Avignon is one of the many cities along the Rhône that began life as a Roman settlement. The Romans knew a good spot when they saw one, and the river was a major highway through Gaul. But Avignon’s real claim to fame came much later, in the Middle Ages, when things in the Church went…
Chateau Neuf du Pape would have to be one of the famous vineyard areas in France – and we were off the ship at Avignon for a visit and tasting. The young man who conducted the tour dazzled us with data about terroir (soil, climate, human interference) and things called Cru. Me, I’m a philistine….
We visited Tournon back in the days of covid, where we conducted our own tour of the town. That time we parked on the Tain-l’Hermitage side of the river. It was a lot warmer that day than today. Tournon itself has been important for centuries. It grew up as a fortified town on the right…
Vienne feels like a small town in France but it was once a major Roman powerhouse. Back in the Roman period, Vienne was one of the most important cities in Gaul. Its position on the Rhône made it a key transport and trade route, effectively a Roman highway linking the Mediterranean to the interior. Goods,…
On a day of low cloud, drizzle, and biting cold we headed off on a coach to visit the famous Cluny Abbey, once one of the most powerful institutions in Europe. I remembered Cluny from my medieval history studies at university, half a century ago. I was expecting something along the lines of Melk Abbey…
Petrovaradin Fortress Novi Sad turned out to be a tale of two experiences. The much-touted Petrovaradin Fortress sounded impressive on paper, and its history is rich, but in practice it was a slow climb up a steep cobbled slope to… a view. A good view, yes, stretching across the Danube, but you work for it….
Another day, another stretch of the Danube, and this time we arrived in Vidin, in the far northwest of Bulgaria where we visited Baba Vida fortress. The area around Vidin is not wealthy. In fact, it’s considered one of the poorest in the country. Like so many of the other places we’ve visited, there are…
The trip to Arbanasi, a small village in the foothills of mid-Bulgaria, took a couple of hours from the ship, but the difference was obvious almost immediately. Where the Romanian countryside had felt flat and empty, Bulgaria rolled out green hills, patchwork fields, and cattle grazing as if they actually belonged there. It was alive…
Bucharest is often called the Paris of the Balkans, and you can see why. Wide boulevards, elegant facades, and flashes of faded grandeur hint at a past that once aspired to match the great cities of Europe. In places, it still works. There are buildings here that make you stop, look up, and imagine a…