We were in Cannes, just having finished a cruise on the tall ship Royal Clipper, and needed to get to Avignon to start a cruise on the river boat Cezanne II. The best way to get there we were told was the brand new route of the TGV EurRail bullet train.

It was a good choice. The cheapest coach seats were as comfortable as business class on an airplane and we could see spectacular views of the Mediterranean and the countryside as we lounged back in comfort. Upon arrival at the Avignon TGV station we found a taxi to take us to town. (In many towns in Europe there are no porters handy, so learn to carry all your things in one bag on wheels because chances are you are going to handle your luggage yourself somewhere, whether you want to or not.)

We stayed at the Avignon Grand Hotel. It was delightful. Our junior suite for one or two persons with two queen beds separated by sliding doors plus a patio ran about $115-160 per day depending on season. Other rooms are $98-230. Should we look around for a restaurant or eat in the hotel? We luckily chose the hotel dining room. The food was excellent. Dinners were about $15-20 plus beverage and dessert. The desert was a work of art … two scoops of chocolate ice cream nestled in a caramelized shell with variously colored berries, mint leaves, and swirls of syrup scattered about the plate. It was so beautiful we ordered it again at lunch just to take a picture. An herb garden was outside the dining room if you wanted to pinch and smell a few leaves before or after your meal. Thank you Chef Cyril.

We had the day to stroll about town and discovered that a good way to initially explore was by a little open train that goes from the tourist information bureau to the Papal Palace, returning through narrow cobblestone back streets of the old town section, all for the price of a few francs. Even if you want to avoid going through the palace because you are offended by the ostentatious display of wealth and adornment from the series of popes who lived and rebuilt and rebuilt here go just to look at the architecture, listen to a musician fill the courtyard with haunting flute music, stroll the gardens, and see the spectacular views of the Rhone River in the valley below. On some nights there are concerts there.

We saw the almost intact medieval wall still surrounding the city, and the Pont d’Avignon bridge, its arches partly spanning the river, the rest destroyed by various wars. (If you want to go out of town you can see the Pont du Gard bridge built by Agrippa in 19 BC as part of an extensive Roman aqueduct system to provide fresh water. If you have time you can go to the Musee Calvet, an art museum in an 18th century private mansion with paintings and sculptures from the 15th to the 20th century. )

We boarded the Cezanne in the afternoon, in time to unpack and dress for captain’s night formal dinner and enjoy the evening entertainment of flamenco music by a local group of gypsy musicians.

The riverboat layout was simple …cabins on the lower deck, restaurant and lounge on the main deck plus a few cabins, and an open sun deck above where most people gathered to watch the passing scenery. The pilot house and the awning on the top deck are both retractable for passing under low bridges. We realized just HOW low the bridges were when before several bridges the deck hands told all standing passengers and crew to sit down to keep from getting bashed in the head.

The cruise actually started in Lyon. We were starting the cruise on the second day. The boat will go on the Rhone down almost to the Mediterranean, and back up to Lyon, doing different port stops in each direction and passing through various famous wine regions …Chateauneuf-du-Pape … Beaujolais … Maconnais … Bourgogne (Burgundy). This boat, by the way, is the second Cezanne. The Cezanne I has one more deck and is for sale.

Monday -- The boat stayed in Avignon so we were able to see more of the city that day, half of which I spent trying to find an internet café to access the email coming in to the SmallShipCruises.com website. Getting access to the internet is not an easy thing to do when traveling in Europe.

We left Avignon at 6 p.m. with time before and after dinner spent on the upper deck watching the river. The Rhone is not connected to the other major waterways of Europe. We were told that the reason is that river cruises in eastern Europe are less expensive and they do not want the competition.

Cruising on a riverboat on the Rhone was like going back and forth in a time machine. Romans traveled this river, and we saw many of their structures still standing. Medieval buildings were in view along the banks. Old castles and their fortifications loomed over the river. Then a few miles down river were nuclear power plants. A film crew was on board capturing the experience for a German public broadcast TV station at the same time we were doing our story. I was traveling with an artist, so adding to the impact of the trip was the fact that we were visiting the towns where van Gogh, Cezanne and others lived and painted.

Tuesday -- We awoke in Arles and after breakfast took a bus tour through the Camargue area, the strip of land formed by the main Rhone River and its branches and often flooded. This is low-lying shifting land, often swampy, dotted with lagoons and waterways. There were many fields of sunflowers and paddies of rice. This is the area where Camargue bulls are bred for bull fights. We saw several of the black bulls and stopped to see some Camargue cowboys at work, riding the white horses that formerly roamed wild in the area. The area is a wildlife preserve and there were many egrets and heron and in one place a lake with a flock of several hundred flamingoes. The major stop was Les-Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, a little town on the Mediterranean where many gypsies come. Indeed there was group of musicians playing gypsy music in the town square to entertain us as we wandered the streets and browsed the shops.

We were back at the boat for lunch, then in the afternoon walked the town of Arles. Vincent van Gogh for a while lived and painted here and the fun was to compare what you saw of actual buildings and bridges and fields of flowers with the images of them painted by the artist. We could see the sunflower fields that van Gogh painted, and the very bridges and town plazas that were in his paintings. He sat in this courtyard café, and there was his yellow house, and there the sunflowers, and there the bridge. It added extra meaning to what we saw. Ceramic shops, pastries … everything seemed artistically presented.

We left Arles at 6 p.m. and enjoyed more river views before dinner, and after dinner listened to French classic piano selections by the Russian pianist on board.

Wednesday -- We explored the quiet town of Viviers, with its medieval buildings, stone walls, and cobblestone streets barely changed from centuries ago when they were built. It was easy to imagine oneself walking these same streets hundreds of years ago, going through the same narrow winding alleyways. That tower was built in the 11th Century, that gate in the 14th century; the plague was here; French Revolutionists met in that building; those old church tapestries were given as a gift by Napolean.

The sad news was that the beautiful trees lining several main streets may soon be destroyed. France has outrageously announced that is going to cut down 400,000 of these beautiful old trees, because, says our guide, many people get drunk and crash into them. Driving was frenetically wild and fast in every town we visited in France, making it dangerous to drive or even to walk. Excuse me, but why don’t you lower the speed limit and save the trees. The world would be better for it. Take the trees down and the drunks will only hit something else, such as buildings or innocent people.

Thursday -- We docked in the tiny village of Trevoux. We are on the River Saone now. Every day is a choice between walking through a town or taking a tour. Today we took a bus tour of Lyon, since Trevoux is just outside of Lyon. Traveling the area was again like traveling through time. There were Gothic and Renaissance houses of the 16th century, then at the top of a hill with a panoramic view of the city is a 19th century basilica, and a few steps away we were back 2000 years to a Roman amphitheater. Indeed, there is archeological evidence that there were people living here more than 5000 years ago. Later we visited a silk manufacturing shop, L’Atelier de Soierie and we all bought lovely hand-painted silk scarves. Lyon has been a center of silk manufacturing since the 16th century.

That night dinner was formal dress again, the wait staff singing Happy Birthday in German to two birthday celebrants and winding through the dining room with sparklers to a rousing German march. Later there was singing by a French chanteuse.

Friday -- We were in Macon, still on the Saone, in the middle of the wine-producing country where Beaujolais meets Maconnais. The climate is milder here than in the northern areas of Burgundy, and the wines slightly different in flavor. A bus tour went to visit wineries and the palace home of local poet Pierreclos. We walked through the town starting from where we were docked by a stone bridge built in the 11th century. The museum was a prison during the French Revolution. There is a wooden house here built about 1500 and a building with a revolving door where people could leave their children they wanted to abandon while keeping their identity unknown.

The afternoon was spent with everyone gathered once more on the top deck, viewing the shores of the Saone River as we cruised our way back to Lyon. We went through more locks, saw new and medieval homes side by side along the shores, the wildly painted restaurant of Paul Bocuse, and then joined the Rhone again. We docked back in Lyon in time for a stroll to see the lights of he city.

The Cezanne cruises from March to November.  Shore excursions are extra.

The Cezanne was built in 1992, carries 100 passengers, has all outside cabins with private facilities. There is a hairdresser and sauna, and a physician on board. The dining room is non-smoking. German and English are spoken. Most passengers on our cruise were German.

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