Our flights from Nice to Paris to San Francisco were long but thankfully uneventful. The level of personal service from Viking still surprises me. There were 3 couples on the same flight from Nice to Paris. The six of us had our own van to the airport. The Viking concierge, Bart, met us at the airport and helped each of us check in and led us to security. We left Nice around 1:00 PM and got into San Francisco about 7:00 PM (4:00 AM Nice time). It took about half an hour to clear immigration and customs and were able get the rental car about 8:00. We debated about getting a hotel near San Francisco and staying the night but I was able to sleep some on the plane so we pushed through to Carson City, getting in about 1:30 AM. Traffic was incredibly heavy getting out of San Francisco and also around Sacramento.

A few observations from our trip:

• We LOVE river cruising. We have done lots of ocean cruising and will do more, but both Viking river cruises we have taken are a step above. To us, the food, service and on board atmosphere are superior. There are no just sea days. Even when cruising you are able to see quaint villages float by (actually the boat floats by, the villages stay put). River cruising seems expensive compared to ocean cruising but with the included items such as wine and beer with lunch and dinner and a tour in each port, the price gets much more competitive. For example, a 10 hour tour to Normandy was included at no cost. An almost identical tour on Princess costs $400 for two.

• The French definitely did not live up to their reputation. The people we dealt with, including many locals, were friendly, helpful, and cheerful. We went out frequently on our own and we had no problem at all getting around in English (and a little awful French). We did not see the level of smoking we expected. It did not seem to be any more prevalent than here in Nevada. Don't know if that says something good about France or something bad about Nevada. Smoking is banned in any indoor public areas.

• Terrorism is having an effect on tourism in France. I'm not sure about the 1st week, but the Viking cruise on the 2nd week was only 80% full - they are usually sold out. Tour guides also mentioned that tourism is down. In both Paris and Nice, we saw many groups of 3 or 4 army troops patrolling the streets with their automatic weapons at the ready.

• We could spend a month in Nice and still want to stay.

• Dr Seuss has a saying that sums up how we feel: "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened".