Viking Portraits of Southern France, June 2014

Just a quick recap of our recent cruise on the Viking Heimdal

We flew from Atlanta to Paris on June 19 (landing June 20), and then grabbed a taxi to the Gare Berci train station (note to self: next time take the tube train from the airport to the train station, as the taxi fare was about about $100 USD).

This route allows for a shorter train trip to Chalon sur Saone, as it passes through Dijon instead of through Lyon (which is what Viking recommended). Unfortunately, the railworkers were on strike that week (not all of them, but about 75%), and so another train was booked (at no cost to us), and I submitted our original 1st class tickets for a full refund (I had purchased the optional rail insurance from Rail Europe when booking the train).We stayed at the Hotel Ibis Style, which while clean and neat, is boring, and far away from anything worth walking to. It has only mediocre food (but good wine). Stay at the Hotel Le St. George if you can; it's right by the train station, and allows you to walk around the town if you choose.

We embarked onto the Heimdal the next day, and got there around noon. We were lucky in that our cabin was already clean, and they took us aboard right away.

Our cabin was number 36, and is classified as AA by Viking. It has a comfortable sitting room with a large television, refrigerator, a small bar, a connecting bedroom, and a relatively spacious bathroom. There is a small balcony with 2 chairs and a table, and it opens (via sliding glass doors) into the sitting room. There are plenty of 110V (U.S. style) outlets in each room. The bedroom has it's own television as well. Water pressure and temperature are excellent.

No one takes a river cruise to watch TV, but the only real news coverage is CNN international, which is not my idea of in depth coverage.

For reasons that aren't clear to me, we did not begin travel on the river until the afternoon of the next day. The location in Chalon sur Saone is an industrial dock, and although our balcony looked across to the far bank of the river, it wasn't particularly picturesque.

However, dinner was great, the wines were quite good (we purchased the Silver drink package), drinks were plentiful, and the service was impeccable. I tipped the bartenders 10 Euro each that night, and my glass was never empty for the rest of the trip (unless I wanted it to be).

We then started down the river in the late afternoon of June 22, and the trip was everything my wife and I hoped it would be.

I had caught some sort of flu on the flight over, so for the first few days I didn't take the day excursions (while my wife did), but I lounged around in our room, read books, and caught up on much needed sleep.

I'm a surgeon, and having a few days to just decompress was an extreme luxury to me, and I soaked up every second of it.

I don't think I need to regale you with stories about each town we stopped at, but the guides were uniformly excellent, great command of English (most spoke at least 3 languages), and very helpful.

I often wandered away from the group and went into small shops, purchased local wines (that would be impossible to find stateside), as well as sundry items my wife wanted.

While touring through Chateauneuf du Pape, I left the tour group almost immediately, and begin walking into the small establishments that sold local wines (including brandy from the region) and purchased bottles to both drink on-board, share with friends, and bring home. Sharing a bottle at the dinner table that night was a big hit. Lot's of vintners will ship to the U.S., but the cost of shipping is too prohibitive to offer any real value, unless you are buying a case of a very old, rare wine, and even then you'll have customs to deal with. My advice: just bring back the family allowance of alcohol in your suitcase.

One town is uniquely worth mentioning: Arles. This small, rustic, and historic town has become something of a hip, low-key watering hole for the well-to-do and artistic. There are some very interesting boutiques here that offer everything from personalized perfumes (expensive!!) to couture clothing. Skip the tour; read about the town, and then hit the places that interest you. It's not that the excursion is bad (it's very good), it's just that the time is limited, and there is a lot that is unique to this city that is very contemporary, and set in 500 year old buildings.

The cruise ended in Avignon, and we spent 2 days there (disembarking in the late morning the next day).

The ship makes a scenic, night time cruise by the remains of the old bridge just after dinner, and this makes for some excellent photographic moments. Everyone spends that last evening up on the top deck, dancing, singing, and in the occasional conga-line.

We took the bullet train (TGV) back to Paris that day, and then spent 3 nights there just seeing the sights and enjoying good food. We met up with newly made friends (from the cruise) at an excellent restaurant, and had a fantastic time. Our hotel was good, but we'd been spoiled by the great service and very good food on the Heimdal; we kept wishing we were back on board.

Would I take this trip again? Yes, in a heartbeat. The scenery, the service, the accommodations, the food, the other guests were all terrific. I had a hard time coming back from this vacation; 2 weeks would have been the better choice.

We will definitely travel Viking again, we just have to agree on which trip (I'm leaning towards Portugal, she's talking Mekong).

My husband and I are booked for this trip in Nov. Your report makes eager to go. We sailed with. Viking two years ago to Eastern Europe and were very satisfied with Viking, good food, great people, wonderful staff!

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