The Europe trip this year is already receding into history. Which is why I write the blogs. The blogs don’t cover everything. They can’t. They catch the places, the moments, the things we thought worth writing down at the time. But step back from the detail, and something else starts to emerge, the impressions that…
Choir at the chapel After a full day sailing, we stepped off the boat in Lyon and into something completely unexpected, a concert in a chapel that no longer serves a religious purpose. It’s still very much a chapel, though. The moment you walk in, you feel it. High domed ceiling, stone and marble everywhere,…
From Avignon we cruised down to the Provençal port of Arles. It’s famous for two things, its Roman past, which is still very much on display, and Vincent van Gogh. Being Dutch, I can pronounce his name properly, which is more than can be said for most people on the tour. Roman times Arles began…
Peter and I had been to the lovely little town of Viviers before, back in the Days of Covid. We were on a river trip that went up the Seine to Normandy and back to Paris, where we caught a train to Lyon for a cruise on the Rhône . We’re fairly sure we picked…
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…
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….