October 8 - Cluny and Beaujolais wine

Today Marg and myself went on separate excursions.  I went to the medieval cathedral town of Cluny and Marg went to a Beaujolais vineyard for a wine tasting.  It's easy to see why artists, poets and writers are attracted to the countryside around the town of Cluny which is dotted with little churches and picturesque villages

Ruins of the Abbey of Cluny

It was a long two drive from our boat in Lyon to the cathedral town of Cluny.  To visit Cluny you need a good sense of imagination.  This medieval cathedral no longer exists.  Only one of the watch towers and some exterior walls still remain standing.  In its time it was the most important church in the Franciscan order of the Catholic Church controlling over 10,000 monks from Poland to Scotland.. This cathedral was bigger than any church in Christendom until St. Peters was built in the Vatican.  After the French revolution, all the monks had left the Abbey and it was taken over by the state.  The French government then sold off the stones from the cathedral.

As you walk around the ruins of the old abbey you come across a series of kiosks with video screens. As you rotate the kiosk the video screen displays images of the what the abbey would have looked like if you were looking in direction that the video screen is pointed at.









Attached to ruins of the Abbey are stables which were built by Napoleon.  These is now the National Stud Farm with thoroughbred stallions used for breeding race horses

Also on the site of the old abbey is an international famous art school know as the Arts et Métiers Paristech.

Our guide told us how “buying local” works in the southern Burgundy.  She would go on a web site and select the fresh vegetables, wine, cheese and meat from her favorite local farmers.    Then on the weekend she would go to a local market and pick up her selections from the distributor.  So she got fresh food without going all around the countryside to find her food.

Marg went to a wine tasting in the Beaujolais district.  Marg thought it was one of the best presentations she has attended.  This was confirmed by both Rocky and Joan.  The scenery to the vineyard was spectacular.  Marg brought home a bottle of Chateau Portier's Moulin A Vent  from the vineyard.

Waterfront in Lyon

During the afternoon we went for a walk into the shopping district of Lyon.  It seems to me that most of the buildings in center of Lyon are fairly recent.  There was nothing special in this section of town, although there was an interesting sculpture in the square next to the Euro 2016 headquarters for Lyon.

Along the waterfront there is an area called "Space City".  There are several large towers that look like space pods.  Also there is an olympic sized swimming pool and a large amphitheatre.

Space City

The Flower Tree Sculpture for Euro 2016

For dinner we went to the ship’s speciality restaurant, called L’Amour.  We had a great six course dinner with wine speciality selected for the meal.  Marg had Pheasant and I had a seafood platter. It also included a Lobster tart, steak tartar, green pea soup, a puff pastry filled with venison and a praline and cheese dessert.