I’ve long dreaded a cruise. I hated the idea of being crammed on a vast boat overwhelming some poor little Mediterranean port, with thousands of sweaty Brits making pyramids in the pool and drinking Watneys Red Barrel……
There was always the possibility of Jane McDonald turning up. Jane has a daytime TV programme and is the people’s tour guide to cruising. She can go into a beautiful Portuguese railway station, with the finest Azulejo tiles, and announce that it isn’t like that at Wakefield Westgate Station ~ although I suppose she is right, there aren’t Azulejo tiles at Wakefield Westgate. She used to be a singer and entertainer on cruise ships, and finishes every show with a song, a little cheesy.
Anyway, Head Office has long said that she wanted to do a cruise, and it being a Significant Birthday, I finally agreed. As long as it didn’t involve a bloody great cruise liner or indeed Jane McDonald.
So, a week with Viking down the Rhône Valley in March beckoned, Lyon to Arles. So did an extension to the mortgage - it’s not cheap. But you only live once. Actually it was really good. There were only about 200 guests, and about 100 crew to look after us. Guests were mostly American, and lovely and charming, all roughly the same age as us. Or a little older, you do wonder if the cruise sometimes ends with rather less people than they started with. Anyway, it’s all very informal. For many of the American guests, this was their second or third cruise.
You can tell this cruise is for Americans, there is always steak and Caesar salad on the menu. Also, as many cookies and as much coffee as you can get down your neck. Works for me!
I’m not sure the actual river journey is exceptionally beautiful. The river has been canalised. There are a series of dams and locks to keep the river in check. There are 12 locks, each built to the European standard of 195 x 12m. The boat just squeezes in.
However the towns and cities en route, starting from Lyon, are indeed beautiful. So here are my sketches, drawn in order of direction of travel north to south.
- Market at the Place Carnot, Lyon Our first stop, on our first day in Lyon, we came across this square in the Perrache quarter by accident. Place Carnot has had many names over the years, Lazare Carnot was apparently a hero of the Revolution. His grandson Sadi Carnot was French President.
It was the farmers market, ‘Marche Fermier des Producteurs’ - that caught our attention and guided us to it. The market is held every Wednesday afternoon. A cafe bar operates in the middle of the market, a good place to watch the world go by, take a drink, and sketch. I hadn’t realised that Lyon is the second largest city in France, it certainly feels very cosmopolitan.
La Eglise Reformee, the Protestant Church), Lyon Formerly the Stock Exchange, by the architects Soufflot & Roche, and dating from 1749. The building is on the UNESCO World Heritage List, along with other historic buildings in the centre of old Lyon. The building is situated in a fine little square on the banks of the River Saone, and hosts concerts.
Chateau de Pravins, Beaujolais Villages It would be wrong to visit Beaujolais without visiting a least one vineyard. This is the Chateau de Pravins, and we were the guests of the owner and manager Isabelle Brossard (that’s her son in the drawing). They grow mostly Gamay grapes, but have more recently planted some Chardonnay. The vineyard is organic, the grapes are harvested by hand, and they make nice wine.
I had never drawn a vineyard before, I was kind of channelling my artistic hero Paul Hogarth, who did a book with Peter Mayle, ‘A Year in Provence’.
Vienne A town some 35km south of Lyon, Vienne is commuter belt for Lyon, and people travel there for the Saturday market. There is a Roman theatre (every town seems to have Roman theatre), a Roman pyramid, and the subject of my drawing, the Roman temple of Augustus and Livia. Built by the emperor Claudius at the beginning of the 1st Century, it survived due to its many different uses, as a church, commercial court, museum and library. A cafe next door provided a good spot to draw from.
The harbour and castle, Tournon
SurRhône This is apparently a recent stop for the river cruise boats, and very nice it is too. The castle has two parts. 10th and 14th Centuries. The town seems fairly empty, most of the houses are holiday homes.
Our main reason for visiting was an evening walk by a lovely passionate tour guide, and the following day, a steam train ride into the mountains on the ‘Train de l’Ardeche’.
I could stay here a bit longer; on the other side of the river is Tain l’Hermitage where, the Valrhona chocolate factory is situated.
- La Maison du Bon Cafe, Place du Change, Avignon We have made it 230km south of Lyon. The famous centre of the city includes the Palais des Papes, the Papal Palace, but in truth it’s a huge empty old building. The 14th century city walls still encircle the city, and the mostly collapsed Pont d’Avignon is the local landmark.
The building I have drawn is in the typical style of the area, just off the Place de l’Horloge, and is the home and shop of a coffee roaster.
- Hotel Dieu, Arles Arles is Vincent van Gogh land. There are many fine Roman monuments, but really it’s all about van Gogh. After the artist famously cut off his ear in June 1889, he was taken here to the Hotel Dieu, then the local hospital. Whilst recuperating, he painted the hospital courtyard garden. This is my attempt, taken from very roughly the same viewpoint. Strangely, as I was sketching away, armed with coffee, my wife nudged me, and looking round, discovered I had become part of the scenery and was being photographed. Slightly disappointingly, van Gogh’s Yellow House no longer exists, it disappeared during the war together with the restaurant (run by the widow Venissac). However the bar behind (to the right in his painting) remains, we had a drink in there and played ball with the dog.