Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Pirate Night last night was much more subdued than past
ones. The waiters all wore exactly matching striped shirts and instead of well
drawn on Polynesian tattoos like last cruise they had rudely drawn beards,
mustaches and scars. The messed up table settings were the same. The menu was a
bit better than those of past pirate nights. We drank our Sekt. It was a
different bottle and brand than the last ones and was better than those, but I
still didn’t like it. It made me dizzy so I didn’t finish a glass. Dinner went
quickly again and for that we are all thankful.
We learned at the port talk that we would sail from
Roquemaure late today. This morning we leave at 8am for an excursion to see the
Roman aquaduct Pont du Gard. An hour of free time at some small Duke’s village
and back to the boat for lunch. After lunch we go to Chateauneuf du Pape for a
chocolate and wine tasting. These are supposed to be some big heavy red wines
so I expect I’ll not have much of that and hope for good chocolates. All aboard
is 4:45pm and we sail for Avignon at 5pm. We should arrive in Avignon at 7pm
and have dinner onboard. At 9pm they will bring onboard a local music and dance
group “Gipsy Fever” to perform for a Provencal atmosphere. That’s it. Had
breakfast and waiting for departure. It is supposed to rain today.
Oh, there are no bicycles onboard Symphony. I had been
looking, but it’s been confirmed. The other thing I can’t find is public
toilets. We hope we can depart early when we leave if that is true that there
aren’t any! This boat has hydraulic rails on the top deck so they are quick to
partially open and close it unlike the other 2.
We are back from Pont du Gard. Amazing! Out in the middle of
nowhere a big bridge to carry water across a river from a spring to Nimes. It
has to go so far that it only had about a 7cm grade per km. It worked from the
1st century AD to the 4th century AD and by the 6th
century the Roman Empire had collapsed. We did not visit the Duke’s village
which I saw signs for and it was called Uzes. Lunch is from 12:15pm to 1:45pm
at which time we depart on the same bus with the same guide for Chateauneuf du
Pape. The guide couldn’t believe we were docked out here in the middle of
nowhere with nowhere to walk to and they couldn’t even get the bus very near
us. The long walk to the bus was no surprise for us at this point.
We are back from Chateauneuf du Pape. There were 9 popes
that lived in Avignon and the first that lived there built this new castle at
his papal vineyards. There is only half a ruined tower and one wall left now.
The guide said the Germans blew it up as they retreated. We went to Brotte’s
Musee du Vin for a wine and chocolate tasting. Let me say that the guy who
conducted it was most unhappy about it. If he didn’t want to do it, he should
have just refused instead of preaching and harping about it for the better part
of an hour. He acted like he blamed the 22 of us instead of himself for
agreeing to do it or whoever booked it with him. But he provided 3 wines to
taste and an assortment of gourmet dark chocolates. Each chocolate had printed
on it the nation from which the cacao was sourced. We had 3 different countries
and I couldn’t tell any difference. The chocolate only went a bit well with the
sweet wine that he served last, a Muscat. I know people like it and drink it
with meals but it was an aperitif or dessert wine style so it went pretty well
with the chocolate. He also served a white and red Chateauneuf du Pape. They
were bottling behind a glass wall where we sat. That was interesting. Afterwards
we spent about an hour driving through vineyards up the hill to the ruined new
castle where we left the bus and walked down through the town. There were a few
shops and restaurants open but it started raining hard and we all went back to
the bus waiting below early. We were back onboard Symphony and sailing by 5pm.
We have a port talk for tomorrow at 6:45pm. We should be docked in Avignon by
7pm. The guide assured us we’d be parked right in the middle of town. I think
if there is docking space out of town, that is where we’ll be.
A word about the weather, like elsewhere they are experiencing unseasonable extremes. They had a long, hot and dry summer followed by the
earliest recorded European winter storm that was massive and affected us as we
traveled from Amsterdam to Paris. Over the last few days, there has been
another break and a last final burst of Indian summer. That is breaking now
with a return of the north wind, or as they call it here, the mistral. Tomorrow
the temperature is predicted to drop over the course of the day and to
thunderstorm all day. I suspect we’ll learn in the port talk later that the day
is to be spent walking Avignon. Well, it’s weather and you have to take what
you get.
Tomorrow is our last cruise day of this trip and this year! It
has been a doozy and all because the 180-day world cruise was cancelled. We saw
a lot that we wouldn’t have otherwise and I guess I am just as happy to have
done the trips we’ve done this year vs. the world cruise. We checked a lot of
things off our bucket lists that wouldn’t be done if we’d done the world cruise
as planned. Of course, we do have more trips planned over the next few months
but I’ll be ending this blog and going back to Road Trips with Bob.
I am going to go ahead and post this now while I have
Internet. If I have anything to report about the remainder of the evening, I’ll
do it tomorrow.
