Day 32 - Friday 13th October - Cruise

Early start today with our excursion bus leaving at 8.30am. Morning  routine as usual just a little earlier and we were on the bus by the allocated time. Today we went to the little medieval town called Perouges with our guide Cristelle. More gorgeous scenery on the way to this tiny town that time has forgotten. Perouges is on top of a hill and overlooks the Dombes Plateau. It's a fortified medieval town that's incredibly well preserved. The 15thC church was built as a fortification and looks like a fortress with gun holes built into the walls.  It's full of medieval timber-framed houses,  the streets are paved with the original cobblestones (which killed my feet). There's an Inn in the square dating back to the 13thC and the Tree of Liberty planned in 1792 is still alive with its branches propped up. We wandered along the streets learning all about this ever so pretty little town, we went into the church and in the square we went into the old Inn and tried the local specialty - Galette de Perouges. It's like a thin based pizza topped with custard and sugar then baked in the oven. Loved it with some coffee. Bought some cute little things, wandered around a little bit then piled back onto the bus. We got back to the ship, had lunch then walked into Lyon and found the hotel we stayed in last time, I bought a couple of t-shirts because we're having unseasonably warm weather with temps up to 26-27°. We then walked to the old town of Lyon which we loved last time we were here. Had an ice cream and sat for a little while to rest my very painful feet. Yes, we had walked too far and now we had to walk all the way back to the ship. I had to rest my foot for a while because dinner was early, 5pm. There was a special excursion planned for this evening so even though it felt like afternoon tea we all trooped down to dinner and then trooped onto the buses and drove in peek hour traffic to see an acrobatic show called Cirque Imagine or as it was called on our daily programme, Scenic Rouge. Our tour director, Nic, told us it was a cross between Cirque du Soleil and a French cabaret. It was ok but the canapes they served weren't great. The acrobatics were good and the comedian was good but the feathered dancing girls were a bit tacky. Clearly some of our passengers don't get out very much because they thought it was fabulous and had photos taken with the tacky girls. I had someone say that they were all ex-olympic gymnasts. One of the acrobats looked just like Vladimir Putin. We then got back on the bus and headed to the ship, the lounge, drinks, dancing, bed - in that order.