers and pack up the stuff we couldn’t pack the night before.

5:00 a.m. Blech. I thought I retired to get away from 5:00 a.m. alarm clocks,

But we did it. Janet and Susie came down to the lobby around 7:30. We loaded up the bus a little before 8:00.

And then the real confusion began – totally understanding that Viking has been doing their best to figure out a solution to the mess we’re in with all the strikes AND in a very short time frame, we could see some little details were falling through the cracks and some things just weren’t going to work. Arnaud transitioned his leadership to Karina, who would accompany us to the train. It was not clear if she would be ON the train with us.

Before heading to the Gare de Lyon (seemingly pronounced “gahrdlyon” in one giant word and barely two syllables), we stopped by another hotel to pick up more Viking people – who were a bit surprised to see us all.

Once at the train station, Karina handed out tickets – in a rather bizarre fashion. Understanding that Viking bought seats that were available, wherever they were on the train, no effort was put into assigning the seats by groups. Karina handed out sets of two to a few couples. Susie asked for a set of 4, so we could at least be in the same car. Karina said she didn’t have a set of 4, so we’d have to do 2 and 2. Susie and Janet are now in coach 2, and Andy and I are in coach 3. And then Karina handed out a batch of 4 – to someone else. Karina said we could swap seats with anyone willing to do so. What?

The seat issue unresolved, we toddled our way to the center of the lobby. We had a bit of time to roam around before we needed to head to the gate. Of course, my goal was to find a bathroom before getting on the train. There was one bathroom and it was padlocked. No idea why. No one to ask. No sign on the door. Nothing.

So far we’ve noticed this is the typical way problems are dealt with, at least in Paris. If a particular elevator is broken (the middle elevator at our Paris hotel would sit at the lobby floor with its doors opening and closing, opening and closing, opening and closing…and not allowing the other two elevators to work normally), then use the elevator around the corner. If there’s something wrong with the one and only public bathroom in a train station, padlock it and oh well.

When it was time to head to the gate, there were multiple people looking for a bathroom. Good news! Our train was already waiting for us 20 minutes early and we could check in – and use the bathroom on the train!

The train itself is a sleek, high speed machine – a double decker, and of course Andy and I are on the upper level after a flight of stairs. Technically we are sitting “together” in that our seats are consecutive, but I’m sitting in front of Andy, not next to him. Whatever.

The seat was very comfortable and I was even able to sleep a bit – the headrest was actually near my head level, which is highly unusual.

It was not clear if Karina came on the train with us. I don’t think so? But she did come through the gate to make sure we were all on the train. She made sure to mention to get off at the SECOND Lyon stop, not the first.

Once we arrived in Lyon at the correct Lyon stop, we were greeted by Elizabeth in her classic red Viking jacket. The bus was running late, so we stepped off to the side to find a seat.

Once on the bus, almost immediately the confusion intensified. Elizabeth casually mentioned that the group on the bus would be split between TWO hotels, and then proceeded to read an even more confusing list of names of people who would be in certain “cabin” numbers. Cabin numbers? Are we camping or something?

Even worse, groups of people were being split up. One person from a group of 7 – an elderly father/grandfather – was in one hotel, and the rest of his family in another. Susie and Janet were in one hotel, and Andy and I were in another. When everybody pushed back on this craziness, Elizabeth did not respond well: “The hotels are far apart, but you can walk the 45 minutes between them!”. WHAT?!? Then she realized she had made a mess, and said she’d call the program director to figure it out.

Ok, so now with most people on the bus kinda upset, and all of us completely confused, we arrived at the first hotel. Our program director, Lisette, hopped on board and immediately calmed everybody down by saying that she would review all the room assignments and make sure no groups would be split up.

As for the 4 of us – Elisabeth had simply been wrong. We were all at the same hotel – the one where we were parked. Whew, ok, that problem solved.

Lisette also announced that for sure we would be staying at these hotels for two nights. She apologized in advance for the disruption (that was completely out of Viking’s control), and acknowledged that whatever had been planned for the next week is completely up in the air – that they were working on making sure we would see as much of the original itinerary as possible, but for sure there would be more bus rides and less cruising than originally planned. She confirmed that the ship is still in Avignon because of the lock workers’ strike, with no idea when the strike would be over. She said that Thursday, March 23 was going to be a day full of strikes, but that they were going to somehow work around it. For sure on Tuesday, we would be transported to the ship, wherever it might be – could be Avignon, could be someplace else on the river, all depending on the lock workers.

We then could enter the hotel, where we were guided to lunch, while we were waiting for our rooms to be ready and our luggage to arrive from Paris.

After lunch we picked up our room keys – and our luggage had arrived! We went up to our rooms agreeing to meet in a bit to take the shuttle into Lyon to the Place Bellecour.

Which we did. Though because it had been raining and was still overcast, there were few people about. All the stores were closed because it was Sunday. We wandered around the plaza a bit to get a good look at Louis XIV and his horse.

But then we could feel the rain starting again. We headed towards a store front with an overhang to hide. Just in time for the skies to open. And we were stuck. At least we could say we left the hotel and went into the town, even though it was only for a short while. And then we called an Uber and went back to the hotel.

As the car arrived, a spectacular double rainbow appeared in the sky. We all took a bunch of photos, but none of them do it justice. The colors were brilliant – and we could even see the indigo, which never happens.

Back at the hotel we received our program for tomorrow – basically what had been originally planned: Included city tour in the morning, with lunch <somewhere>, then back to the hotel in time for those people who elected to go on an additional excursion. Andy, Susie, and Janet will be going on that excursion, but I will stay back and do <something I dunno probably write a blog>.

It’s late, so I’m going to wrap this up. We need to be at breakfast by 8:00ish to be ready for the bus at 9:00.

Tomorrow: Lyon city tour, and maybe we’ll find out where the boat is docked.

Where We Manage To Mess Up Most Of The Day, But Have Good Conversations

It was nice not to be in a hurry Saturday morning. We took our time with everything. We knew we had our Eiffel Tower tickets at 3:00, but we were open to doing something in the morning. We decided to try to get into the Musee de l’Orangerie – mostly Impressionist artists, especially and particularly Monet’s “Water Lilies”.

Problem was, we had something already planned with tickets and everything. We just forgot all about it. We had bought tickets for the Sainte Chapelle church, very close to Notre Dame. BUT, I had bought the tickets from the church’s website, not Trip Advisor. Trip Advisor sends little nag-o-grams to remind you. The church does not.

Oblivious to our actual plans, we made our way to the Musee de l’Orangerie. Andy stood on the line to buy tickets, and I sat on a bench watching the people go by in the Place de la Concorde. Regardless what protests happen in the evening, in the day time it’s always business as usual.

Andy stood in that line quite some time. He had a great conversation with a young woman from Korea who will soon be moving to Fairfax, VA to be a nurse with iNOVA.

By now it was approaching 1:30 p.m. (90 minutes in that line!) and still not even close to buying tickets, much less entering the museum. And we had to be at a certain spot by 3:00 p.m. to meet the Viator tour person who would give us our Eiffel Tower tickets. And we hadn’t had lunch. We decided to give up.

We took an Uber to the meeting spot, which is also a cafe. We had a small lunch – we were done just sat the Viator person arrived.

It was a relatively short walk to the Tower entrance. And then the fun began.

Even with tickets, there was still a long line to go through security. There was no place for me to sit. A Tower employee saw me and allowed me to cut through 99% of the line. Woot! And then on the other side was ANOTHER line for the elevator. Still no place to sit, and the line moved very, very slowly.

As we finally reached the actual entrance and scanned our tickets, the entrance person mentioned that safety regulations require that you be physically able to walk down all the steps from the top in case the elevator stopped working. Which had happened just that week. A subtle hint that maybe I shouldn’t go to the very top. I pondered while we took the elevator to the 2nd level.

Not surprisingly, it was very windy and chilly up there. The views made up for it, of course.

We looked around for the elevator to the top and discovered that there was yet another full flight of stairs to climb to get to the level where the summit elevators were located. That’s when I decided to stay on the 2nd level – another flight of stairs up, go to the top, come down, a flight of stairs down, then a long wait to go all the way to the bottom and exit. Yeah, I’m good with the second level.

This is my favorite photo from the 2nd level – caught in a hot second when I saw other people hurrying to snap photos.

I sat back down on the bench to continue people watching. There was a man sitting to my left, but we weren’t paying any attention to each other. Then the man’s family appeared, including a guide dog. The man’s wife said to him, “You need to move over to the end, because he {the dog} is not happy with you so far away. He {the dog} insists on lying here in this spot and you have to sit where he can reach you.” So the man dutifully shifted over to the end of the bench, such that he was sitting directly over the dog. Then his wife and kids went off to take more photos of the view.

Out of the blue, the man starts talking to me – about how his family lives in Boise, ID, and the flight to Paris was atrocious (multiple stops), and his poor dog wasn’t happy, but they absolutely had to bring him….and that’s when I realized that the man was severely sight impaired.

And after that, we compared winters – Boise having a record cold winter with record snow levels vs. MD with a very warm winter and potentially record low snow falls, etc. And he and his family was familiar with the DC area – his father-in-law had lived there, and they had visited many times while the father-in-law was ill with cancer. {I didn’t dare ask if his father-in-law was still around…}

When his wife and kids came back, it was time for them to go. His wife asked me what the story was with tipping the bathroom attendant. I said I had absolutely no clue – the tipping rules in Europe are different than in the US, but every time we think we have it figured out, we’re wrong. We tend to like to err in favor of tipping somebody when we shouldn’t than risk insulting somebody that we didn’t tip.

With that, I shook hands with the guy, and off they went. Never found out their names, but it doesn’t matter.

Andy came back shortly after that, and we started our trek back down to the ground. Fortunately there were benches by the down elevator – I just shooed some teenagers away and took a seat.

Some views from the summit:

Once we were back on ground level, we couldn’t figure out the best way out.

Naturally we picked the exact wrong exit – diagonally across from where we *should* have exited to minimize the walk. But it was beautiful out as we strolled back towards the hotel. There was some kind of long distance race taking place in the city – we saw the lead runners go by. This explained the extra police presence and fences blocking off streets.

Back at the hotel we had a little time before meeting Susie and Janet for our evening dinner cruise. I was looking through my paperwork to find the voucher, when I saw the tickets for Sainte Chapelle. Good Grief. Luckily, it wasn’t a whole lot, and I bought the tickets directly from the church, so I considered it a donation.

Susie and Janet at a wonderful time at Versailles. Like most everything else in and around Paris, it’s been spiffed up and polished in preparation for the 2024 Summer Olympics.

Our dinner cruise was with the Bateaux Mouche company, not terribly far from the hotel. We grabbed a cab right outside the hotel. It should have been an 8 minute drive. It became obvious that the cabbie had made a mistake and didn’t know what he was doing, when he wanted to drop us off across a major street from the dock – with no crosswalk or any obviously safe place to cross. He drove around a little more, made a left turn, and pulled off to the side in the general area of the entrance. Once we got out of the cab it was very obvious that he had missed the entrance to the dock – we saw buses and cars pulling up right in front of the Bateaux Mouches entrance.

It was still not clear what we were supposed to do – the ticket didn’t provide clear instructions. So we kept showing our ticket to anybody who looked official, until someone waived us inside to the reception desk, where we picked up our boarding passes. Still more walking to go to find the correct boat.

There was live music – a pianist and a violinist. Just a bit too loud for our tastes, though the music was excellent.

We had a 4 course meal – all of it very good, especially for dinner cruise food.

Of course at some point I had to find the bathroom which was, of course, down a flight of stairs. The attendant offered to help me use the “stair chair” thing, but I can’t stand those. I just did my best with the stairs.

When I came up, I found the violinist bouncing around the dance floor to assorted typical Jewish celebration songs, including “Hava Nagilah”, with a crown of people bouncing around him. And just like that, it felt like we were at a bar mitzvah!

It was a very nice evening – a great way to end our time in Paris. It was now going on 11:00 p.m. and we had to figure out how to get ourselves back to the hotel.

We were fiddling with Uber, when a taxi van showed up in front of us. Woot! We grabbed it.

This van had a very high clearance off the ground – getting us, and in particular, me, into the van was a serious challenge. But we did it!

Little did we know we would be treated to the full “Paris cab driver” experience, with all sorts of crazy moves and fun language describing the other drivers. We felt lucky to arrive back at the hotel in one piece. I’m glad I wasn’t in the front seat.

Tomorrow: Onward to Lyon

Where We Get Up Ridiculously Early to Go On The Freebie Viking Excursion – Paris Panoramic City Tour

And See A Lot Of Garbage

Literally

Day 1 (or maybe it’s Day 1.5, hard to tell) finally came to an end after we met up with my sisters-in-law, Susie and Janet. They flew in from Florida and were most likely the last of the Viking pre-extension group. It sounded like by the time they arrived at the hotel, Arnaud, our Viking host, was gone for the day, so they missed out on the Arnaud Welcome: a 10 minute lecture delivered at warp 29 with all the instructions we need for our stay in Paris.

It was great to reconnect with them over dinner, though we could tell that all of us were fading really, really fast. And then we all realized that we would need to get up really early Friday morning to be ready to board the bus for our Panoramic City Tour of Paris. Viking offers one freebie excursion per port – of course, Paris is an extension and not a “port”, but a city tour is included.

Andy and I were up at 6:30 – notice I said “up” and not “awake”. I definitely was not awake. I know I had breakfast, but it’s a little fuzzy as to what I actually ate.

Before we boarded the bus, Susie and Janet got to meet Arnaud, who absolutely had to launch into is 10 minute lecture. I think he’s incapable of NOT fulfilling every dot and ditto of his obligations to every guest.

Nonetheless, at 9:00 a.m. we were on the bus with our tour guide of the day, Karina. Everyone had heard about the ongoing protests against the government’s (specifically President Macron’s) push to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. And the garbage collector’s protest strike, which had been already going on for 2 weeks. Karina made zero mention of the violent protests from the night before, but she did mention the garbage that was (and still is) piling up on the street corners. She told us that this is not what Paris usually looks like and sorta jokingly asked us to “not look at the garbage”.

I didn’t take too many photos today – we’ve seen many of these places many times. However, it was important to get selfies at the usual spots.

But I also felt the need to document the other things that cannot be unseen. Like the garbage.

And also, the quiet presence of police armed with Very Large Guns

But contrary to what the news reports would lead you to believe, in fact, the entire city of Paris is not on fire, and at least for today, there were no violent demonstrations during the day while we were driving around in our bus. Karina did point out that despite the protests, Paris is an extremely safe city (except for the pick pockets).

When Parisians want to protest, they go to the Place de la Concorde – a plaza that has seen the defeat of the Nazis and also thousands and thousands of people killed by the guillotine. Whatever crazy activity had happened the night before, it was hard to find evidence of it this morning. All the trash and other mess had been cleaned up, and it was all business as usual.

But we did spot one bit of damage to the pavement, that, though it wasn’t all that big, managed to make the crazy traffic a little harder to navigate in order to get around this smallish mess.

Even still, Paris is still Paris. The streets that are not clogged with trash are still beautiful.

The tour ended with the Eiffel Tower, just in time for lunch. We wandered around the corner from our hotel. I finally remembered to have French onion soup, another one of my little traditions when in Paris. Susie and Janet had their Viator group tour of the Louvre at 3:00 – 3 hours of being dragged around that ginormous and un-navigable monster museum. Andy went running and I took a nap.

We took a walk up to the Tower. I never get tired of looking at it. It’s just the craziest thing.

At some point, Andy went back to the hotel to get extra hoodies, because it was getting chilly and felt like rain was coming. While he was gone, an Israeli family sat on the bench next to me – I can recognize Hebrew anywhere. I understood tiny snippets of the conversation. Out of the blue, one guy suddenly asks me in English, “Do you know where the nearest toilet is?” Whereupon we launched into this crazy conversation about how come there’s no public toilets in Paris, somebody could make a lot of money renting public toilets….and that his brother was Danny DeVito, and I said, I didn’t realize Danny DeVito was Israeli….and then I think he realized that I had realized he was joking…and on and on, this conversation just got crazier and crazier.

Just as suddenly, he switches back to Hebrew to discuss dinner plans with the family. His wife wants felalfel. He thinks to get felafel they’ll need to find Chabad, or at least the Jewish quarter (not sure why he forgot that it was already super close to Shabbat (the Jewish sabbath starts Friday evening) other than the usual discombobulation when traveling across time zones). Recognizing the words for “Jewish quarter” in Hebrew, I jumped back into the conversation and told him that the Jewish quarter in Paris is quite a schlep (and I used the word “schlep”) from where we were sitting – at least a 20 minute drive.

More crazy conversation ensues regarding the availability of restaurants in the immediate area (that would also take care of the bathroom question), when Andy arrived back with my hoodie and was able to provide directions to the street near our hotel that has a bunch of restaurants. My advice – pick any one at random. They’re all good.

And then off they went. I’m not sure they ever picked up on the fact that I was Jewish. That whole interaction was a HOOT!

For dinner, we wanted to go to our favorite restaurant – La Couple in Montparnasse. Even more important than the excellent food is my favorite dessert – profiteroles! Pronounced “pro-FEE-tehr-rolls”, they are pastries stuffed with ice cream and served smothered in chocolate sauce. I have yet to find profiteroles in the US that match anything I’ve had in France. Andy and I make sure to go to La Couple if we’re ever in Paris, even if for the day.

It was now time to make our way to the restaurant, where we met Susie and Janet, completely exhausted from hoofing around the Louvre for 3 hours. They saw the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo – check and check! They saw other things as well, but the important items are now taken care of.

I had “Beef Fondant Grandma’s Way” or something to that effect – basically pot roast with whipped potatoes. The pot roast was amazingly tender, yummmm….

But the best part of all:

Stuffed to the gills and once again feeling the fade-at-the-end-of-the-day, we ubered back to the hotel.

Where we watched one elevator with psychological issues open and close its doors repeatedly for several minutes. Apparently, this has been happening since we arrived here – the middle elevator is just not well, and so far the hotel staff’s suggestion is: use the elevator around the corner. Ok, but this doesn’t solve the problem.

As I write this up, we all receive an email from Viking: because of the continuing strikes all over the country, our ship won’t be in Lyon on Sunday to meet us. Therefore, when we arrive in Lyon on Sunday (this is assuming the trains will be running on Sunday), we will be staying at a hotel. Since the first two nights in Lyon we would be using the ship as a hotel anyway (Lyon is considered an “overnight” port), this doesn’t change all that much. Except that means we’ll need to pack up again when the ship does arrive.

Being “stuck” in Lyon is infinitely better than being stuck at sea.

Tomorrow: Andy and I will go see Monet’s “Water Lillies” + our official Eiffel Tower visit. Susie and Janet have their Versailles excursion with Viking. And for dinner we will meet up for a Seine dinner cruise.

Where We Manage To Get Ourselves To Paris Without Mishap

After all the craziness with our last Excellent Adventure, it was great that we:

1. showed up at the airport on time,

2. boarded the plane just a few minutes late,

3. had an uneventful and (as is tradition) sleepless flight,

4. grabbed our bags off the carousel very quickly,

5. found the Viking rep and was escorted to the shuttle,

6. arrived at the hotel after a quick 90 minute traffic jam that looked amazingly similar to DC/New York/LA traffic jams, {Note – we had an entertaining conversation with the shuttle driver (who spoke almost no English). We managed to figure out that the garbage worker demonstrations were a part of the cause of the extra traffic – and the other day it took her 2 hours to get from CDG airport to Paris.}

7. discovered at check in that we had a room available immediately, (that, of course, as is tradition, has a view of another building and its parking lot, as opposed to the Eiffel Tower, located 2 blocks away),

That allowed us to immediately enjoy the beautiful Spring day in Paris by going to lunch at the first place we could find. Though, of course, we had to take a selfie. You can see that I have a new hat, or alternatively, I’m now a unicorn.

One of the best things about Paris is: it’s really hard to find bad food. Here I am in my happy place:

We finished off our marvelous meal with unbelievably good chocolate/Nutella crepes.

We are off to the races!

After lunch, we figured out how to buy tickets to visit the Pantheon. The last time we visited in 2014, the main hall was covered in plastic and painting tarps for its renovation. We took a cab from out front the hotel; we engaged in a great conversation with the cabbie about how the demonstrations have been randomly closing roads (learned a new phrase: tout de jours (every day)) for many days and he might have to drop us off 1 Km away. But! Voila! He figured it out and dropped us off right in front. Magnifique!

The Pantheon is a monument/mausoleum honoring important French citizens, modeled after the Pantheon in Rome. The main hall has paintings and soaring domes.

The lower level contains the crypts of renowned French citizens. Of course, because this building was built in the 18th century, visiting the crypt involves many, many steps.

Some of the crypts include: Voltaire, Rousseau, Louis Braille, Alexandre Dumas, and Pierre and Marie Curie.

{Fun facts (as far as I know): Alexandre Dumas is the only person of color and Marie Curie is the only woman entombed in the Pantheon. Also, Marie Curie’s casket is either lined with or made of lead, because her body is still radioactive. Yikes!}

The whole visit took about 90 minutes. And it was absolutely FREEZING in there. I bet that will feel nice in August.

As is tradition, there’s always a bathroom story sooner or later. The bathrooms were located UP a very long, spiral staircase. I hate spiral staircases – the steps are narrow, these steps are very old and worn, and there’s a lot of them. I had a few people behind me patiently waiting for me to finish my tortoise-like climb. The good news – there was another flight of spiral stairs that took us back up to the main level, eliminating an extra flight of unnecessary steps.

On our way out, we saw this….interesting….painting of the martyrdom of Saint Denis. No idea what’s going on here. Obviously, this was our cue to return to the hotel.

I’m going to wrap this up fairly quickly – I’m fading rapidly and it’s time for this day to finally come to an end (I think it’s still Thursday). I’m sure I left out details.

Tomorrow: The included Viking excursion: grand tour of Paris, most likely visiting places we’ve seen a few times. But it’s free, so why not.

Amy and Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2023 Part Deux: France Edition

(No This Isn’t The Freebie Compensation Cruise For the NZ/Oz Debacle)

Starting off with a gratuitous Bugsy photo, because he’s peacefully snoring away next to me as I type up this test blog post. I always like to make sure everything works before I go – the iPad is up to date, the WordPress app works, and I remember how to do all the things to actually post something.

We are off again on another cruise! This time it’s a river cruise – on the Rhône in France. It’s been a while since we’ve spent more than a day here and there in France. I’m so excited! France is probably my favorite country to visit: my favorite cuisine, beautiful cities, and beautiful countryside.

To be absolutely clear – this is NOT the freebie cruise to compensate for the NZ/Oz debacle of December 2022/January 2023. We booked this cruise some time in 2022 long before we flew to Auckland. The actual (almost) freebie cruise will be this August.

This is our itinerary – we fly into Paris, stay for 2 nights/3 days, followed by a train ride to Lyon where we board our ship. Then we travel down the Rhône to Avignon, where we disembark. We fly back from Marseille.

Our hotel in Paris is located just about across the street from le Tour Eiffel. My guess is the view from our room will NOT be of the tower, because we’re usually not so lucky.

Looking forward to revisiting some favorite spots in Paris – including the Tower, which is just marvelous in its ridiculousness – and hunting down my favorite dessert: Profiteroles!

Next up: Day 1 – Getting ourselves to Paris

Where We Adjust To Life At Sea, And To Absolutely No One’s Amazement, It Is Just As Boring As We Figured It Would Be

I’m lumping Days 9 and 10 together, because so little has happened that there is no point in fussing with the wifi for two separate posts.

The days are blurring together due to their sameness.

Day 9

1. Get up.

2. Have breakfast.

3. Andy goes to exercise.

4. I go do laundry. Ok, the laundry had a smidge of drama, because one of the machines was broken. Two guys showed up in what looked like hazmat suits with little Viking logos on the back. They poked and prodded the washer, peered into it with flashlights, pushed some buttons, and watched it start a wash cycle. I left at this point. When I came back 45 minutes later, the “out of service” sign was gone.

5. Went to lunch.

6. Did we do the name that tune game? Or was that Day 10?

7. Definitely did the trivia game, I remember that. It’s becoming more popular as the days go by and people are running out of things to do.

8. Went to dinner. Pretty sure we had a good conversation. People are beginning to get chatty, seeing as we’re all stuck with each other. Though we are still struggling to remember people’s names.

9. We went to another one of the movies in the planetarium dome. This time, however, Andy has figured out how to avoid climbing the glass staircase from Deck 7 to Deck 8, even after repeated inquiries about the existence of an elevator have been denied. There is, in fact, an elevator, because there are staterooms on Deck 8. These are the huge and expensive suites. I guess these people pay so much they have their own elevator. We beg to differ. We took the elevator to from Deck 2 to Deck 8, and walked forward to the Explorer Lounge where the theater is located. We watched the movie on Whales and Dolphins, which, not surprisingly, leaves me a little green for a bit afterwards.

9. Went the evening’s entertainment: the assistant cruise director, Garrett Jones, puts on a one-person singing and dancing show. He is extraordinarily talented, the highlight of the day. I hope one day he gets off this ship some day and leverages his talent for bigger things.

10. We did attempt some star gazing with the resident astronomer up on Deck 9, but the cloud cover overwhelmed everything except the moon, so we gave up.

Day 10

Quite a busy day!

After the usual Get Up/Have Breakfast, we go to a lecture on the history of Australia, Part 2. We missed Part 1 somewhere.

We left the lecture a little early to make sure we make it up to the dome by 10:20 for the resident astronomer’s talk – i.e. he uses the planetarium dome as a planetarium. Excellent talk, as always.

I sat in on a cooking demo (HAVE I REALLY SUNK SO LOW?) that was pulled together last minute to keep us entertained. Now I have a recipe for making chocolate mousse that I think even I can pull off. The head chef kept making the same joke: that because he was doing this demo there’d be no gelato at lunch. Yeah, we all know better. True story: the kitchen is busy literally around the clock, with three teams prepping for the next meal changing shifts every few hours, interspersed with kitchen sanitization.

Followed by – LUNCH, and then Name That Tune (TV theme songs). We teamed up with the random people sitting near us. We didn’t do too horribly.

Then I think we participated in the trivia game (be some kind of miracle if we ever win one of these).

Keeping with our busy pace, we found a spot in the atrium to watch a performance by everybody on staff who can sing. The theme was supposed to be “Swing”. The first few numbers were, but then not. Which was fine – all the vocalists were great!

At dinner, we had another great conversation – this time I remember their names: Mary and Barbara. Together we marvel at the bit of land we see after 3 days of nothing but open water. It’s a marvelous giant rock – Wilson’s Promontory National Park

Little did we know this would be the last land we’d see for another couple of days.

After dinner, we saw the classical guitarist performance. The musician said he had taken this gig kinda last minute, which messed up Christmas. He said he’d make it up to his mum once he got off the ship at Adelaide and went home. Yep, not so soon, I’m afraid.

Because we’re wild and crazy party people, we sat in on the house band’s set. I, for one, didn’t last into their second set.

Oh yes, and we were told to set our clocks back 30 minutes. We’d already turned the clock back and hour, twice. An hour made sense. Thirty minutes? Apparently Adelaide is in a time zone that’s 30 minutes behind Melbourne. Of course it is!

Tomorrow: Our last Day at Sea? Or is it?

Where We Spend Day 1 of 4 Days At Sea Exactly How We Figured It Would Go

Before launching into Day 8, I’d like to officially finish Day 7 with these two photos that I took last night during a last minute night star demo by our resident astronomer up on Deck 9. Ian (the astronomer) had arranged for the Deck 9 lights to be turned off to allow us to have a great view of the night sky. I was able to grab these two photos.

Anyway. Day 1 proceeded as follows:

1. Breakfast.

2. Andy exercises. I look for a place to hang out. Unfortunately, the spot on Deck 2 aft is blocked off (maybe the rocking and/or the wind?). I ended up on the Deck 7 terrace by the buffet.

3. Have lunch – the restaurant was closed, so the buffet it is.

4. Hang out exactly where we are, because deck 2 aft is closed.

5. Sit in on the daily trivia. Got 14 points out of a possible 23.

6. Go back to the room to change for dinner.

7. Go to the Abba revue show at 6:00 pm, where we are amazed that we recognize so few songs. And yet a woman behind us knew every word of every song. We know this because she sang out loud every word to every song. Good news: she could carry the tune pretty well.

8. Go to dinner. We had a great conversation with a couple from Nashville.

9. Wandered around a bit. We ended up listening to the pianist in the atrium and watching the Christmas decorations away with the ship. Of course, the ship wifi won’t let me upload a clip.

I don’t remember anything else?

Tomorrow: Day 2 of 4. Rinse and repeat.