There were no outings this morning because the ship was sailing to reach our destination at lunchtime. So we were able to sleep in. When we opened the curtains, we were in a lock. We found out later that there are only three locks on this trip on the Saone River.
We went down to breakfast at 8:40am. As always, it was an excellent Scenic breakfast with plenty of choice and attentive friendly service. I had an omelette cooked for me by the chef.
This ship is bigger than other cruise ships we've been on and so there was plenty of room in the cafe area.
After leaving Lyon last night, we'd been sailing north on the Saone River. Perhaps the scenery wasn't as good as on our river cruises. The area was flat and the river was lined with trees. On many other cruises, there were more houses, towns, hills, mountains, . . . Maybe that will change later in the cruise.
The weather was much better than yesterday because it wasn't raining. There was plenty of blue sky with hardly a cloud to be seen. When we went up to the sundeck after breakfast, it felt cool (14C) but obviously much warmer than it had been in Iceland and Scotland.
At 10am, there was a compulsory safety talk for all passengers. Everyone had to have their name marked off as having attended.
At 10:30, there was a talk in the lounge area about the outings for the cruise. Before we boarded, we'd been asked which outings we wanted to do for the first couple of days. The talk ran through a description of the subsequent tours so we could tick the ones we wanted to go on.
There was plenty of choice and it wasn't necessary for both of us to go on the same outings. For example, this afternoon I'm going to a castle (chateau) and Suzy is going on a truffles outing.
At 12 noon, there was a demonstration of the Scenic Tailormade app on our iPhones. We were familiar with this app from our river cruise on the Duoro River in Portugal back in May. So we already had the app on our phones.
The ship was docked a small town called Tournus.
Lunch was an a la carte meal in the dining room. We sat with a young couple from the Gold Coast that we'd met earlier on deck.
My tour to the Chateau de Cormatin departed just after 2:30pm. There were 44 of us on the bus and I sat next to a man from rural Victoria. His wife was on a different outing this afternoon.
The bus took about 30 minutes to reach the castle. Along the way, we were treated to beautiful scenery - green pastures with cattle and sheep, small town with houses made of stone, churches and forests. We were lucky that it was a nice sunny day.
The castle is a very impressive building set on a large area of land surrounded by well-maintained gardens. The castle is a national monument but is privately owned. The tourist fees help pay for the upkeep of the property.
Our tour guide showed us around the gardens first. Then we walked across a timber bridge over the moat. Apparently there was a drawbridge here originally.
She showed us through the castle room by room including the library, the marquise bedroom, the marquis bedroom. entertainment areas, etc. One of the features was an internal stone staircase.
Most rooms had paintings. Some of the people in these paintings had clothes but, as is so common in these countries, most of the people were nude. There were also nude statues.
The bus got us back to ship at about 5:40pm where were greeted once again by the captain. He seems to be everywhere.
We went down to the lounge at 6:30 for a pre-dinner drink. At 6:45, there was a presentation for all the heads of departments for the ship followed by the port talk giving information about tomorrow's outings.
This was followed by dinner in the dining room at 7:15. This was the Captain's Gala Dinner.
It was another classy meal - Scenic fine dining. We both had shrimps starter, leg of lamb main course and crepe suzette dessert all accompanied by an excellent French red wine. At our table, we sat with an Australian couple and a UK couple.
After dinner, we went back up to the lounge where the band started playing at 9:45pm. About half an hour later we retired to our room.
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