We spent the morning cruising down the Seine. The countryside was quite pretty and hillier than I had thought it would be. We passed several towns and saw some beautiful large homes. The ship docked in Rouen about 1:00PM. We had lunch outside on the terrace while we were docking. After lunch we went on a 2 hour walking tour of Rouen which has a large number of medieval buildings still standing. One of the highlights of the tour, for the fans of the Vikings series...

We docked in Vernon this morning. The included Viking tour was to Monet's home and estate in Giverny which was a short bus ride away. Monet is my favorite impressionist and it was fascinating to be at the spots that gave him his inspiration including the Japanese bridge and water garden shaded by weeping willows and filled with water lilies. We spent the morning there and then went back to the ship for a Normandy themed buffet. In the afternoon we had a short wal...

It's actually the day after we visited the Louvre but we have been very busy. We checked the weather before we left and it said there was a 2% chance of rain. We left the rain jackets and umbrellas in the cabin - bad choice. The 2% hit us just as we were getting off the shuttle bus into Paris. The Louvre is about a half hour walk from the shuttle bus stop, so our 1st stop was to buy an umbrella. With the cheap umbrella keeping us dry, we made it to the Louvre. Th...

We did not need to check out of the room and take the shuttle to the ship until noon. We had not yet seen the Arc de Triomphe. Looking at the map we decided it would be a nice morning walk. It only took about 45 minutes to walk there and was well worth it. It was a little busy but not too bad. We stayed there about 15 minutes and then walked back to the hotel to clean up and pack. We joined about 20 others on the bus and took the 30 minute ride to the ship which ...

We spent the day today on the bike tour to Versailles that we booked thru Bike About Tours. We met the group of 12 and the guide, April, at Notre Dame about 8:30 in the morning. April also has her own tour company - parisforyoutours.com. We got to Notre Dame early and had a chance to go inside the Cathedral - an impressive building - it's hard to imagine the construction back in the Middle Ages. The group took the subway/rail to Versailles where we picked up our ...