Friday 26 June
We left Umbertide in the capable hands of our house/cat sitters and drove to ISA Residences where we spent the night and left our car in their garage. We always have dinner in Altavela restaurant. It was a pleasant evening.

The biggest issue was daunting. My suitcase was locked. A combination lock. It had always worked smoothly, until it didn’t. We could not open it. We couldn’t get to any of our clothes. We had a second suitcase with toiletries, underwear, PJs so we could survive for the first day or two.

Saturday 27 June
Next day we took their shuttle to the Airport and checked in at Lufthansa. We were flying to Munich and connecting to Lyon France. The first flight was on time. We went to the next gate and waited to board. It was 39c degrees or about 100f. This was slowing down all operations. From the luggage people to the airplanes themselves. We left an hour late. I never experienced such a long acceleration. It seemed we would never lift off. Finally we struggled into the air. Apparently there is less lift in such heat.

We arrived in Lyon and got our luggage. It was EU to EU flight so no passport rigamaroll. I had hired a driver to take us to Chalon-sur-Saone, about 1.5 hours away. It was an easy, smooth traffic free ride on good highways.

We were staying at the St Regis. It is a bit down at the heel. Could use refurbishing. It is a grand old building. The AC was miniscule. It was struggling with the 104 degree heat that day. My sister and her husband were already there and we arrived an hour after they had eaten. They were tired after a transatlantic flight, and jet lagged. They hung around an hour or so and then went up to bed. Dinner was sub par. But it was conveniently in the hotel.

Sunday, 28 June
Up for showers and breakfast. I had brought a pair of shorts to wear in the room in the small suitcase so I switched to them but only had the same t shirt. This makes day three of wearing it. I was desperate to get the suitcase open. We had decided the lock must be somehow broken. The plan was to taxi to a hardware store the next day and see if I could find a set of cutters.

Meanwhile we visited the Sunday market. It was a great small town market. Chock full of beautiful foods. More rotisserie chickens than I’ve ever seen. We bought a picnic and stopped for water and later wine. There wasn’t a tourist to be seen. It was obviously 40% shopping trip and 60% socializing with friends. Nice.

Then we walked to lunch. It was 100F and a difficult 8 minute walk from the market in full sun. We crossed the Saône River to a small island. Many restaurants were on this one pretty street. Not a one was open. Seems Sunday is a totally dead day. We did find one restaurant before we came serving lunch so we had made reservations. Les Gormands Disent was the name. It had a three course menu with two choices for each course. I wasn’t thrilled with mine. I had a cold almond soup but it had fish in it. I wasn’t fond of the fish. Then I got mosaic something. Was purées of white and black cauliflower. With some sort of fish. Again the fish was not my cuppa. Dessert was strawberries and meringues and white chocolate which was good enough. We had a nice white burgundy wine. Luther had a good looking appetizer, beets with goat cheese. Picture below.

We managed to get a taxi called to take us back – highway robbery but it was so hot! Normally we would walk it.

We had bought cheese and chorizo and bread for a snack in the evening. There was no place to do it. We went to the hotel bar and got wine and they brought snacks so we just added our snacks to theirs. It was fine.

Monday 29 June
We had planned to get a taxi to take us to a hardware store and wait while we bought cutters to break into our suitcase. It had caused me much stress. But we figured we would ask at the desk if they had tools. And they did! A pair of pliers did the trick. Luther grabbed and twisted and off they broke.

We visited the museum of photography which is the main sight in town. It was nice. Afterwards we strolled and decided on Brasserie di Duomo for lunch. Nice location on the square of the Hôtel de Ville and cathedral.  Most had the Big salads. 

After resting up we walked to dinner at Bernard Bouillon. Our hotels choice. Not much open for Monday dinner. It was nice! The people sweet. The food good enough. It was packed with locals. Photo is of a sad statue along the walk to the restaurant.

Tuesday 30 June
We pretty much checked out at noon and walked to lunch. Then we retrieved our suitcases and took a taxi to the port where we embarked on the Avalon Poetry II. Small room compared to ocean all-suites cruising. We managed to unpack. Then we had a drink and returned to our room until the 6pm safety talk. We also met all the heads of all the departments.

Cindy and Bill are both sick with colds. This is so common when traveling nowadays on airplanes. We purchased drugs before we boarded. Hoping they will help.

We went to dinner and the ship sailed. We arrived at Tornus-Macon at about 9:30. 

The mattress is wonderful as is the AC. After sweltering with practically none since being here it was heaven to sleep under the duvet in cushy linens. 

Wednesday, 1 July
Tornus is a small town with not much to see. But picturesque. Still the boat had a walking tour 😁. And a bike tour. We left there to travel to Macon, only about 45 minutes, where we pick up the bikers and bus tourers. We just did a walk about town to enjoy the cool air. It was I pretty little town.

Lunch and naps. We sailed from Tornus to Trevoux docking after ten. Dinner on the ship. We had a beautiful view from our side of the ship. A tower and a bike and walking path. I’ve been sketching on this trip. One sketch from the boat in each town so far.

Thursday 2 July
We sailed for Lyon for a two night stay. It was about a four hour trip. The Saône is a beautiful, clear, meandering river. Our side of the boat was unbroken countryside. Many cows, ponies and horses down in or near the water. We saw a heron nest in a big tree. Lots of mistletoe growing in the forests. And a lot of storks. It was super relaxing to lay in bed and watch it slowly slide past. 

We had lunch onboard. They have two options each meal. A full lunch or dinner in the dining room or a light lunch or dinner in the upstairs Bistro. Same menu except you serve yourself in the Bistro. More to my liking because I could choose portion size. 

After lunch we went on the included tour of Lyon. The weather was perfect, not too hot, not too cold. They do a pretty good job. They have six color coded groups who walk at different speeds. In this way each tour is half a busload and tailored to your ability. Many older people on this cruise. We had three busses. We went up the Fourvière hill. One of two hills in Lyon with commanding views of the city. Lyon is the second largest city in France.

On top of the hill sits the Basilica of Nôtre-Dame de Fourvière. It is a blend of Romanesque and neo-Byzantine architectural styles. The exterior is unfinished. The interior is non-stop mosaics. Much gold and pretty pastel aqua. Like being in a very big jewel box. 

Then we drove to Vieux Lyon. It is made up of three districts – Saint John, Saint Paul and Saint George, but no Saint. Ringo (our guide’s joke). It was cobblestone streets with very long blocks. Back in the 1600s and 1700s they incorporated passageways to cut the block in half – essentially shortcuts. We went through one up and down stairs within. Lyon is famous for silk making for centuries. We visited on shop with the moths, eggs, cocoons and a way to unwind the silk threads from the cocoons. 

Back to the boat and clean up before dinner. After dinner they had a Jazz band. Terrific upright bass player. Guitar was good. I didn’t care much for the female vocalist. This couple was celebrating 60 years of marriage.

Friday, 3 July
We relaxed in the morning. We had a Beaujolais wine tasting tour planned for the afternoon. We left on a bus about 1:30. Small group of about 18.

It was a lot of fun. We went about 45 minutes from Lyon to the wine country. We had the misfortune to be hitting the first weekend of the mass exodus of the French to the southern beaches so massive traffic jams. We drove through some really nice scenery and arrived at a family owned winery. The proprietor was Dominique Guillard and the winery was Domaine de Fond-Vieille. There have been an unbroken fifteen generations of this family working the vines. Many wineries either abandon the vines or sell out when none of the children want to continue the tradition. This family was lucky. Their son wanted to keep it going. I’m sure his father is very happy.

We tasted a white, a rosè and red. They use solely Chardonnay for the white wines and Gamay for the rosè and the red. They also had good bread, two cheeses and some salame. Those went well with the wines. We all enjoyed them very much.

We drove to the small town of Oingt, pronounced nwah. It must be said very nasally. Pretty hill town reminiscent of Montone near where we live. Most of the group walked up to the top of the town. I was getting a cold so stayed in a cafe and had a cold glass of water.

The trip back was uneventful. Lots of traffic. We got to the ship about twenty minutes from departure. We went to happy hour and the dinner. Luther came down with the cold during the night. Sigh. I can’t say I liked Lyon. It was a big city and I don’t like big cities. Dinner.

Saturday 4 July
Happy Fourth of July to all. I’m afraid I didn’t feel much like celebrating this year. It was always a favorite holiday of mine. Perhaps one day I can celebrate it again. Meanwhile I enjoyed the beautiful Rhone River and it reeled past like a movie. 

This day was a complex day for the ship. We sailed at 8:30 after all the people on the tour left the boat. Those people would tour the town of Tournon. They would be bussed to another town where we would stop to pick them up and drop others off. Finally we would stop at Viviers at 4:30. We had big plans to go to the only pharmacy in town to get supplies for our illnesses. But alas, it closed at 12:30. We did walk into town.

The trip down river was interesting. We traveled through the deepest lock in France during dinner. 76 feet. There were 16 locks on this trip. Dinner was ok. Luther didn’t join us. He was pretty sick.

These are some of the locks.

Sunday 5 July
This was Luther’s birthday. It wouldn’t be a great one unless he perked up some. We were booked on the Avignon tour with a tour of the Papal Palaces. I was looking forward to this tour more than any other. We canceled the trip because we were both very sick. We had hoped to go to a pharmacy. Sundays are problematic for finding one open. Usually there is just one in a town that is open. But how to find it.

Well we did find it. Michaela, our cruise director was a sweet woman always ready to spring into action and help.

She found two open ones, one only a 9 minute walk away. We got out before it got too hot and the streets were still uncrowded. We had trouble finding it but once we found it we realized we had been right next to it a while before. 

The town was having its Avignon festival. A three week drama festival. Quite famous apparently. We enjoyed seeing the costumed performers in the streets talking up their particular dramas. We bought a ton of drugs (which probably won’t work) and went back to the boat. 

We rested all afternoon and we went to the big farewell dinner that evening. Since it was Luther’s birthday Cindy and Bill bought him a nice bottle of wine rather than the stuff they normally serve. It was a nice dinner. We went to bed early. The coughing was taking its toll on me.

Monday, 6 July
We sailed last night and arrived in Arles at midnight. We would spend two nights there. This was our final stop. Cindy and I had signed up for a painting class. It turned out to be a lot of fun. The ship kindly arranged for a taxi to take four of us from the ship to the atelier. I guess we were the slow and less able walkers. There were 14 of us signed up. Many were rank armatures. They didn’t know how to mix secondary colors from the primary ones. That didn’t slow us down. We all seemed to have fun copying bits of Van Gogh paintings

We strolled back to the boat which really wasn’t far away. We had our last lunch in the lounge. Luther has gotten tired of these lunches. For me, they were fine. Enough variety and easy. 

The afternoon was spent repacking our suitcases. I hate this part. 

Tuesday 7 July

We grabbed breakfast and got off the ship with our luggage to wait for our car to Aix-en-Provence. He arrived on time in a nice Mercedes van with limousine setting. Took all of an hour to get to our hotel. Grand Hotel Roi Rene. We were early and check-in was 3pm so we went out to explore. First funny thing that happened was we saw our cruise director, Michaela, from the boat with a group from the boat on a tour. She is a sweet, sweet person. Super friendly, we all got hugs and kisses. Like we were long lost friends. It was market day and they have three. One clothing etc, one food, and one flowers. We walked through the clothes where Cindy and I bought hand painted fans. Then headed for the food market. It was amazing. 

It was about lunch time so we went to a place near the market called Le Chantel. It was ok. Most got salads due to the heat. They were not the best. I was disappointed in the tomatoes. They were heirlooms but very mealy in texture.

Back to the hotel where we waited until 3pm check-in time.  the rooms are very poorly thought out. Completely dysfunctional for travelers. There was no room whatsoever for a suitcase to be opened during the stay. They come to do turn down at 5:30 (!?). We do have a nice terrace that we paid for. It is only useful in the morning as it was so hot. 

Later we met in the hotel bar for drinks and then walked to dinner at Cour something. Nice place with an interior garden area and air conditioning in the inside. Guess where we chose? Yep, inside. We weren’t really hungry so we all just got one course. I enjoyed my tuna. 

Wednesday 8 July
Our one full day in Aix together. We went out early to beat the heat. We followed the Cezanne walking route. It took us down some pretty streets. We visited the Cathedral. Then we walked down the Main Street and saw the fountain at the end. We went along some shopping streets. I bought two pretty hand painted bowls. 

We stopped in a sidewalk cafe for lunch. Most had the Salad Niçoise. Refreshing in the heat. By now it was 103 degrees and we made our way back to the hotel and the cool. 

We decided for expediency to eat in the hotel restaurant. The food was sub-par. But it was ok because we had time to rehash the trip.

We said a sad goodbye to my sister and her husband. We will meet again next year. They left early the next morning.

Thursday 9 July
We were on our own so no breakfast for us. We woke when we wanted with no schedule to keep. At about 11:30 we went out to buy some wine for the evening. We planned to eat in. Luther had seen a nice wine shop the day before. We headed there and bought two bottles of wine. Then we went to Entre Midi et Deux, a bistro nearby. I broke from my salad for lunch everyday routine and had the lobster Ravioli. It was pretty good. On the way back we stopped at a very popular bakery. Line was out the door. We bought two chicken sandwiches for dinner.

We returned to the hotel and took naps. I was still sick with a persistent cough. I didn’t sleep any because of it. We stayed in the cool and later enjoyed our wines and our sandwiches which we bought that afternoon. Nice and relaxing.

Friday 10 July
Homeward bound. We had a 1:45 flight from Marseille to Roma. Took 1.5 hours.

Thoughts

Hotels. Wow what loser picks. I can’t pick a favorite. The first one, in Chalone, was old fashioned and badly needed a refurb. The elevator was tiny but at least they had one. The AC was puny or non-existent. We had to ask for a fan to supplement. The second one, in Aix looked good. But I have never had a more disfunctional room for a traveler. Absolutely no place for luggage. Everything in the place cost extra. It was all over priced. But the location was good.

Food. I can’t think of one notable meal to be honest. It wasn’t awful. But it wasn’t really good.

The ship. We have done five small ship ocean cruises. This was the first river cruise. When we chose we compared ships. We picked Avalon over Viking. They are the top two. 

It really was the format that put us off. We didn’t like the wine restrictions. We are used to getting a wine whenever we want. We didn’t like being restricted to lunch, happy hour and dinner/evening. The wines were adequate but not first tier considering we were sailing through a premiere wine region. The weird policy at dinner of expecting everyone to eat every course and if you didn’t you were forced to wait through all the courses to receive yours in sequence. For instance, we never eat more than two courses and maybe a dessert. Some wanted appetizers, others soup. So the appetizers came and the soup people had to watch the others eat. Then the soup came, and the appetizer people had to watch the soup eaters. We finally got a server to serve the soup with the appetizers but we STILL had to wait through the soup course for our entrees. Definitely not customer friendly. But I know why they do it. For their convenience. I also really disliked the farewell dinner served before the last night. Kinda takes the fun out of the end of the cruise. Again, I see this as doing it at THEIR convenience, rather than the customers.  If Windstar can do it on the last day then Avalon can too.

Things Avalon has no control over and were something we learned about river cruising. Double docking. We really, really didn’t like the fact our room was like a dungeon for half the trip. No view at all. Just the side of the other boat right up against our boat. Not to mention the difficulty for those of us with compromised knees to climb stairs up and down to cross another boat. We didn’t like the crazy schedules. Stoping, dropping off tours. Sailing, then picking them up. Then sailing again for a very short stay somewhere. Nothing Avalon can do about it but I prefer ocean cruises with stops in one place each day. I don’t think I will do another river cruise. 

The stops. I liked the Saône River better than the Rhone. Prettier. The towns on the Saône were cuter too. The Rhone had Lyon, Avignon and Arles. All notable places, but to me smaller, quainter, quieter is more, to my liking. 

The HEAT. Argh. I just cannot handle it like I used to. I vow not to travel in July or August again.

That all said, I really enjoyed seeing my sister. 🥰