The Cruise

    The center of this trip Will Holton had invited me on (see post on June 7),  after a few days in Paris and in Lyon and before a week in the Swiss Alps, was the ten-day cruise on both the Saône and Rhone rivers in the south of France.

    It started well. The first day I did a wine-tasting at a vineyard in Bourgignon and learned all about small-plot vineyards that covered the hillsides and the making and bottling of wine. The next day I attended a cooking demonstration by Philippe, a chef at a three-star Michelin restaurant, Georges Blanc.

The next day I made a bicycle excursion along the banks of the Rhone.

    The next day I tested positive for COVID. 

    The next day Will, too, tested positive.

    We were told to go to our cabin at once, shut the door, and not emerge for six days, which would be the disembarkation day of the cruise, anyway. 

    So I missed kayaking under the Pont du Gard. We missed the dinner and concert at the Palais du Pape in Avignon. I missed wine tasting at Chateauneuf du Pape. And so on.

    We were confined in a ten-by-ten-foot cabin. Choosing meals from each day's menu became a big event. I ate on my bed. Will ate at the narrow counter. I had several very good books on my Kindle and a paperback book about Jewish seamstresses at Auschwitz, which Will, who hadn't brought anything to read and is a history buff, was glad to have. My sister had given me a jigsaw puzzle to take with me, so that occupied me for a couple of days.

And I had plenty of time to catch up with my journal. Neither of us was badly sick, but we did also rest a lot.

    We spent time on our balcony watching the swans on the river and the towns and vineyards we passed.

Will was interested in the many, many écluses, or locks, we went through. The worst times were the hours in port when another cruise ship pulled up next to us, cutting off not only any view but even all but a tiny strip of sky.

The dense enclosure made our tiny space feel even smaller.

    So we passed the time, and the day came when we opened the door and walked into the hallway, then down the gangplank and off the ship and were on our way to Switzerland.

    Would I recommend Scenic Cruises? I hardly know what their cruises are like. All I know is that they fed us well when we were confined, that the personnel were sympathetic, and that everything that we didn't do sounded like a lot of fun.