Day 34 - Sunday 15th October - Cruise

Nice relaxing morning again as our chosen excursion didn't head off until 9.45am.  We were a little too relaxed though and had to have late breakfast in the River Cafe. We chose to go back to Tournon Castle for a tour inside and a wine tasting class so we headed off with our guide,  Sofi. We walked through a flea market in the park in front of the ship and heard a little bit of history of the town and the castle which was built in the mid 12thC and then mostly pulled down during the French Revolution. The church was built into the fortifications of the castle and during the revolution all the side chapels were sold off and people built multi-storey houses in these. So looks very odd to see houses and shops built into the side of the church. We arrived at the castle and first went to the wine class. We sat at long tables and watched a presentation and listened to a lovely young man, Guillame, who talked to us about the wine of the immediate region which is Syrah or Shiraz. He showed us on a map of the region and which wineries made which wine. Some made only white and some made only red and there was only one that made both. We then were  treated to tastings of some delicious and apparently expensive wines. We swirled the wine in the glass as he showed us, smelled it and then had to say what we could smell. John and I  kept saying 'wine'. Some know-alls, especially one woman from SA, thought they knew it all and came up with all sorts of things they could smell. Our little group decided they must be making this all up otherwise our noses were broken. Some silly people even spat out the wine after swilling it around in their mouth and some poured the rest into the buckets provided!!!! Not our group!  We drank every delicious little drop of both red and white and thoroughly enjoyed them even if we could only smell wine. We also enjoyed the sheep's cheese, salami and sausage we had to go with the wines. Following this we went into the castle for our tour and we learnt that a fellow from Tournon invented the suspension bridge and they still have boat jousting tournaments in Tournon. We went out onto the North Terrace and had more spectacular views over the town and the valley. Then made our way out of the castle and back to the ship where a barbecue lunch was cooking on the upper deck in the glorious sunshine. We went to our room to deposit things and collect our Maltese sunhats before heading up to lunch. What a barbecue!  Not like any we've ever prepared. There were 4 types of meat, tuna, various types of sausages, salads, vegetables, baked potatoes and yummy bread. Needless to say it was hard not to fill one's plate with food. Then we had several flavours of icecream to enjoy for dessert.  We sat with 2 ladies we've eaten with before, 2 teachers from Perth who travel together (one apparently a real aristocratic Lady). They're quite lovely and seem to share the same prejudices as we do of the bogan Aussie travellers. So that was enjoyable. After lunch we had a stroll in this tiny quiet little town,  walked through the flea market and marveled at some of the junk people try to sell. There were some interesting things like bows and arrows, a lamp bad made from 3 rifle butts, many pressure cookers and a couple of old gramophones. The lady selling the gramophones played a record and sang along to a lovely French song with a glass of wine in one hand. Not a lot to see so we headed back to the ship and before we knew it the ship was moving Away from the dock before 3 when we were due to sail off. I went up on deck to watch us do a u-turn before heading downriver and discovered that someone had been left ashore. We could see a man at the end of the little pier madly waving his arms in the air and pointing to his watch. After the u-turn the captain brought the ship up to the pier for the man to jump on. That's when we saw that it was our piano player, Richard! Apparently he hadn't logged off and even though he got to the dock at 2.45 they thought everyone was on board which meant they could set off a little early. The Captain didn't look happy. So we're now on our way to Viviers going through several locks to get down the river. We had a very relaxing afternoon sailing and I went down to the new salt room. Our ship is the first of the fleet to be fitted out with a gym and salt room as well as now having a spa tub on the deck. The salt room's floor is covered with a thick layer of rock salt, there are 3 comfy lounge beds, the lighting is subdued, there is soft music playing, and the temperature is controlled. You just lie there, relax and breathe deeply. It's supposed to be good for the respiratory system - the warm air circulates through the salt on the floor and releases the minerals into the air that you breathe. Well, it was so relaxing that I fell asleep. I said to a lady who was in there with me, "I hope I wasn't snoring". She said I did a little but that I was rythmical. Then there was port talk and then dinner. After dinner our tour director held a Movie Music quiz night which was lots of fun and John and I got 14/15 ! I think I got most of them but John made some great contributions. We didn't win though because the 2 teachers from Perth got them all right.  After a few dances and a few more drinks we fell into bed again.