First Full Day

Mon Aug 4

Today was the first full day on the ship after arriving late Sunday afternoon and getting settled in.

After breakfast it was time to load up on the buses for a brief city tour around Lyon that was back to the ship for lunch.

Following lunch and a brief rest we were off for a tour of a nearby 14th century medieval village that has been and is still in the process of being restored by the 90 residents that live there.

Prior to dinner there was a welcome reception in the lounge with champagne, Kir Royales, mimosa s and canapes, this was followed by a dinner of Chateau Briand and a cheese tasting. Needless to say you do not go hungry and you get an adequate amount of calories to keep your body satisified.

We have opted to just kick back and rest a little bit tomorrow and maybe wander the town rather than participate in the two tours that are available.

I will post some better pictures later, but your are a few of the ship so you could see the rough life we have.

There will be more pictures later of the ship but for right now I don't want to use up the internet time

Transfer Day

Sun Aug 3

Today is our day to leave Paris.

Our early day started at 6:45, with our luggage outside our door. Next was breakfast followed by 7:30 in the lobby to identify our bags to suure tgey were put on tge proper bus, there are 2. Around 8 it was load up for our 5 hour trip to Lyon. It was supposed to be much shorter, but due to high water the ship could not get under a couple bridges so we have tp go an extra 90 miles on the bus to meet it.

Part way there we stopped in Dijon, think mustard, for lunch, shopping and a brief tour.

We are now back on the bus headed south once again and have hit heavy rain which is slowing the traffic down.

More tomorrow folks, now it is time for a nap.

Adieu Paris

Sat Aug 2

Today was our last full day in Paris, for this trip. Martha and I spent the day wandering and shopping. Greg and Lynn spent their time riding the Hop on Hop off circuits (5) to be sure nothibg was missed.

After meeting back at the hotel, we went out for a nice Italian dinner.

Later on we took the bus to the tower to watch the sparkle at 10 pm, it is always nice. The problem was, no one bothered to tell us the bus we needed to get back stopped running at 9:20. Thank goodness for the late running subways.

If I can, I will post a video of the sparkle later

The Time Has Come

After our short drive over to the Pittsburgh Airport we are now sitting in the terminal awaiting our flight to adventure..

Shortly before we left today we received an email from Viking stating that the ship would not be in Chalon-sur-Soane that we were to meet it in Lyon. This usually means that part of the river is unnavigable usually due to either low or high water. We will find out this weekend when we get there.

Check-in at PIT was a snap, A big hooray for TSA pre-check.

See the smiles, a big hooray for TSA pre-check.

The Countdown Continues

I thought I would post the itinerary for our upcoming adventure just in case any of the you were interested.

Day  1 - 3     Paris (pre-tour)
            4        Chalon-sur-Soane
            5        Beaune
            6        Soane River  ( Burgandy region) & Lyon
            7        Vienne
            8        Tourmon & Viviers
            9        Rhone River (Provence) & Aries
           10      Avignon
      11 - 14   Nice (post-tour)

It promises to be a good time and we were traveling with our good friends once again.

It'Official

It looks like it's official now the trip is on the travel pack arrived today. This includes a day by day itinerary your luggage tags your transfer documentation and a booklet describing the rivers we will be cruising on and the towns along them. This information all comes in a nice over the shoulder zipperable tablet case.

Almost that time again

It must be getting close to the time for the next adventure the goodies have started arriving from viking

Later this week the rest of the documents are supposed to arrive which would be the tour books the river guide and the little tablet case to carry them all in.