Your Questions Answered: Viking River Cruises Portraits.2

Posted onAuthorChris Owen

Wrapping up our coverage of Viking River Cruises Portraits of France itinerary, we have questions and answers on a variety of topics as well as a guide to finding everything we have done on the topic for future reference.

Rate The Itinerary
Pont du Gard - 12Here’s a good one from a travel agent.  Ruthie from Seattle asks “Chris, I know you loved sailing on the Rhine and Danube, how does the Rhone and Saone compare?  If you could change anything about the itinerary, what would that be?”

Ruthie, I would not change one thing about the itinerary except to pay even more attention to the pre-cruise itinerary details of it. The last day brought a visit to Hospices de Beaune, basically a museum that was once a hospital for the poor, which was quite moving to Lisa who has been on the healthcare business most of her life.  I did not catch that when scouring through the itinerary and would probably have been better prepared, studied the place more pre-cruise and gotten more out of it.

Also, if I could do it over and had the time I would probably stay on the ship and go back the opposite direction too, for a couple reasons.  First and foremost, going the direction we did, an optional tour to Pont du Gard and another one to Perouges were not available.  I have been to Pont du Gard before but Lisa had not and I would have loved for her to see that.  Not that we yearned for more tours, there were plenty and those who added optional ones had a really full day.

Another reason to do a back to back on this itinerary is that it’s not really just seeing the same thing in reverse order.  While the itineraries appear to be the same, doing them in reverse brings different sailing, docking and logistics issues that make both unique.   It’s like on the Rhine, I have sailed the same stretch of the river several times on multiple lines and each has been unique experience.

 
Valdemar Gets The Boot
IMG_0883A very direct Bill from Omaha chimes in with “What happened to Vladimir The Viking?  I thought he was going along for the trip?” 

Vladimir is a Russian from the year 1423.  Valdemar the Viking is just fine but decided he was not needed on this Viking River Cruise.  Valdemar is actually what we call an “ace in the hole”, it’s a very technical travel writing term that refers to some zany, vague or undefined element mentioned before travel begins.  It might be drawn upon/inserted into the story should the actual travel experience turn out to be, well, a dud.  Normally, when the travel experience is exciting and fresh as was out Viking Portraits of Southern France experience, readers totally forget about people/places/things like Valdemar and they just fade away.

Thanks for bringing it up Bill.  I’ll throw Valdemar in a box and send him your way.

 

Everything You Wanted To Know About Viking Portraits Of Southern France Itinerary
Viking Hermod - 102This was such an interesting experience that we produced a massive volume of information, photos and resources that we want to be sure you can access

Our Blog Posts
The easy way to see everything posted here is to click on RIVER CRUISING above, hover over VIKING RIVER CRUISES then select PORTRAITS OF SOUTHERN FRANCE.

This is a new navigation feature here at ChrisCruises.com that begins with this voyage and will include others from different cruise lines and itineraries, making rounding up all the information easy.  We also just added a tab under Viking for CHRISTMAS MARKETS.

Everything else can be found under PAST EVENTS and also below as well.  Check back often, we’re still adding more every day.

A recap of our daily posts:

Pre-Cruise

During the Event

Post- Cruise

Check these online sources for more of what we experienced on our Portraits of Southern France itinerary:

Facebook photo albums

Pinterest- Photo boards for each place we visit, Viking Hermod and a roundup of Viking River Cruises Portraits of Southern France itinerary

Exposure- Photo Storybooks for each event (under construction, more to come)

Flickr Photo Sets (all the photos from every place, multiple shots of the same)