April 14, 2024: Touring Vienne; Then On to Tournon.
Vienne is 35 km south of Lyon and its claim to fame is that it was a major center during Roman times after being captured by Caesar’s armies in 47 BCE. It was important because of its presence on the Rhone River. As a result it had a Roman Temple dedicated to Augustus and Livia, a large Roman Theater and several important medieval churches, which remain to this day.
Vienne is also famous for the 1311 Council of Vienne when the Catholic Church withdrew papal support for the Knights of the Templars, which led to their demise. In 1800 the population of Vienne was 10,362; today it is 30,059.
AmaWaterways wisely has created three types of tours that cover the same activity: Regular, Active ( who want to do walk more) and gentle ( who walk less). Our tour today was entitled: Footsteps of Ancient Romans. There were two others: a 3km hike up to Mont Pipet for views and a 17km bike ride along the Rhone River. We chose the 2.5 hour “regular” walking tour of Vienne which left at the reasonable hour of 9AM, our kind of time. It turned out to be a bit of a “wow” tour when we saw the Roman ruins.
We were back on board by lunch. By 12:15 PM the ship weighed anchor and continued it trip down the Rhone River.
Later in the afternoon we had the option of participating in a on-board lecture by a local wine sommelier about the wines from the Cotes-du-Rhone region near here.
As former passengers on a AmaWaterways cruise we were invited to a “pre” normal cocktail hour where champagne or other libations were offered as we were thanked for our business. About 30 people were in attendance. Then there was the usual 6PM cocktail hour with Roberto entertaining us with song, followed at 6:45 by a short presentation by Helene about tomorrow’s activities, followed by dinner at 7 PM. A big surprise before we left the cocktail hour was when Roberto indicated he was a trained baritone opera singer and he treated us to a famous aria in Italian before we left. I am not an opera fan but I sure enjoyed his song.
At 7PM we were already docked in Tournon where we will stay for two nights. We had sailed all of 60 km today! It was still light after dinner so we briefly went ashore because we saw a carnival that had been operating earlier in the day. It turns out Jane has a fondness for cotton candy and we thought that certainly a carnival would offer it. Sadly we saw that the rides were now shut down and the carnival was obviously getting ready to leave. We were about to return to the ship when we saw a food booth that was still open and we wandered over. Well, the rest of the story can be seen in the pictures below!
The after dinner entertainment tonight was by the La Dulce France trio playing semi-classical French music. We stayed a bit before retiring for the night.
