Viviers

March 23:  Viviers

Last night during our meeting to preview today's stop and activities our program director remarked that this was her favorite town, not because of the spectacular sites, but because it was so medieval in that it was very small (only 3,000 residents - and she remarked you rarely see them) and it appears nearly exactly as it did back in the Middle Ages.  And, after having toured Viviers I'd agree with that assessment - in fact all four of us remarked that the total experience was pretty cool, but you couldn't point to any ONE thing that was exceptional.  We started the day by walking through a "tunnel" of what we've seen everywhere, the "plane trees" - they are similar to sycamore trees.  In the summer they are in full bloom and provided a lot of much needed shade.

As we began to enter the town square our guide, Elsa (and yes, she immediately recognized with a big smile that her name "was just like the film and song, Let It Go!") pointed out a huge rock on the horizon.  She told us that was WHERE WE WERE WALKING TODAY!  Oh my.  But she promised that as we walked through the streets of Viviers we would hardly notice the incline - again, this isn't their first rodeo and she was right on the money.

One of the things I enjoyed most about Elsa's tour was that as we wandered through the typically narrow European streets which featured many of the original buildings was that she'd point out several very small details that in and of themselves would not make for a significant site, but as part of the overall character of the town they were quite interesting.

One perfect example came as we passed underneath an arch - which were frequent in the streets - and she first pointed out the arch itself is utilized to help support the buildings by balancing the pressure of one building against the other.  But in this specific case she pointed to the upper left corner to the statute (I've enlarged it and placed the blow-up in the upper right corner) - she noted this and said reminded us that she'd told us the outer walls of the city were no longer around because people had used those stones to build houses.  Well, this was an example of a builder had taken parts of a torn down statute and incorporated it into the wall of the home!

It didn't take more than half an hour to forty-five minutes of winding through the narrow streets to reach the Cathedral of St. Stephens.  I didn't know - perhaps you did - that the only way a church can be a cathedral is if there is a sitting bishop there....which there is at St. Stephens.  The first of the two photos from the cathedral shows the alter.  And unlike any we saw last summer on our "Grand European" cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam across Europe what you see on the walls are NOT paintings, but are tapestries!  At least I don't remember anything like this from last summer.  What you wouldn't consider at first glance is that the entire "rug" is hand-woven WITH THE IMAGE WITHIN the tapestry.  So, it's not like they weave a carpet and paint the scene....no, no...they have to know exactly where to put the colored threads as they weave and then hope that it turns out as a masterpiece as these do!  To add to the interesting story here, Elsa explained that a weaver working ALL DAY would be able to produce a portion of tapestry about the size of the palm of your hand - that's it in an entire day!  Imagine how long these took!  The second photo shows the "bishop's throne" from the side of the alter.

As we exited the cathedral we headed for the lookout.  Two things of interest which the photos just don't capture with real justice.  First, as we began this morning the famous Mistral wind was again in full force.  It was blowing everyone and everything everywhere while lowering the temperature considerably.  The difference when the wind would stop was remarkable.  Well, as you can imagine as we came out on the lookout, the wind was now terrific.  So much so that many people would not go near the edge of the barrier wall for fear of being blown over.  And I must admit that standing upright and still was not something you could do without considerable effort.  The second thing that you must realize to appreciate these photos is that these pictures that follow were taken on top of "the rock" that you saw in the photo at the beginning of this journal.  Yes, they did, it's true!  As Elsa said, "I would not lie to you!" :)  The first photo below shows a panoramic photo of the Rhone River we are sailing up as we head northward into the wine country.  The second photo is on the other side of the lookout which looks over the town of Viviers.  You see the ruins of the watch tower in this one.

We asked one of our fellow travelers to take our obligatory "photo of the day" as we stood against the lookout wall.  It is a "unique" photo because over Randy's right shoulder you can see our ship, the Buri, docked on the Rhone!

As we came down off "the Rock" Elsa noted on her watch that if anyone wanted to make the cooking demonstration they should walk directly to the ship, so Kim, Karrie and Randy left me to finish the tour with Elsa and a few other guests.  We saw one more house which had a story from the medieval times and then walked back to the ship.  The remainder of the day we spent sailing and then will have our cocktail hour - where I'll have my usual, a frozen mudslide (see photo below from earlier on the cruise).

The Viking Buri

March 23 Highlights