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One of the descriptive signs in the Tours cathedral.
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The Tours cathedral as seen from the adjacent Bishops Palace garden. The huge tree to the left is a Cedar of Lebanon approx. 500 years old.
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Cones on the Bishop's Cedar are huge, baseball-size.
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The Bishop's garden. I was looking for the Red Queen to come out for her croquet match.
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Gorgeous English-garden-like section of the otherwise formal garden.
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The plaza in the town of Poitiers. This was our last stop before we headed for the boat at Bordeaux. There was a market at which we foraged for a delicious picnic lunch.
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Detail over the door of the Poitiers church tells Bible stories starting with Genesis.
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Adam & Eve on the left.
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The Annunciation, I think.
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Just walking down a side street in Poitiers, we saw this view of a palace and, of course, another Joan of Arc statue.
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All the columns in the Poitiers church were painted the colors of the various noble families in the area.
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Modern commerce exists also. This shop was in the ground floor of a very nice, new vertical shopping mall.
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COLOR and more colorful bikinis for your vacation.
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Most of France was on vacation. This was Saturday Aug 16 when those who had vacation the first two weeks of August were trading places with those who had off the second two weeks. Rare is the person who has off the entire month.
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The area grows four crops, apparently. First, we saw field after field of corn. Rick was inspired to write a ridiculous lyric for the song "Bordeauxklahoma!"
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Corn alternated with field after field of sunflowers.
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The third crop is hay, many fields of hay already baled for silage. There must e catle somewhere near.
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And grapes. The closer we got to Bordeaux, the more vineyards we saw. Eventually, every backyard garden is grapes.
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And this is part of our Viking Longship, the Forseti. They aren't kidding about "long." 135m = 440 ft.
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Our captain entering the wheelhouse after some maneuver.
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The group gathers in, where else, the ship's bar for our first night orientation.
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Very important person, our chef. The very ideal of a French, french chef. Right shape for a chef.
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Our social director, Mieke, who kept us moving every day, starting us off with "Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen!" on the PA.
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Bev at our cabin door, reflecting on how absurdly idyllic the entire scene was.
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Our cabin was small, the maid creative with the linens. This little guy was good for a big smile.
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This is the most efficient, teeny, tiny, beautiful bathroom I have ever seen.
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First morning -- Emergency drill, life preservers on the top deck. That is Kay and Pam, our across the hall neighbors.
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Bev, orange is definitely your color.
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The river in Bordeaux had a range of bridges, from Napoleonic stone, to this modern suspension bridge.
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Suzanne has gone home. We now have Viking buses, advertising our self-indulgence to all who encounter us.
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All our buses, pardon me, coaches, had a nifty middle door to speed loading the back half of the seats.
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Our first stop on the "wine" portion of the trip was Chateau Giscours, top notch and almost unobtainable in the States, although we enjoyed it when we were youngish, back in the 70s.
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The Chateau at Giscours, currently used for offices. It sits on the crest of a hill and you can see that the windows are lined up front to back for wonderful ventilation.
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Our guide at Giscours showing us the initial fermentation vats. Basically large concrete boxes lined with plastic.
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Rick stuck his head inside one of these vats and got this picture of a very clean vat with a cooling coil.
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The line of fermentation vats - white plaster and stainless steel. Industrial elegance.
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An old hydraulic grape crusher.
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The cask storage room where the wine sits for months and months till it's bottled. Most of the production goes to Asia (because we can't afford it).
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A new cask costs about $1000 and is made to order -- wood, toast, etc. Casks are used for 2 years and sold to a lesser winery for about $200.
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Each cask has the imprint of its chateau.
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Tanks for storing wine during production. They are probably refrigerated so they can survive outside in the sun.
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And now the best part -- the tasting. Our lovely French guide poured us tastes of several vintages, building up to the really good stuff.
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Each vineyard can grow a specific number of vines per hectare -- and some government inspector actually comes out to count them. One vine produces grapes for about 1 bottle of wine.
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Chateau Pichon Lalande. We stopped just to admire it, unfortunately, not to drink their wine.
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This chateau had a couple really dramatic outbuildings. This one was on the left. Not sure what is at the other end of these stairs.
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And here's the outbuilding on the other side. We assume some of the production occurs in there.
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The prettiest drainage pond you ever saw. The aging rooms filled with casks are directly underneath. And the green spots are skylights to illuminate the caves.
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If some vines die, they must be replanted as soon as possible, or the production allotment (number of cases) is reduced forever. If you replant too late, your subsequent production becomes too high and you get into serious trouble.