Feeling Blessed: France Day 9

Sunday, September 22, 2024

France Day 9 - Avignon

Wednesday September 18

(Yes, since I am behind with the blogs I have to write the dates again)

At 8:45 am this morning our tours started. A local guide leads us into the city. We were asked to choose either to visit the Pope's Palace or Tchou Tchou Train besides the walk through town. We had been made aware that the Pope's Palace had many steps. Nevertheless that was James and my choice.

More Pixel Art.

Even though we also had been told that there was no furniture in the palace it was very interesting. Our guide was really good and knowledgeable.

The chimney in the kitchen.

And the steps were not bad at all.

Afterwards we had free time. The way back to the ship was very easy especially with the GPS on the phone. James and I decided to have a look at the Pope's Garden.

The view was great.

There were several different overlooks and crisscrossing walkways, a pond with a statue in the middle and some life swans etc.

We were back for lunch on the ship and at 1:45 pm we were ready for our optional tour. There had been two optional tours offered but because of that strong mistral (wind) which stopped us from coming to Avignon for the planned two days we could only choose one.

We chose the "Pont du Gard", the roman aquaduct. I can't remember how long the bus had to drive but it is always interesting to see the country side.

From the parking place of course we came first to the museum, cafe, gift shop etc.

From there we walked a little to the aqueduct. It was very impressive.

It also was quite hot and as much as I would have liked to get a good photo of the whole thing I didn't feel like walking up a hill for it.

But we did walk to the other side, watched people swim in the river and kayak on the other side. It was really lovely.

We did go into the museum. For some reason I was not so impressed. It seemed to be about all of the aquaducts in France which I found very confusing to find details out about this one. Oh well.

At 5 pm we were all supposed to be back on board because the MS Chanson was sailing again. That I find also a strange term, ha-ha, since this ship didn't have a sail.

We had been several ships next to each other and the one on the outside of us had to push away so we could leave. Once we were gone from the pier the other ship could go back to dock there. Some of its passengers might wonder what happened to their ship.

At 6:30 pm we had our first "disembarkation briefing" and also the daily port talk (next day's details). This little powerpoint was also how french people greet. Yes, how many kisses? Left, right or right, left? Seems that it is not the same for all France but also regional different. I didn't know that.