Last day; again more wine

 Saturday, November 15, 2025

When we left you yesterday we were headed out to find a nice french restaurant.  We ended up eating Italian. Let us explain.  As you all know Lynda is having some mobility and fatigue issues.  We ended up having to walk farther then Tim thought to find a restaurant.  We went by several nice looking bars and a pizza shop before finding a restautant.  Lynda said enough walking, lets eat here. It turned out to be reasonably busy, always a good sign, and it had a nice local restaurant feel.  The final plus was the food was good and it was nice to eat off the ship anyway.

Saturday morning was our last excusion.  It was another vineyard but in a totally different area southeast of Bordeaux. This wine maker was famous for his sweet white wines, mostly sauternes, French dessert wines. There was one unusual  discovery we made from all the other vineyards we visited.  This appellation was located near the confluence of two rivers, one of which was consistently cool water and the other warm water.  The result of this was that in August, as the grapes were finishing ripening, there was fog over the vineyards every morning.  This resulted in a good fungus that damaged part of the grapes on each vine. These damaged grapes remained on each bunch of grapes harvested and resulted in a characteristic taste that made sauternes distinct from other white wines It also added more sugar to the wine.  We tasted three different vintages from the same grapes. The nose (smell), color and taste was different in each.  The youngest wine was a pale yellow, the next oldest almost orange and the oldest almost brown.  They were also sweeter the older they were.

Saturday evening we enjoyed a bittersweet meal with two other couples we had become friends with on the cruise. In an unusual coincidence, one of the other wives was also named Lynda Carol, causing some confusion all week.  And, fittingly, our final meal featured Coq au vin, a very traditional dish of whole chicken cooked slowly for hours in red wine. It was delicious.by 

Sunday  was a long day of travel.  We flew from Bordeaux to Paris to London to Detroit. We had a 6:00 reservation on the Michigan Flyer bus from Detroit Metro to East Lansing. We arrived early enough in Detroit we thought we might be able to catch the 5:00 bus. Then disaster struck. The plane pulled up to the gate but neither of the jetways worked. After setting at the gate for an hour our plane moved to a new gate. Now we were scrambling to make our 6:00 bus. Fortunately we made it. It's Monday as we write this blog posting.  We are both tired after a strenuous day of travel but still have great memories of our time in Spain and France.

More Wine

 Friday, November 14, 2025

We have discovered over our many ocean and river cruises that there were ports of call that had little to offer but provided a place to land between point A and point B that did have interesting sights.  Blaye (pronounced Bligh as in Captain Bligh) was one of those ports. It's only site of interest was a massive citidel built by the "Sun King", Louis XIV.  This citidel gaurded the entrance to one of the largest estuaries in Europe. It served two purposes. It protected Bordeaux's burgeoning wine industry that was shipping more and more wine aboad and  it also protected this area of France from those pesky British that always seemed to want to take over France.  About the only thing of interest in the citidel was an 11th century castle that the citidel was bult around.  Even in the 18th century there was little interest in the castle and there is no interest today.  The castle is pretty much collapsing upon itself.

Thursday was a different story.  We were docked in Pauillac on the left bank of the estuary.  Pauillac is situated in the middle of the Medoc region of Bordeaux wine production.  There are 8 appellations in the Medoc each with a different name. For wine connoisseurs, the appellation name indicates specifically where the wine is made.  The wine from each appeellation will be slightly different in both taste and quality.  The Margaux appellation produces some of the finest wines in the Medoc region.  The more famous wineries, think Lafitte Rothschild, will have imposing Chateu's  on their property. We spent almost two hours driving throughout this region seeing nothing but vineyards with the occasional magnificent Chateu. We finally stopped at one of the best, the Pieure Lichine winery, for a lesson in wine making and a wine tasting.  Grape vines typically last for 80 years. Many last longer but after about 80 years the vines produce fewer grapes and the quality of the grapes begins to deteriorate. Vines between 50 and 80 years old produce the best grapes and the wine produced from these grapes is bottled as a "Chateu" wine.  In this case, the label on the bottle says "Chateu Pieure Lichime". These wine's are usually aged for 10 years before selling and will continue to age well for another 10 to 15 years. The 20 to 50 year old vines produce a less complex wine and are bottled under a different name, in this case, Confidences de Pieure Lichine. The younger grapes are sent to cosmetic companies. 

After this tour we drove to the Kerwin estate where we were served a sumptuous four course diner with a different wine pairing for each course. The meal began with Lobster Bisque. This was followed by a plate with pork pate, chicken turine and a vegatarian quiche. The main course was fillet of beef with a porcini mushroom sauce, potato gratin and asparagus and carrots. Finally, chocolate sponge cake with chocolate sauce and a pear was the dessert course. When the kitchen staff was introducted after the meal they received a standing ovation, and rightly so.

While we are talking about food, we have had several memorable meals on our Viking ship.  All the meals have been excellent, but these two stood out. One started with onion soup, followed by quiche Loraine and a Parisian flan.  The second was a goat cheese souffle, followed by duck confit and crepe suzzane.

It's Friday afternoon as we write this post. This morning Lynda decided to sleep in so Tim went solo on the excursion; a tour of Marche des Capucins guided by one of our ships chefs. This is a historical market that has long provided fresh meats, seafood, and produce to the restaurants of Bordeaux as well as cruise ships happeining by.  Our chef took us to the vendors that he frequents where we were able to sample cheeses, ham, 18 month aged prosciutto,  fresh pear, and delectable pastries. He explained that he talked with each vendor about what he was looking for and the vendor would direct him to his freshest options which were then delivered in a day or two to the ship. Tonight we are docked overnight in Bordeaux.  We  have been told there are several nice restaurants within a couple of blocks of our ship.  We are going to try to find one of them.

Tuesday, November 11, 2025

Last night we docked in Libourne, pronounced Leebourne. The city is named after an English Lord who founded the city during the 300 years that England controlled this part of France before they were driven out of France at the end of the 100 years war.  Libourne has a population of about 25,000 people and is a typical french city.  At one time Libourne was a major river port for shipping wine to Bordeaux. There was not much to see other then the Market in the city center plaza.

The star of the day was St. Emilion which is situated about 35 minutes from Libourne. It sits among some of the most famous wine producers in the Bordeaux region. Petrus has produced wines that have sold for as much as $6000.  In the wine shops we saw several different bottles of Petrus bordeaux's priced at $650. Tim went into a wine shop where the wine merchant helped him pick out a very nice 2016 bottle of bordeaux priced considerably less.

At one time St. Emilion was home to around 1000 people. Only 200 live there now.  The church dominates the city.  It was built in two sections.  The first section was built during the 11th century.  It has a fairly plain design and a lowish ceiling that is rounded in shape.  When the second part was built in the 14th century flying buttresses were in vogue allowing a higher roof. The interior was more ornate. Our guide said there was a quirk to one of the stain class windows. This window featured a bishop wearing eye glasses that had not been invented yet. The older section of the church featured a small mural most likely from the 11th century that had been discovered in 1890. She had no explanation for how it was discovered.  There is a beautiful cloisters off of the church with a lovely courtyard in the middle. In 2018 a french artist was commissioned to paint a mural on one of the walls facing the courtyard.  It is said to represent the Book of Revelations and is very contempary in design. The finished mural received mixed reviews when first revealed. 

We thoroughly enjoyed St. Emilion and thought it might be a wonderful place to rent an apartment for several weeks of quiet contemplaction and wine tasting.

 Monday, November 10, 2025

Bon Jour from aboard the Viking Forseti. There are two rivers that converge in Bordeaux, neither of which we can pronounce or spell.  We know that's been said before and it will probably we said again.  We will sail up and down each, visiting all sorts of interesting sites.  We have just left Bordeaux, sailing upstream on one of those rivers.

An interesting story from our last night in Bilbao.  Saturday afternoon Tim attempted to make a dinner reservation at a nearby steakhouse that both our tour director and fellow passengers had recommended.  The restaurant was fully booked for Saturday night so we decided to stay in the hotel and eat at its restaurant. Tim made a reservation. When we arrived at our appointed time we discovered: 1. there were only maybe 10 tables in the restuarant and 2. the only person in the restaurant was the waitress.  We were the only diners the entire time we were there.  It was a fun and unique experience dining in a private room with the one waitress. A plus was the excellent meal.

Sunday we left Bidbao by bus and were transported to San Sebastian, Spain. We had a two hour walking tour that took us along the Bay of Biscay and then on into the old town area of San Sebastian.   San Sebastian was the finish line this day for a marathon run that started just inside the border of France, hence, San Sebastian was crowded and in a festive mood. While we enjoyed our time in Bilbao, we found San Sebastian to be, architecturally, a more beautiful city.  Lynda sat in a cafe enjoying a coffee as Tim took the two hour walk. He particularly enjoyed watching the runners being greet, ed by family and friends at the end of the race.

We reboarded our bus and continued on to Bordeaux where we boarded our ship. That turned out to be an adventure.  We had been informed a couple of days before our cruise that our ship would be docked in a different place then was published in our itinerary.  Our tour director and bus driver, despite having GPS, had trouble finding where our ship was docked. Once there we were blocked by barriers to our pier. Hilarity ensued among the passengers as we watched our director and bus driver try to get us past this barrier.  They were both a bit embarrassed but also saw the humor in the situation.

Monday, November 11, 2025

This morning our tour was entitled "A Panoramic Tour of Bordeaux".  It started with a bus tour around the city. The bus would stop in  front of some important  site and our guide would explain its inportance. We finally arrived at the central plaza in Bordeaux. There we began a 45 minute walk about the central shopping area and then were given some free time to explore (shop) on our own. Again, Lynda was not up to the 45 minute walk and when Tim returned from it we found a delighteful little cafe where we enjoyed coffee and Tim told Lynda about his walking tour. Both of our tour guides were long time residents of Bordeaux and were enthusiastic in their praise of the city.   We could not match their enthusiasm.  We look forward to seeing what tomorrow brings.

Guernica, Spain

 November 6, 2025

Remembering Tim's Dad on what would have been his 105th birthday.

Once again Delta Airlines transported us safely to to our destination of Bilbao, Spain.  Since Lynda's stroke several years ago any overseas travel is done in business class. It reminds us what a joy airplane travel can be.

In 14th and 15th centuries Bilbao was one of the major ports of Europe.  As its importance in shipping faded, fishing continued to thrive. In the 18th century a rich deposit of iron ore made Bilbao one of the world's largest producers of stainless steel. Unfortunately,  in the 1970's Bilbao suffered the same fate as the rust belt of the U.S. Today, the city depends on tourism as a source of income.

Our first stop on Thursday morning was a small winery on the ourskirts of Geurnica. Itsasmendi produces a high quality white wine from a grape we can neither spell or pronounce that is grown in this area of Spain.  We may have found our favorite "breakfast wine".  Nearby is the Roija region of Spain. It is famous for it's roija red wines. Much like chiant's in Italy, a roija must come from this region to be truly considered a roija. We sampled a very nice roija at our first get together meeting at our hotel.

Guernica, Spain became famous in the 1930's  due a spectacular painting by Pablo Picasso. In the lead up to a large 1935 art exhibition in Paris the democratic government of Spain, under siege from Franco's forces, felt the need to bring to the world's attention the danger it was in. They commissioned Picasso at the princely sum of $3000 for a painting for this exhibition which he accepted. While considering ideas for this painting, Guernica was heavily damaged by Franco bombing. The bombing coalesced his thinking resulting in his remarkable painting, Guernica. The plan was to bring the painting back to Madrid at the end of the civil war.  However, when Franco became the dictator Guernica was sent to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.  When the Franco government was overthrown in 1975, the newly installed democracy quickly moved to have the painting returned.  MOMA responded that they did not know where the painting was.  Three years later, after intense negotiations, MOMA suddenly discovered the painting in the basement of the museum rolled up very tightly. Guernica was returned to Spain in this rolled up condition and when it was unrolled it was found to be badly damaged.  Restoration work was unable to totally restore the painting to its original condition so it was ultimately hung in the Queen Sofia Gallery in Madirid in this damaged condition, Despite many requests from the most famous art galleries in the world, Guernica has not left Madrid. We saw an outside mural reproduction of Picasso's work in Guernica.  We also saw the original in Madriid  a few years ago.  Guernica was one of the earliest democracies in Europe. The first Congress met under a large oak tree. The next year they met again under the same tree, thus a tradition was born.  When the first Congress building was  constructed, the original oak tree was moved to a protected position near that first building.  When it was obvious the original tree was going to die an acorn from that tree was planted and nurtured to replace the original. This practice has continued to the present day so the oak tree that stands today outside of the Parliament Building can trace it's linage to the original of 1000 years ago. A large meeting building that stands next to the Congress building today features a spectacular glass ceiling, the most prominent feature being a large oak tree.

We traveled from Guernica to a picturesque seaside village for lunch. The lunch itself was not memorable but we very much enjoyed the opprotunity to get to know some of our fellow travelers a bit better.  Our return trip to Bilbao was a scenic drive along the coast. We stopped along the way at a turn off for a particularly stunning view.  The main feature was a small island a very short distance off the coast.  A church sat atop the island.  Our tour guide explained a bit of the history of this island and closed by saying the island had been featured in several episodes of the TV program, "Game of Thrones," He went on to say that the church was not seen in the episodes. A computer generated castle was superimposed where the church stands. Still, it caused thousands of fans to flock to the site.  There is a small man-made walk way built for hikers to visit the island.  It is a very long hike over rugged terrian.  For the safety of the hikers and the environment, the government stepped in and limited the number of hikers each day to just 500.  There is a very involved procedure for booking a time slot for a hike. Not having ever watch Game of Thrones, we were only impressed by the natural beautiy of the island.  It was a wonderful, but exhausting first day of our trip.

November 8, 2025

Today we stayed in Bilbao. We started with a brief bus trip around the new part of Bilbao. It was mildly interesting.  The real highlight of the day was a visit to the Guggenhiem Museam. The archetecture of the building is stunningly modern. Frank Ghry was the archetech and has always had a facination with titanium, but because of its expense was never able to use it until this building.  The Museum sits next to a river that is at this location actually and estuary of the Atlantic Ocean so is very salty.  That fact combined with the high rain fall Bilbao experiences would lead to the quick corrosion of a stainless steel shell.  Ghry convinced the Museum it would be cheaper in the long run to start with titanium, which is corrosive resistant,  then to have to replace the stainless steel shell every five years.  The original budget for the building was 68 billion dollars.  With the titanium shell it shot up to 96 billion dollars.  Ghry's fascination with titanium is due to the fact the metal changes color based on the angle at which the sun hits the surface. There were paintings by Rothko, Lichtenstein, and Worhol along with a number of artists we never heard of.  There was a room of huge metal sculptures that were designed to be walked through. They were cleverly designed to physically throw you off balance as you entered and left the sculpture, There was one painting that was a performance piece. A large blank canvas was layed out on the floor and then two naked women were covered in blue paint and then moved about on the canvas. There were nearby pictures of the event.  Tim found the pictures of the event more interesting then the painting itself.  Many of the works showed amazing imagination while others were a bit outlandish. The name Guggenhiem Museum is actually a brand name. The Museum in Bibao actually pay a fee to the Guggenhiem Foundation every 20 years for the name. There are actually 3 Guggenhiem Museums around the world.  The other two are in New York City and Venice, Italy.  We are proud to claim having visited all three.

The final stop of the day was a walking tour of  the Old Town area of Bilbao. We walked about the original three main streets.  They were very similiar to the Old Town sections of other large European cities we visited. There were few, if none, of the very upscale named brand shops we see in the newer sections, i.e. tourist sections, of the city. They were the shops that the locals frequent.  These are also the streets where we could sit at an outdoor cafe with a glass of wine people watching. We have enjoyed being in Bilbao. I don't think we had any preceived ideas of what we would see but were in no way disappointed  in being here. Not that we ever are anywhere else in the world.

Tomorrow  we leave to embark on our Viking cruise.  There will be a three hour stop in San Sebastian,  Spain on the way. Our next blog post will be from aboard our ship in France.  We understand it is to snow in Michigan tomorrow. We have had lots of precipitation the last two days, but it doesn't need to be shoveled.