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Observations:  Virtually no one is wearing masks here. I have seen very few masks when outdoors in any of the cities.  Also the day we boarded the ship we were told we would have to wear masks when in public areas; however, the next morning we received a memo stating that mask wearing was no longer mandatory on the ship! Hooray!  Unfortunately the poor staff still do wear masks. We also learned that staff members, when they first board the ship, must quarantine for 5 days before interacting with the guests.

Our first stop on this journey is Marseiile, France. The problem is that this is the nearest port to Provence, France where there is simply too much to see and do. One of the benefits of Regent is that most of their escorted tours are free, with only a few offered at an additional cost to their customers. For example 16 tours are offered when we are in Marseille, of which only 3 require extra cost. They range in time from 3.5 to 8 hours in length. It is an almost impossible task to pick which of the offered tours we wanted to take. Our group guideline is pick what interests you;  do not worry about what others are doing. Yvonne kindly lets me do most of the picking and I selected the trip to visit Avignon (and the Pope’s Palace) and the mountain town of Les Baux. It leaves at 8 AM and lasts 8 hours-a long day, but hopefully well worth it.

The disembarkation for tours has been running smoothly. We are asked to go to the theater at select time to receive our bus boarding passes. We wait until our tour is called and we proceed off ship to our bus. The process for leaving and returning to the ship has changed. They now are using facial recognition rather than scanning your room key. Seems to work quickly. The tours have not been overly crowded-less than 25 people per bus. The buses are new and modern.

Our trip to Avignon was about 1 hour but it was pleasant with some commentary provided by the local tour guide who was leading our group. I expected Avignon to be a sleepy little mountain town. I was very wrong! It has a population of 93,000 people of which about 15,000 live in the old district. Its place in history revolves around the fact that from 1309-1377 it was the seat of the Catholic Church, rather than in Rome. This happened because a French pope was elected (Pope Clément V)in 1309. The new pope, fearing Italy was too dangerous, moved the papacy to Avignon, where he could enjoy a secure rule under a supportive French king. He, and six subsequent popes, built a huge palace during their residency and that is one of the main reasons people visit Avignon today-to see the Palais des Papes (the Pope’s Palace). It is the largest gothic palace in Europe according to Rick Steves. As a result of their efforts Avignon grew to become a city of 25,000 people in the 14th century! The other main attraction in the area is the remains of a 12th century Bénezet Bridge on the nearby Rhône River.

We toured the huge palace which is mostly empty now. I was awed by how large it was. You have heard the phrase ” it is good to be king”, well, it is also good to be a Pope. They lived well, even back in the 14th century!

From there we drove to another famous medieval city, Les Baux-de-Provence, situated on a rock outcropping where the remains of a fortress built from the 11-13th century stands. It is one of the most visited medieval towns in France. The views of the surrounding valleys from this village is stunning; it is certainly understandable why forts were located at locations such as this.

Returning to the ship in late afternoon we met for cocktails and formed a team to enter the daily trivia contest. We started strong but faded in the end only getting 10/15 correct answers- not enough to win “Regent points” which can later be used to win prizes, like a coveted ball point pen or even a tee shirt! One of questions we missed was what do the numbers on a roulette table add up to?  Answer tomorrow!

Since we are in the main dining room yesterday we decided to have dinner tonight at the Italian “pop-up” restaurant which occurs every evening at the site of the buffet. Given all the fancy dinnerware it is hard to imagine how this location normally serves as the buffet area for breakfast and lunch.

The entertainment this evening was English vocalist, Karl Loxley, who had appeared on The Voice(UK) and was coached by Tom Jones. He sings both opera and popular tunes and was quite good.

Tomorrow we will be in Barcelona, Spain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our ship does not leave until 9 PM so we have a day to explore the area before boarding later this afternoon. As is our common practice we booked an all day tour with a local person to see the area. I have used “Tours by Locals” on some of our past trips and found a promising tour offered by Pierre, who is obviously a local. (An aside: I also have used the services of “Get your Guide” when booking local tours).

Tour description:  We”ll start this tour with a short visit of the Principality of Monaco, where we’ll see the old town called the Rock, and Monte Carlo, the fancy Casino square. We’ll stop in the charming villages of Eze and La Turbie and as well as the city of Nice, which is the “capital” city of the French Riviera.  We’ll discover as well one of my favorite villages, the last home for the painter Marc Chagall, the village of St Paul de Vence. This is the provencal heart of the French Riviera. And we’ll have spectacular photo stops above Nice, Monaco and Villefranche. We’ll have eventually time to sit for a little lunch somewhere!

Pierre agreed to take us to the ship after our tour.

First surprise of the trip. The Euro value has declined significantly since our last visit. Currently it is valued at 1.05 versus US dollar. It’s a good time to visit Europe!  Our money will go farther while we are here.

We checked out of the hotel before 8:30am and delivered our luggage to the Regent staff located at the hotel (who assured us the luggage would be delivered to our room on the ship), eliminating the need for us to store them while on our local tour. As promised Pierre appeared at the agreed 8:30am pick up time. He spoke excellent English so that eliminated another concern one sometimes runs into-would we be able to understand him.  His vehicle was a large Mercedes which easily accommodated the six of us, and off we went.

Driving along the coastline with constant narration we viewed the Monaco region. The Formula 1 Grand Prix is scheduled to be here in a few weeks so there are grandstands and fencing being erected all along the route of  the race. That race is probably the biggest event held yearly in Monaco.

The Monaco harbor is crowded with the mega yachts of the rich and famous. Pierre rattled off the names of past and current owners of Monaco property- David Niven, Sean Connery, Bono, Elton John are a few of the names I recall him mentioning.There are more billionaires in Monaco than anywhere else in the world. As expected, property values are astronomical here.

We drove to nearby Nice where we parked the vehicle and leisurely strolled through the flower and vegetable market- one of the marvelous activities that is part of daily life in Europe. I could not resist buying a small basket of marvelous strawberries which we shared as we walked with locals doing their daily shopping. Pierre bought us a local, popular snack called “Socca”, a pancake made of chickpeas.

Returning to our van we were driven to Saint-Paul de Vence, a small medieval village of about 3200 people located above Monaco & Nice. We walked through the narrow streets, absorbing the history and attempting to fathom what it might have been like to live there. It is a popular spot for famous people and painters. The town is loaded with small galleries featuring artwork by local artists. Picasso, Jean-Paul Sartre and Ives Montand once visited here.  Painter, Marc Chagall lived and is buried there.

After paying our respects at the grave of Marc Chagall it was time for a leisurely lunch at an outdoor cafe overlooking the valley.  Refreshed, it was time to move on.

The next stop was at the village of La Turbie where we stopped to see the Trophée des Alpes, or Trophy of Augustus, a Roman monument that was built c. 6 BC in honor of Augustus to celebrate his definitive victory over the 45 tribes who populated the region.

Heading back to Monaco we parked the van and did a walking tour that included a visit to the church that contains the burial site of Prince Rainier and his famous American bride, Grace Kelly. We also viewed the royal palace, which is not all that impressive compared to other palaces in the world.

By this time we were eager to get to the ship and in a few moments we were boarding our home for the next two weeks. By arriving so late in the day (5PM) we avoided the usual mob of other arriving passengers. There were no people or lines so we walked right onto the ship after passing security and providing our health data to the staff.  When we arrived at our rooms we found our luggage had safely been delivered so all was well!

Fellow traveler, Ron Massa, had been on this ship last fall so he was our official tour guide to show us the ins & outs of the beautiful new ship (launched 2020-not the best timing!). The ship is modern, glitzy and is of modest size, holding a maximum of 750 passengers (the same as most of the Regent fleet). I was told there would be about 525 passengers on our cruise.

We quickly unpacked in our HUGE cabins with so much storage space we joked we might not be above to remember where we have stored items. As on other Regent ships the is a large walk in closet, a massive bathroom with dual sinks, tub and separate shower.

 

We barely had enough time to unpack before it was time for our first official cocktail hour and dinner in the signature Compass Rose Dining room. We are on our way!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is now early morning ,May 5, in Paris. We did arrive on time. We had about a 90 minute wait between flights but it went quickly as we had to transfer terminals and go through security and passport control as part of the process. Luckily there were no lines anywhere so the process went smoothly and quickly. The flight to Nice was 1 hour, 10 minutes and went smoothly.

In Nice we had our first pleasant surprise. I had expected to have a Regent representative there, which there were, two in fact. The pleasant young ladies quickly gathered us up, along with another couple from Atlanta who were on the same plane, and shepherded us to baggage claim and a porter gathered up our bags and prepared us for our transfer. Normally my experience has been that tour companies gather up many people arriving on multiple flights and board them collectively onto a bus for transfer, resulting in lots of waiting around for others to arrive. Regent does not do that. The young lady personally walked us out to a waiting high end Mercedes sedan/driver who would be taking us to our hotel! Needless to say we were impressed. Transfer time was about 40 minutes.

Because of our room selection for this cruise we receive a free pre-cruise hotel stay as part of the price.  We normally come a day early anyway when traveling internationally so this worked out well. Regent uses the upscale Fairmont- Monte Carlo hotel so we expected nice accommodations.

We arrived around noon giving rise to the next potential “early arrival” problem one often encounters when traveling- your room is not ready and you must figure out how and where you can hang out for 1-3 hours waiting for it! Fingers crossed, I started the check-in process with a smile and the friendliest “Bon Jour” I could muster. I filled out the paperwork and was about to ask if perhaps our room might be available when the clerk said “your room is available”  Alleluia! I had heard that Regent was a big customer of theirs so maybe that worked in our favor. Our day was complete!

A three hour nap, followed by a rejuvenating shower and a light meal in the hotel lounge completed our day. Our travel colleagues got caught up with canceled flights and will not be arriving until later this evening.

Our trip actually began yesterday as we had to take a proctored Covid antigen test 72 hours before boarding the ship. Regent made the process relatively simple by partnering with an on-line test firm. We were provided with a link to the testing organization and were able to order the required required kits ($45 each) and schedule the monitored test on Tuesday afternoon. Luckily all went well; we passed the required test and received the necessary paperwork to proceed.

Cruising with Regent Seven Seas is not cheap, but….as Yvonne now says: “we have more money then time” at this point of our lives. One of the perks of sailing with Regent is that the cruise price includes business class air on overseas flights which is something we have been treating ourselves to since retirement.

Our flights today are on Delta, flying to Paris then to Nice, France where we will be met and taken to our hotel in Monaco where we will join the ship.

The Seattle airport was surprisingly quiet today when we arrived at 9:15. Check-in was smooth and Delta has a very nice business class lounge where we were able to grab a bite and relax before boarding our 12:45 PM flight to Paris. The flight was delayed by 20 minutes but that was not expected to pose a problem as our flight time to Paris was scheduled at 9 hours, 13 minutes which would actually get us there on time.

Observation: Probably 90% of people were not wearing masks in the airport or on the plane.