Cruise continues, many stops

 This cruise is different from the previous one in its scheduling of stops.  On Monday night the ship was docked in Bordeaux, I think mainly so Can Can performers could be onboard.  On Tuesday we woke up with the ship sailing to Cussac-Fort Médoc.  From there once again the docking town was mainly the starting point of a bus tour, this time a panoramic tour of the Médoc vineyard region.  Wine-growing estates are called Chateaux even if the main building is nothing like a castle.  All our rides included narrow roads where the bus needed to do difficult maneuvers.  One place to stop:

Our main stop was Chateau Malescasse.  Pictures from there: 

Rows of vineyards are marked with the grape variety, and the barrels have the 2022 harvest, to be bottled in June 2024.  There was a nice tasting.  Where we drove by estates, there were often many cars parked, because this is Futures Week, when many wholesalers are making purchases. There was oyster tasting by the dock on our return.

In the afternoon, we sailed across the Gironde Estuary to Blaye, pronounced Bly.  I briefly went on shore, and it was the starting point of the tour on Wednesday, Margaret’s birthday.  We had scenic views: this marks where the Garonne and Dordogne meet to form the Gironde.

We got back to Blaye and declined to continue with the fortress tour; we took a look at the outdoor market. 

One view of the ship:

In the afternoon there was a sailing of an hour and a half to get to Bourg, where the stop was just for a few hours.  We could follow the tour leader for a tour of Bourg, which translates to Town and was formerly called Bourg-sur-Gironde, which no longer applies because the “beak” of land has grown out pushing the start of the Gironde downriver, so Bourg is now on the Dordogne.  

It is a small town involving some climbing to get to the picturesque center and a park with a view.

Here our ship is the outer one; this is the first time we needed to cross through another one.

Before dinner we had the reception for repeat Uniworld customers, and a dinner with a birthday cake for Margaret. She says it was a great birthday.  The ship took off for the next stop of Libourne, arriving later tonight.  On the other cruise we found it better for sleep when we sailed through the night.

Nice start to cruise

 On Sunday morning we noted much quieter streets in Bordeaux.

A little more wandering led to other sights: the Cathedral of Saint-André, and the Hotel-de-Ville ( City Hall).

 

This unfortunately is the historic door of the Hotel de Ville, burned in protests in late March.

We left the hotel close to the noon check-out time, and got a taxi to the dock of the S.S. Bon Voyage.  Boarding went well, with lunch ready, and it looks like the start of an excellent cruise.  We used Uniworld at the end of the 2022 cruise season, and are going early in the 2023 season; they have increased their green commitment by offering simple wooden key cards, and encouraging people to have the daily schedules on their phones rather than on paper.

The room was ready before too long, we met nice people, and had a good dinner.  The ship went under the historic Pont de Pierre at the time required by low tide, and we got to the first stop of Cadillac still in daylight.

In the morning, the ship needed to leave the shore and go mid-river for the inland tidal phenomenon called Mascaret.  Then we were bused away from Cadillac to Chateau Cazeneuve, once belonging to King Henri IV and Queen Margot.  It’s interesting for furniture and tapestries, and we sampled Sauternes sweet wines.  Only outside pictures were allowed.

Editing to show pictures from Monday dinner:

 

Arrived in Bordeaux

 It was time to leave Paris; it was raining as we needed to walk a block from our hotel, the voco Montparnasse, to the Gare Montparnasse.  People stand in the main hall waiting for the track number to be posted, often 15 minutes before departure, but we got a little more time than that.  The tickets (in our case on my Apple Wallet) were checked as we entered the platform.

We boarded; for my one time on the TGV I booked the best, the full-service Inoui rather than the budget Ouigo, and in first class.  I booked the upper level for the view, and the stairs weren’t as shallow with luggage as The Man in Seat 61 (helpful site for rail travel) suggested.  We settled in at the seats facing each other at the end of the car, next to the luggage rack.  

We took off, the train’s Wi-Fi was spotty and it didn’t work to order from the snack bar on the phone, but I went and got some food and drink as we covered the distance in such a short time, sometimes going over 300 km/h.

A crowded train, and it seemed this dog needed to move

Mustard fields

The speed displayed

On arrival at Bordeaux St-Jean station, we exited and saw the tram lines, but no apparent place to get a taxi.  I needed to do some looking, and it seemed we were in front of Hall 1, and to our left we needed to go past a jutting out to Hall 2, where there’s a taxi stand.  There were a few people waiting with no taxis, but the cabs came one by one until one was ready for us.

We got to the Quality Hotel in the city’s large pedestrian zone, where the driver needed to ask for the bollards to drop so the cab could enter.  The room wasn’t ready even after 2, so we wandered a little, noting how lively the streets are.  When the room was ready, we were impressed at how big a room it was, a suite by some definitions.  Still the toilet room was separate from the other bathroom, on different sides of the bed.

 

After a brief rest, to eat early we went to Le Grand Café.  A few pictures of crowded streets, prominent squares, and the Miroir d’Eau reflecting pool.

Place de la Bourse

Place du Parlemenr

Porte Cailhou

Miroir d’Eau

These are good impressions of a lively city in a short time, tomorrow we board the cruise, and we look forward to more time in Bordeaux at the end.

Finishing time in Paris

 This morning we went to the Picasso Museum.  Yesterday I booked tickets for admission there, and I couldn’t save them as Documents there as I’d done for the Petit Palais show.  I had the printable version and asked for help at the hotel desk; that ran into complications. The desk agent figured how to take a screenshot and AirDrop it to her phone to print. It occurred to me: could I just have kept a screenshot of the mobile version to my photos, so I could have found it easily?

Anyway, we took the métro to the nearby station and I was glad to have Google Maps guide us down the series of streets to the museum.  The museum had a special arrangement of the collection putting it into a new perspective at the fiftieth anniversary of Picasso’s death. There was much to appreciate as it showed the range of styles in the artist’s long career.  The one work I photographed:

Afterwards, we got an Uber to Sacre-Coeur, since Margaret hadn’t been with me on the previous Montmartre walk.  So we had a new walk in the neighborhood and a creperie lunch.

After getting a bit downhill, we got an Uber back to our hotel in a Tesla, interesting to experience along with the landmarks.  I then got to see Amy from our SlowTrav days, and her husband Larry, very nice to catch up.

Our time in Paris was winding down, and we didn’t have a very busy schedule; we enjoyed what we could.  Crowds of people are out in the evening.

Hoping for the best in getting to Bordeaux in the morning.

Paris, not keeping too busy

 The main things to report for Wednesday and Thursday:

A walk in Montmartre, starting from the risqué Pigalle area to the quiet picturesque back streets climbing to Sacré-Coeur.

A more genuine windmill

Vineyard within Paris

In the afternoon, the Petit Palais for the show on Sarah Bernhardt, the great actress who also became a managerial figure in French theatre, dying a century ago.  The show had many memorabilia of her, including costumes: here’s one of Cleopatra:

The next day, we went to the Ile de la Cité to see Notre-Dame from the outside as it’s being rebuilt, and then the Sainte-Chapelle.  We had reserved tickets, waiting outside for our time with the security check for a short time inside.

Crossing the Pont Neuf to the Left Bank, we had our fill of steak frites at Brasserie Le Nesle.

A couple of practical notes: like in Amsterdam, card payments are accepted for small amounts, but I haven’t seen staffed places be cashless.  On arriving at the Champs-Elysées-Clemenceau station for the Petit Palais, again I saw turnstiles taped off and people going around them; when we entered the station after the show, the turnstiles were operating and they were new: I guess a couple of times we happened on situations where people got free rides as the new gates were being installed.

Gettting to Paris

 It was nice interesting that for an Air France departure from the U,S. check-in opened 30 hours before departure. Even if a Business Class upgrade offer was out of our reach, we could manage to pay a little for seats in the front row of the main cabin, and we took that offer that showed up at check-in. 

We got the bus to Boston Logan Airport, check-in was normal, and we found that, at Terminal E, used almost only for international flights, a domestic flight on Sun Country Airlines was at our gate, delayed over four hours.  There was no alternative gate for our flight, so the inbound aircraft needed to wait, delaying the cleanup for our flight and everything after that.  

We boarded and found it nice to have the front row economy seats. Even if it was billed as standard legroom, it felt better to have the wall in front rather than a row of seats, and the third person in the aisle had infinite legroom.  I heard not to have great expectations of AF’s food, and the chicken rice pilaf was ok. I pretty much didn’t sleep, but the flight was short enough and it was nice to have the A350’s big windows. The screen also had a camera view of the takeoff and landing. 

We arrived about an hour late.  We were at Hall M of  Paris CDG Airport Terminal 2E.  It took several turns and descents to get to the underground train to Hall K to start our way out.  There was the odd setup where we needed to start one way to turn around and choose which lane to take based on passport nationality.  For those that qualified, including the U.S., we went through e-gates, putting the passport on a reader while our faces are read to determine a match.  Then there was a hall with signs to the different baggage carousels (our bags were ready).  It was about an hour after arrival that we got into the taxi line; there were many people but it moved quickly.  We noted the chill in the air after we came from a hot spell in Vermont. We got into a taxi and it took over an hour in rush hour traffic to get to our hotel in Montparnasse.  

The desk agent said the room would be ready shortly, but I reminded her that I’d booked the previous night.  We got what was called an upgraded room, maybe slightly bigger than the basic.  Even this modern hotel had the traditional French practice of a toilet room separate from the bathroom. The neighborhood has a lot of modern buildings, with the Tour Montparnasse and other high-rises nearby.

After some rest, we took some walks around the neighborhood, including the historic theatre street Rue de la Gaîté.  

The next day, our main outing was to the Musée Marmottan-Monet; in many visits to Paris, often focusing on museums, I don’t remember having been there, and we liked the good collection with several Monets.  We went there with a Bolt rideshare and returned on the métro, having bought Navigo Easy cards that can be loaded with tickets.  At La Muette station, the turnstiles were taped off and people went around them, so no fare was taken from the cards; I don’t know if we missed some procedure that we needed to follow.

As we sometimes like to do even if it’s against local custom, we had one main meal in the mid-afternoon, Chez Papa near our hotel.

Pissarro painting; I hesitate to take pictures in museums.

Planning the spring 2023 trip: really, another cruise?

 We got home in November 2022 with good thoughts about our river cruise experience, and the benefits of becoming repeat customers with Uniworld were also appealing.  There was one offer that expired the day after our return, too soon to think about doing this.  

Just a little later, there was another sale offer for the Bordeaux cruise, which is where I was focused, an area of France where I haven't been and has been of interest to me.  As I remember, I initiated a booking on the budget deck and it was showing sold out, but I contacted them and they got us a cabin.

As we booked the cruise, it was uncertain what the rest of the trip would be.  First, for the flight over, I was planning to convert credit card points to airline miles.  Among Chase's partners, being based in the U.S. for a transatlantic trip, I think first of United, but as their transatlantic miles price is usually over 30,000 miles each way, I was finding better deals on Europe-based partners.  I first looked at Aer Lingus to go from Boston to Bordeaux via Dublin, but it became clear that there could be problems being on an island and something going wrong with the one flight to Bordeaux.

Seeing that Air France via Paris would be better, it gradually came to be that we could spend about a week in Paris before the cruise.  Even after using IHG points for the stay in Amsterdam, the leftover points, annual free nights for having two credit cards with them, and a 10% rebate of the Amsterdam points meant that we'd have a free Paris stay just by buying a small number of points at the cost of less than a night.  We'd be convenient to Gare Montparnasse, where we could experience the TGV train to Bordeaux.

On the Flying Blue program, a one-way Boston-Paris flight could be had for 17K miles; I think it helps that Boston is in a lower-distance mile band.  There was also a bonus for converting American Express Membership Rewards. (I should also note that there's a money component to award booking, larger than with U.S.-based airlines.) I started the booking, and with a confirmation code there was an error message that I needed to call.  I understand that this is common with award bookings on points just transferred from another program, an effort to watch for fraud.  It took a few calls, some cut off, but the outbound was booked.

I was still thinking in terms of some time in Italy after the Bordeaux cruise, but it came to be that we didn't want to be away for so long, and there weren't great options for getting from Bordeaux to Rome or another Italian gateway.  We finally decided just to return home after the cruise, a connection from Bordeaux via Paris, and I completed that reward booking with a similar need to call.

In both directions, we were booked on the later of Air France's two flights on the route.  In late December, I got a notice that our flights had been changed: those flights were taken off the schedule for those days.  We were on the earlier flights, and that's how the outbound stayed, but a few days later I got an email in Spanish with a link to AF's Mexican site saying the original flight was cancelled, and not showing us having anything.  The originally rebooked flights were still on the timetable, and I made a call that got that reinstated.  There was another notice changing our flight out of Bordeaux to something still earlier, and the cruise line will probably want us up really early for their transfer to the airport.  Oh, and our bid for an upgraded stateroom was approved, much closer to the cruise start than it was last time.

Going over, our flight arrival is set for 6 a.m., and I was able to add an IHG free night so our room is booked for the previous night and we can have it ready on arrival.  We look forward to interesting times, having seen about the ongoing protests in Paris, apparently generally not affecting travelers all that much, and we don't have too much of an agenda.

But back to the plans to go to Italy: we're looking for a trip there in September.  Margaret has been looking to take Business Class when possible; I look at Flying Blue's Promo Rewards every month, and I understood I was seeing a good deal out of Montreal, which is about the same distance as Boston for us.  With a bonus for converting Chase points to Flying Blue, I booked a September trip in Business going over and Premium Economy on the return, looking good even though there is a notable monetary component to the booking.  I later learned that these didn't meet the definition of Promo Rewards; they're the low end of the dynamic rewards pricing, but we'll make the best of it.  Also, I completed the booking, after sleeping on it for a night, on the day that Flying Blue started charging for seat assignments on awards, but then they got the system fixed so they didn't charge on North American routes.