Friday, October 23, 2015
Happy Birthday, Clay! Well, we were docked overnight and
sailed at 6am about the time the alarm woke us. There is no nightlight in this
cabin unlike the last 2 boats and with the small windows, it is dark in the
cabin! We went through our first lock during breakfast. Breakfast was hit and
miss. We are docked in Tournon now.
So yesterday when we were docked at the North Port of
Chalon-sur-Saone, we were at the northernmost navigable point of this river
system. Now we are sailing down river and south. We will sail on the Saone,
Rhone and Loire to reach Arles. We will transit 13 locks. I guess I never noted
anything about the Seine River last week. It is the longest in France. We did
not navigate the entire navigable river. There were a lot of locks, but I don’t
think there were a dozen. Sorry! I am not a very good reporter.
There are no open decks on Symphony except for the top sun
deck. You can go out the lobby doors to a small, small piece of exterior
covered deck outside the doors but it is very enclosed and used by smokers.
Unlike the other 2 boats, you can’t go out the back or the front, only out
either side of the lobby and to the top. Even for a smaller boat with fewer
passengers, it is inconvenient.
Sailing this morning was bucolic. There were swans and
Charolais cows along either side and misty fields in the distance as the sun
rose (the clouds were too low for any real sunrise, it just slowly got light).
This river is smaller than the others with less traffic and you could hear the
birds in the trees on either side. Delightful. At 9am we walked across the
neighboring boat and started a 2 hour or so walk around Tournus. It is another
little old town. They are endless! The prize here was the nearly intact 1000+
year old abbey. It is still a working parish church. There were archaeological
digs going on around it. One of those digs in the past found a mosaic floor
behind the altar. It was beautiful. For some reason that has not been explained
there are a lot of depictions of the zodiac in these churches and other
religious buildings and this was one. She asked if we wanted to visit the
crypt. OUI! Some of us went down. It was amazing. This is the first church that
we’ve been invited down there and you know they must all have these. After the
tour of the abbey we had about 40 minutes of free time. Clay reckoned it would
take him that long to get back down the hill. This side of the river is hilly
and they grow wine vines. The other side is flatter and agricultural it seems.
The guide says it is a gastronomic paradise called Bresse, is famous for chickens
and that we’ll learn about it tomorrow. Our guide is a British woman who has
lived in this area for about 30 years. She has been one of our best and easily
our most understandable guides. It would be nice if we have her again tomorrow.
The small group just walking off helped too. We didn’t stay with the group and
after visiting a local products shop across from the abbey’s refectory building
where I bought an ornamented beret, we took a more direct route back downhill
to the river and to the boat parking lot. The boat left Tournus when we did and
we had to meet a bus at 11am to ride about 30 minutes to Macon to meet it. We
both couldn’t stay awake in the bus since she didn’t talk much because there
wasn’t much to see. Also, the heat was on! We arrived to find Symphony parked
against another boat again and had to run the stairs gauntlet to re-board. This
boat in particular is not advised for mobility challenged. The others at least
had an elevator inside but this one doesn’t and there are a maze of short stair
flights making half floor divisions in all directions off the reception area.
We got back shortly before noon and everyone was ready for lunch. But, no.
Since we joined Amadeus on October 1 there has not been a single enrichment
lecture until now. It is going on without us now. It is in French, lasts one
hour and the subject is restoration of old books by a French
bookbinder/restorationist. If I couldn’t stay awake on the bus, there is no way
I will try that. I am sorry to say it and sorry to skip this perhaps only
enrichment lecture but honestly even a wine lecture-demo here in the birthplace
of French chardonnay at noon would have been too much to ask even if more
topical. The afternoon is at our leisure but there is not much to see here
without renting a car. There is an Ursulines Museum open, in French only. The
other historical attractions in walking distance in Macon are by appointment
only. I guess we’ll still go out walking after lunch. But, we don’t have high
hopes.
We had a too long lunch and are really missing the light
lunch buffets in the lounge. I guess with only 32 guests they just can’t serve
lunch in 2 places. Anyway, we picked up a brochure on Macon and the Maconnais
area when we came back onboard. On the front cover was a photo of Solutre, a
big rock outcropping. We Googled and it is only 11 km away so rental car it is.
We asked our dining companion if he’d like to join us and he offered to share
the cost. Even better. We asked at reception for help renting a car and the CD
and ACD (or local French expert onboard, though she is wearing a uniform with
stripes so we haven’t figured it out yet) were at lunch. After lunch the CD
called and had found the same place we had found a couple of blocks away. If
you knew where to look, you could actually see our boat from the place. It was
next to a gas station on Edouard Herriot. It cost us about $50 to show up and
rent a small car on demand for about 3 hours and about 5 Euros to replace the
gallon or so of gas we used. They didn’t have any maps and didn’t offer GPS and
the guy gave us wrong instructions as far as we could tell, but reading signs and
using Clay’s phone’s GPS we found a scenic route there and a different one back
without incident. It was a really lovely afternoon! As a bonus we drove through
the village of Solutre-Pouilly and bought a bottle of Pouilly-Fuisse at a shop
that only sold that variety of wine. We had it chilled and we shared it at
dinner (and will again tomorrow). We told Amras Cruises we were not celebrating
anything, but as had been conjectured earlier in the month, they must be
checking passports for birthdates when they have them because the lights went
down after dinner tonight. It was another marginal and unsatisfying dining experience.
We were waiting for dessert too late and Clay had just gotten a plate of cheese
when they paraded out the birthday cake with the sparkler in it and the lights
down. It was a bit better than the past 2 boats because instead of recorded
music and a long parade through the dining room, they came right to him and had
the accordion player playing and the waiters and he were singing. It is cheesy,
but it was classier than the last 2 boats have done. The maître d’ told Clay he
was also waiving the $12.50 corkage fee for his birthday. That was a nice gift! I wish we'd thought about this happening and brought a camera to dinner.
We have an early day and a long day off the boat tomorrow in
what promises to be our first hot day in weeks! So, I will not write about
tomorrow’s port briefing. You’ll learn tomorrow what happens tomorrow. We are
docked here in Macon overnight. Tomorrow we and the boat will arrive in Lyon.
