Our last day on the cruise was spent in Arles, the home of Van Gogh for several years. For a change it was cloudy which made for a cooler and more comfortable walking tour. Arles has a well preserved Roman Arena which once held 20,000. It is still used today for concerts and bull fighting. Surprisingly, the bull fights here still end up with the bull getting killed. I had thought it still only happen in Spain. We spent relaxing afternoon on the ship and then pack...

Today we were in Avignon, which was the home of the Popes for about 70 years in the 1300’s. We had a 3 hour morning walking tour, the majority of which was to tour the Pope’s Palace. It is absolutely huge but quite barren since all the furnishings and decorations were moved back to Rome when the Pope moved back there. It was used as a barracks for soldiers in World War One and was then bought by the city of Avignon. It has no religious function today ...

Tournon is a small city along the Rhone. We took an hour waking tour where the guide struggled to show us much of interest. It was Sunday morning and the streets were pretty deserted. The rest of the morning was great. The included Viking tour was on an antique steam train up the Doux valley. It is a deep valley spanned with several aqueducts. The ride up and back lasted about an hour and a half. We spent the rest of the afternoon cruising down the Rhone heading ...

We spent the morning on a walking tour of Vienne, a city of about 30,000 people on the banks of the Rhone and was a major city in the Roman empire. It has many well preserved ruins including an amphitheater built into the hillside. It seats about 10,000 and is still used for an annual jazz festival. After the walking tour, we boarded an open sided tram to head up a hill overlooking the city which gave spectacular views of the city. We came back to the ship for th...

The morning was spent on a bus/walking tour of Lyon. A large basilica, which sits on a hill above the city, was our 1st stop. We had a great view of the city and the Saone and Rhone rivers. The bus tour continued to go around the city, which really is quite pretty. It is a large city but seems much less hectic and crowded than Paris. The last stop was an hour walking tour around the old midieval section of town. We had the option of taking the bus back to the shi...