Lyon & Provence - London to Avignon

 

DAY 1 Tuesday 15 August - London>Avignon

Check-in was quick and flight from Heathrow to Marseille was on time. It was an afternoon flight and I’d calculated that with the extra hour time difference that we’d reach the boat at the start of dinner at 19:00. We’d checked in two identical cases and one was the third or fourth to come out on to the carousel at Marseille. We waited for the other case till the carousel powered off and the lighted sign showing our flight number was extinguished. A lot of people were missing their bags, and a long line was forming at the missing bag desk.

When we exited Arrivals we were greeted by the Viking rep who led us to some tables she’d commandeered at a café and we sat with the others till all remaining Viking passengers had reported missing bags and exited Arrival.

It’s just over an hour’s drive from Marseille airport to Avignon where the boat was moored. We got to the ship at about 20:20 and went straight to the restaurant for dinner.

After dinner Joan rinsed  her clothes in the bathroom.

This was our 13th river cruise since 2012 and the 12th with Viking. We’d originally booked the Great Lakes cruise from Duluth, Minnesota to Toronto, Ontario but after seeing it on Viking TV realised it was too active for us. We’d have lost our deposit by cancelling but a phone call to Viking told me that we could transfer to another cruise for an admin fee of £100 each. Asked which cruise we wanted I plumped for the Rhone, and since we’d cruised downriver in 2015 I chose up-river from Avignon to Lyon. Not losing the deposit was such a relief I didn’t realise till later that the cabin they’d suggested wasn’t a Veranda Stateroom but a Veranda Suite.

The Veranda Suite has a bedroom with a French Balcony and a living room with a Veranda. So now this was the fourth type of Viking Longship cabin we’d stayed in.

Surprisingly it had less personal storage. The other cabins had two sets of three drawers under the desk, plus two drawers in the wardrobe: the Veranda Suite had just the two in its wardrobe. Also there was a lack of power points. The living room had a 220 (Europlug socket) and 110 (USA flat pin socket) at the desk, but the 220 was used to charge the Quietvox. There was one 220 by the bed. The USB socket didn’t charge devices quickly, if at all. I’d brought a Europlug with four USB sockets and used the bedside 220 socket. Thus we could charge two Kindles and two phones.

But there was a bottle of Champagne Jacquart Mosaique Brut NV in a cooler with two flutes, and the fridge was filled with soft drinks and two 250ml bottles of white wine and on top were another two 250ml bottles of red wine and wine glasses. These were refilled daily, but since we only drink wine now, and the Silver Spirits Beverage package was included we didn’t make much use of them. Since we could have glass of Champagne anytime the bottle of Jacquart came home with us and will be drunk in memory of this cruise.

Daily shoeshine and free laundry was included, and the wardrobe had towelling robes and sandals. This cruise, as is usual currently, included free Silver Spirits package and gratuities.

The boat was Viking Delling, the same boat we’d cruised down the Rhone in 2015. Four Viking boats cruise up and down the route, crossing at Tournon where both sets of passengers go on the steam train ride.

Probus Summer Lunch

Photo by Tony Woodhouse

In previous years we've started with a glass of Prosecco outside with some people complaining of the heat. But today was chilly and raining, so there was no outside, and no Prosecco either.

But there was good company and that's what really matters.

Inclined Plane Museum at Foxton Locks

We'd been down the Foxton Locks flight last October in the narrowboat Annabel crewed by Dan and Krisie, and I wanted to return to spend more time there and to visit the museum.

After a filling breakfast at Table Table the drive to Foxton Locks car park too 10 minutes. The day was cold with steady rain. The site of the Inclined Plane boat lift was fenced off, but the museum was open.

We were the only visitors at that time and had the benefit of a personal guided tour by one of the volunteers, dressed as a canalboat man. A working model of the boat lift showed how two boats could float into a tank filled with water (caisson) in the canal. When the caisson's access door was closed, it with the floating canalboats was winched by a steam engine to the canal at the other end where they would float out of the caisson and resume their journey 12 minutes later. But the boat lift cost and, while they took 45 minutes, the locks were free, and competition from railways was taking business away from canals. 

The boat lift was in operation only from 1900 to 1911 when it needed expensive repairs so it was mothballed, and sold for scrap in 1928.

We'd enjoyed our bacon butties in October and planned on having them for lunch, but were too full from our breakfast so headed back home.

 

Foxton Locks in the rain

Chirk Castle

Check out for the apartment is the crack of dawn, aka. 09:30. Our journey took in a coffee break at Chirk Castle near Wrexham, but its café doesn't open till midday and it was too windy to sit outside the coffee stand so we sheltered in the car and walked to the castle afterwards. But we didn't have time to visit inside the castle.

Our lunch stop was Moseley Old Hall at Junction 1 of the M54. Moseley was where King Charles II was taken to hide after his time in the oak tree at Boscobel House, which we visited in 2016.

Nice homemade food in the tea room, but we didn't have enough time to see inside the house or visit the gardens so we'll have to return.

We spent the night in Premier Inn near Market Harborough and had a surprisingly good dinner in the adjoining Table Table restaurant.

Pant Du Vineyard

We lunched at Pant Du vineyard near Carnarvon.

We’d last visited in 2012 and was interested to see what had happened in the intervening 11 years. Well, they’d built a café with a full menu and had a little shop. And planted many apple trees for cider and juices. They also had their own spring water and honey.

But the wine now seemed side-lined. There’s nine acres of vines and twice the acreage of apple trees. I don’t know if they’d increased the size of their vineyard and there didn’t seem to be anyone there that could talk wine.

According to the website

There are 6 different varieties of vines planted on the slopes of Pant Du - Seyval Blanc, Sigrrebe*, Souvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Frühburgunder / Early Pinot Noir, Rondo.

The café menu listed red, white and rose wines by the glass, but when I asked what the white was the waitress didn’t know and had to ask the bartender. It was Seyval Blanc (their other white is Siegerrebe) and I had a glass. Krisie had a glass of red. I quite like Seyval Blanc but this was ho-hum. The red had a warm deep red colour which came from Rondo, a variety for which I’ve not acquired a taste.

Still wines cost £17.95 a bottle and the sparkling was £32.95. There’s no info where the wines are made, nor name of winemaker. A code on the back label shows the wine was bottled by Greencroft. I don’t know how the sparkling wine was made; the back label says it was traditionally fermented, not that it was made by the ‘traditional method’, i.e. methode champenoise.

Lack of transparency, cost of wines and disappointing tastes of the red and Seyval Blanc meant this was a rare winery on this island that made no sale to me.

*Siegerrebe

In the evening we enjoyed a really good meal at Poachers, a restaurant we'd not been to before. They are full every night they're open and luckily Dan had got us a booking.

Dinner With Caroline and Stuart

 Dinner tonight with Caroline and Stuart at Dylan's. The apartment is next to Dylan's so we saw them from our balcony and we could go in to the restaurant  together.

Amy was walking from Black Rock sands with her friends from Sweden so we saw them exit the footpath behind Dylan's and they joined us in the apartment.

Amy, Krisie and Dan

Caroline, Dan and Amy

Caroline, Dan & Krisie

Photos copyright (c) Caroline Keen. Used with permission.

Starlight Players - Curtain Up

 

Early dinner at Prince of Wales pub before crossing the road to the Memorial Hall to see the Starlight Players summer show 'Curtain Up', directed by Dan.