Scenic Cruise - Day 11 Saturday - Disembarkation

To go to beginning click here

Cruise Day 11 – Saturday - Disembarkation

We received a printed sheet with the departure time for each cabin and a colour coded tag for bags. Rooms were to be vacated at 08:30 with bags left outside. Our departure time was 14:00, so we thought to take a leisurely breakfast, but the breakfast buffet ended at 08:30 and the tables we mostly cleared 30 minutes before. 

Our intention to have buttered toast and marmalade came to nothing as they had run out of butter. How can a place that bills itself on its cuisine run out of butter when it is moored in the centre of a city with shops and supermarkets a short walk away? 

The staff were laying tables for dinner, chatting among themselves and generally making us feel unwelcome.

We sat in the lounge reading, and then enjoyed the dis/embarkation lunch and a last glass of Champagne before being driven to the airport. Check-in and security didn’t delay us long. 

Bdx Airport - This new footpath crosses the road - but the crossing doesn't join the footpaths

Scenic had booked us home with KLM via Amsterdam. Because of the chaos we experienced at Amsterdam Schiphol in April, we paid €11 each to move our seats to nearer the front, but the connection at Schiphol was – apart from a long walk – painless. There was no hand baggage security and only a very short line at immigration to get the important Schengen exit stamp in our passports.

 

Bordeaux from air

 

Our Scenic driver was waiting in the arrivals hall and we arrived home about midnight.

Scenic Cruise - Day 10 Friday – Bourg to Blaye to Bordeaux

 

Cruise Day 10 Friday – Bourg to Blaye to Bordeaux

Our last full day. At 07:00 the boat sailed to Blaye and moored beneath the ramparts of this huge castle at 08:00. There were four tours; most people went to Chateau la Roche Courbon, there was an active bike tour from Blaye, and two guided walking tours of the fortress, one active and the one we took.

Blaye castle was built to control the estuary to defend Bordeaux and to tax passing merchant ships. But cannons of that time didn’t have the range to shoot the width of the estuary, so another fortress, Fort Medoc faced it on the other bank, and on an island in the middle was a third fortress. Between them their cannons could cover the entire width of the estuary. We had moored at Fort Medoc on day 3 and 4 of the cruise.

The castle was impressive with dry moats and layers of defences, and our guide knew its history. Afterwards we walked a short distance back to the boat.

 

At 13:30 the ship sailed back to Bordeaux. We waited mid-river with other boats till we could pass under Pont de pierre. The Viking Forsetti went first.

The invitation to dine at L’Amour didn’t say where it was and we had to ask at reception. It turned out to be some tables behind the lounge bar. We were greeted with a glass of what we were told was Champagne, but it wasn’t – it was Limoux from the Languedoc. Scenic’s website promises “Five-course menu with regional specialities, paired with wines from the region’s best wineries.”

 Like much of Scenic’s hyperbole the actuality falls short unless one thinks that a branded white Bordeaux (€12.60) and Perrin’s Ventoux red, shown on the wine pairing list as a Bordeaux wine but actually from the Rhone, are   the best the region can produce. Only one wine came from the local Bordeaux region and none could be said to have come from the ‘best wineries’.

Afternoon glass of Duval-Leroy Champagne

The boat remained moored overnight at Bordeaux.

 To go to next part click here

Scenic Cruise Day 9 - Thursday - Bourg

 

Cruise Day 9 - Thursday - Bourg

Two tours today: an all day visit with a long coach drive to the town of Cognac and the Remy Martin distillery, or a morning walking tour of the ancient hill town of Bourg. We took the latter.

 

The walking tour leaves at 10:00 and returns at 12:00, visiting the old town of Bourg, its Citadel and carriage museum and the historic surprise kept to the end. (I'll keep it a surprise so as not to spoil it for future cruisers.) 

As usual, there was free time at the end and the guide suggested a street of shops that led off the square where she released us. We continued up that road to the top where in another square at the highest point was the Boutique Vins de Bourg. 

They spoke English and gave a free tasting of the wines of the day and below was a light arched limestone cellar with almost 200 different Bourg wines for sale.

The disembarkation talk was that night, followed by the Captain’s Farewell Cocktail and a Gala Dinner, the disco night with the ships musician. The recommended red was a Bordeaux, huzzah! It was the grandly titled Dourthe La Grand Cuvee Bordeaux Rouge, a negotiants wine sold by Carrefour for €7.20.

We received, at last, our invitation for dinner on Friday at the gourmet L’Amour. Every passenger is promised at least one invitation to L’Amour during this trip. Passengers on the top deck also receive invitations to eat at La Rive.

The boat remained moored overnight at Bourg.

 To go to next part click here

Scenic Cruise - Day 8 – Bordeaux to Bourg

 

Cruise Day 8 Wednesday – Bordeaux to Bourg

Three tours this morning: seaside resort of Arcachon, Dune de Pylat (the tallest sand dune in Europe), or by tram to Cite Du Vin, the newish wine museum. We went on the latter and were given tram and entrance tickets. Our guide showed us how to validate the tram ticket on board and we walked past the short queue at Cite Du Vin who were waiting to buy a ticket.

Cite du Vin - the building is designed to represent the swirl of wine in a glass

The ground floor of this temple of wine is free to all and contains an extensive shop of wine related goods, a restaurant and a wine shop with both local and international wines. Up one level is the hands-on wine museum. One scanned the ticket to gain entrance and then was given a listening device on a lanyard and earphone. 

You chose the language wanted and the exhibit soundtracks came in your language. You could select to listen to winemakers from around the world explain their terroir and wine. You could just wander around where your fancy took, or use the machine to guide you based on your interest and how long you had.

Tickets entitle you to a glass of wine on the top floor. I chose a rare Humagne Rouge from Switzerland.  

Submarine pens - seen from 8th floor of Cite du Vin

As I wandered with my glass on the 8th floor there were great views of the city from both inside and an outside walkway.

Pont Jacques Chaban-Delmas - The lifting bridge

At 18:00 there was a sundowner on the sun deck and the ship departed for Bourg.

Scenic Diamond Restaurant

Evening entertainment in the lounge was by a guest guitarist Jeremy Dupuoy.

The boat moored overnight at Bourg.

 To go to next part click here

Scenic Cruise - Day 7 Bordeaux

 Cruise Day 7  Tuesday - Bordeaux

In the morning there was the choice of three tours: shopping with the chef followed by a Culinaire Class. A bike tour of Bordeaux or a coach and guided walking tour of Bordeaux – there was also a ‘gentle’ walkers option. We went on the walking tour but bailed out when the group was to enter a cathedral.

Lunch - Fish & Chips

We walked back to the ship, along the shopping street which ended at the Intercontinental Bordeaux Grand Hotel. Here we joined the gentle walkers tour with a guide we’d had before who was a wine expert. He was taking the group to the nearby wine school where they could use the toilets for free, or taste and buy wine and snacks. I’d been there before but he explained symbolism on the large illuminated glass panels inside which added a whole new layer.

Back at the ship there was a tasting of fresh oysters brought from the sea at Arcachon. We had an early dinner at 17:45 because there was a tour to the Bassins de Lumiere. It was a short coach ride to the old submarine pens. The massive concrete walls and roof resisted allied bombing and it was not possible to demolish it after the war. Built by Nazi occupiers between 1941-43 the massive ugly structure housed U-Boats of the German and Italian Navies, giving them access to the Gironde and out into the Atlantic. As it was impossible to demolish, it has been repurposed as an arts venue.

Currently there are light shows. Scenic had an exclusive evening for us. After entering we were given a glass of fizz and invited to sit in raised concrete steps facing the water of one of the pens – tip, sit on the wooden seating parts. The show started in total darkness, then as the theme from the TV/movie ‘Das Boot’ blared out, the blackness in front of us opened as doors parted and the prow of a submarine came towards us. Unfortunately that was the end of any reference to the reason the structure was built. The works of two artist’s paintings of Venice were projected covering walls and floors. After perhaps 20 minutes we were told that there were different shows in other pens and at least half the people got up and wandered about the pens.

Light Show

Scenic Diamond remained in Bordeaux overnight.

 To go to next part click here

Scenic Cruise Day 6 - Cadillac to Bordeaux

 

Cruise Day 6  Monday – Cadillac to Bordeaux

In the morning were two tours; cycling with a wine tasting, and a coach tour to Sauternes with a wine tasting. 

Chateau Lafaurie-Peyraguey

There were four coaches and the one we were in went to Chateau Lafaurie-Peyraguey, a 1st Growth Sauternes wine now owned by Silvio Denz, CEO of Lalique luxury crystal brand. The building dates from 1618 and now also houses a luxury hotel and a Michelin starred restaurant.

The winery guide was excellent and if English wasn’t her native language she’d spent a long time in English speaking countries. 

She showed us the vineyards, the old part of the chateau including the ancient chapel and the barrel cellar with is unique crystal barrique filled with Sauternes, before leading us in a tasting of their dry white and luscious sweet Sauternes. (93% Semillon, 6% Sauvignon Blanc, 1% Muscadelle).

 (The other two coaches went to Ch Mayne le Merci which the current owners bought in 2017 and are farming organically. This is not so grand, not classified, and thus their wine is less expensive.)

After lunch on the ship there were three afternoon tours: a visit to a truffle farm with tasting, a guided cycle tour to and tasting at Ch Faugas or a tour by coach to Chateau Roquetillade. We went on the latter.

The chateau is built on a promontory and is a classic style of square castle with round towers on each four corners and a deep dry moat. Inside the walls is a tall keep. The castle is privately owned and family members are among those who show visitors around.

After the tours got back the boat sailed to Bordeaux where it moored over night. 

Evening entertainment was by the resident pianist.

 To go to next part click here

.

Scenic Cruise Day 5 - Cadillac

 

Cruise Day 5 Sunday – Fort Medoc to Cadillac

 

At around 07:00 the ship departed for Cadillac. It had to wait at Pont de pierre until the water was low enough at pass under it. The Viking Forsetti was also waiting, and both ships passed under the bridge one after another.

 

After lunch was a guided walking tour for everyone of the town of Cadillac named after the dukes who founded it and the restored Château des ducs d'Épernon à Cadillac, variously the duke’s residence, a prison and a girl offenders and orphan’s home. 

Château des ducs d'Épernon à Cadillac

We also heard how the name Cadillac was appropriated by a con-man who went to America where he founded Detroit and after whom the car is named.

 

After dinner was dancing to the sound of guest entertainers Audrey & Julien. 

The boat remained at Cadillac overnight.

 To go to next part click here

Scenic Cruise Day 4 - Saturday – Fort Medoc

 Cruise Day 4 - Saturday – Fort Medoc

There were two tours in the morning, a guided cycling tour of the Medoc or a coach tour of the Medoc, both with a wine tasting. The Medoc is a very famous wine region and the small Pauillac appellation has three of the five 1st Growths.  These prestigious wineries don’t take visitors, so we drove past them stopping to take pictures.

Ch Lagrange

Our visit and tasting was at Ch Lagrange, a 3rd Growth in St Julian. The tour was good with an excellent guide at the Chateau.

 Lunch was a barbecue on the sundeck. Food ran out, when I asked for chicken chef had to search through discarded carcasses to see what meat he could scrape from bones. The Executive Chef was cutting the three or four remaining baked potatoes into 4 wedges and covering them in sour cream to make them look bigger. There was no lettuce or tomatoes left, and other empty bowls and no bread. Though some additional bread appeared, the salads weren’t restocked. Not luxury, Scenic.

 

The afternoon was free, and there was a serendipitous event. The ship was moored at Fort Medoc, an old moated castle and in its central green was a sheepdog trial, sheep shearing, and stalls selling local goods and snacks. We spent time looking at how the competing shepherds used commands to get their dog to herd a flock of sheep into various pens. Among the stall was one selling hand knitted items. Joan bought a cheeky small dog for Jack. 

I tasted some wines and bought a bottle of a Merlot Cabernet Franc blend from Maxime Roze, a garagiste winemaker based in Bordeaux. 

After an early dinner we all got in coaches to be taken to Ch d’Argassac where we were greeted with a glass of fizz and taken, not into the splendid Chateau, but a neighbouring hall which Joan thought was the barrel cellar, for a 50-minute concert by a quartet comprising two violins, one cello and one clarinet. The repertoire had music from the classics to Gershwin.

 The boat stayed at Fort Medoc overnight.

 To go to next part click here

Scenic Cruise Day 3 Friday – Libourne to Medoc

Cruise Day 3 19AUG22 Friday – Libourne to Medoc 

Scenic Diamond stayed moored at Libourne till after lunch. 

There were four excursions in the morning: a walking tour of Libourne, a sightseeing tour of Bergerac, or a tour and wine tasting at Ch d La Riviere in Fronsac, one group going by e-bicycle and the other by coach. 

We took the latter. The Chateau is at the top of a hill and its driveway twists and turns up the hill and exhausted one cyclist who came back with us on the coach. 

The Chateau has 7km of tunnels and cellars carved in the hill and we toured some of them, before having a tasting of three wines. 

 After lunch the boat departed for the Medoc. It moored at Fort Medoc at around 19:00. I learned that previously it had moored at the small town Pauillac which is where the Viking ship moored when were cruised Bordeaux in 2016. 

The boat stayed at Fort Medoc overnight.

Vineyards seen from Chateau; Dordogne in distance

 To go to next part click here

Scenic Diamond - Bordeaux to Libourne

 Cruise Day 2 18AUG22 Thursday – Bordeaux to Libourne

 At 06:00 the boat sailed up the Dordogne River. As it has to pass under the Pont de pierre, meaning Stone Bridge, ordered by Napoleon I and finished in 1822. There are about 30 minutes at low tide when river boats can pass under the bridge, so schedules have to take that into account. There are 17 arches which legend has represents the 17 letters in the name Napoleon Bonaparte.

 

We arrived in Libourne shortly before 13:30 while we were lunching. Lunch is a self-serve buffet.

 

Only one tour today. At 14:00 coaches left for St Emilion. This name is very famous to wine lovers for its Merlot based wines, and the hill town is attractive too. There’s only one narrow one-way road through the town for motor traffic so coaches have to park at the bottom and passengers walk up the hill to a square where you can look down on the terracotta tiled roofs of the houses.

 

There was a visit to the underground cell where the monk Émilion lived in the 700s. Apparently women who couldn’t have children visited him for a ‘blessing’ and by a miracle afterwards found they were pregnant.....

 

This was followed by a visit to the monolithic church carved from the limestone beneath the town.

 

The coach drove back though the vineyards of Pomerol, which are famed for Merlot and two exceptionally expensive wines – Chateaux Petrus and Le Pin. (Petrus 2020 retails at an average price of over £4,000 ex tax a bottle, and Le Pin not much less). Our guide told us that we were in the centre of Merlot country, so it was a surprise that the recommended red wine at dinner was a Merlot from the Languedoc. 

We chose a St Emilion from the wine list

 

Evening entertainment in lounge from guest musicians Jazz River Trio.

 

Ship stayed overnight moored at Libourne.

To go to next part click here

Scenic Diamond - Bordeaux

 Cruise Day 1 17AUG22 Wednesday – Bordeaux

 

The hotel breakfast buffet had everything and we had a table by the window overlooking the Grand Théâtre. Pick up to take us to the boat was 14:00.

Scenic had arranged a 90-minute tour of Bordeaux by 2CV departing at 09:30. We were tempted to give this a miss and are glad we didn’t because it was great fun. The small basic two horsepower 2CV (aka Deux Chevaux = Two Horses) car was first built in 1948. Ours was built in the 1960s. It has a canvas roof that can – and was – opened. We rattled around the city while our driver, who was younger than the car, chatted to us and showed us the sights. We were following a 2CV carrying the other Scenic couple, but their car was built in the 1970s and didn’t keep stalling at red lights so it was in front.

We lunched at Le Noailles, and got back to the hotel for transfer to the boat.

 Check in at the boat was straightforward. We were given a lanyard with a small plastic rectangle bearing our name on one side and a QR code on the other which was used to scan us off and on the boat. We also got a room key card (On Viking the room key card is printed with your name and is used to scan you off and on the boat.)

Joan had forgotten to bring her health declaration, and I asked for a blank one for her to fill in, but they say it’s OK, they didn’t need it. Neither do they want to see the Covid inoculation certificate.

We were told to wait in the lounge as our rooms were not ready yet. The lounge came full of waiting people. An hour passed and then another. No one came to update us on the delay. Finally our rooms were ready at 17:30.

 In our cabin we started to download data into the app on our phones, but the file sizes are huge and I decided not to download everything.

The tour manager’s talk was before dinner but didn’t contain anything useful, except that daily schedules weren’t printed but a copy would be on reception desk each morning and we should photograph it so we had a copy. Also to photograph the gate code of the landing jetty so we could get on board if the gate was closed. (We are used to the Viking daily schedule on a four-page sheet of information about where we are that is placed on our bed the evening before.)

Meal menus were not placed outside the dining room (unlike Viking); they appeared on the in-cabin TV at the bottom of the daily schedule which would very slowly scroll down. Sometimes this wasn’t updated so the lunch menu would still be showing as you went to dinner.

One interesting fact given at the briefing was the total number of passengers 132 and the nationality breakdown. That was

UK – 68

Australia – 24

Canada -18

USA – 10

Ireland – 1

Which only adds up to 121 so I don’t know which is correct. The departure list has 56 cabins so if there are two people per cabin then there were 126 passengers.

 

And so to dinner. There were no tablecloths. Menus handed out had the recommended wines selected by the restaurant manager to match the food. Since there were many possible dishes, matching seems optimistic, but waiters were coming to tables asking ‘red or white’ and pouring them.

The white was Chardonnay, the red Gamay. Neither variety is grown in the Bordeaux region. I asked if I could have a Bordeaux wine and after a time the waiter brought another bottle which I could tell from a distance was not Bordeaux as it was a Burgundy shaped bottle.

Finally I we got a Bordeaux red, and a waitress showed me the wine list is after the food menu.  For later meals we chose Bordeaux wines from that list, but nearly everyone went with the recommended wines which were mostly cheap branded wines from the South of France.

The boat stayed in Bordeaux overnight.

Grand Theatre seen from our breakfast table in Intercontinental Grand Bordeaux.

 To go to next part click here