Port Vendres, France

Monday, 28 September 2026. We continue our cruise with a visit to Port Vendres, France. It's a new port for us but a bit of a dull day as yet!

We pass through customs and turn towards the town, finding ourselves walking along the inevitable marina. It's still a couple of hours off lunchtime but the place seems eerily deserted.

The only people about are our fellow passengers and the quiet of the place seems even to have affected them. One or two greet us in subdued voices. You would think it a Sunday rather than a weekday.

There's a row of parked cars along the dockside. Presumably somebody has been up early and gone out for a day's fishing.

The map we were given shows that there is still quite a way to go in front of us to round the corner where there is a park at the end of the bay and a church on the opposite bank.

The dockside path runs out and we have a choice of walking back and retracing our steps but on the higher level where the road and shps are, or climbing the staircase against the tall wall that supports the town and stops it falling into the bay.

I take a deep breath and we take the steps up the wall. "Oh, well done!" says Miss Franny as I reach the top. I don't answer... I'm too busy dealing with screaming back muscles and the invisible men who keep plunging needles into me... We take a moment.

We are now around the corner and the church is visible and thw trees on the left are the edge of the park. It contains a few statues and memorials to President Charles de Gaulle.

The park was as far as we walked. We came back along the row of shops on the upper level but failed to find an open cafe. Then by the time we arrived back near the customs house, the sun had decided to come out at last and altered the mood of the place.

After some lunch we made our way to Baristas again and I started this, cursing myself several times that I would start something so complicated and it would be the following day before I managed to finsh it!

Oceania Sirena Cruise Index

Excursion to Cassis

Sunday 27 September 2026. Today we awaken in the French port of Marseilles. We are booked on a half-day excursion to a lovely old seaside town called Cassis.

Getting there though turns into something of a will we - won't we, as there has been a bicycle race on the narrow roads surrounding the hills above the town and there has been a bad accident that has closed the road, leading to some long queues and delays. We eventually reach the coach park - there is no way a coach could get down into the village.

So we hop onto a road train and ride down to the lowest spot we can get before we have to take to foot, emerging down the steps shown here to the right of the pink building.

First priority is a drink. Luckily there are plenty of cafes open despite it being Sunday. After the steps I need to catch my breath before trotting off anywhere.

The marina is full of rather more modest yachts than Portofino, but sadly still out of range of my pocket... In fact about the only boat within range of my pocket would be an inflatable and I've watched too many programmes about lifeboats to fall for that option!

We have a slow wander up into the town centre, where a market displays a mixture of goods and crafts to tempt the traveller and Miss Franny disappears into the same biscuit shop we visited on our last visit here in 2007. We came out loaded with several bags of biscuits...

We had time to walk slowly around the marina. It's warm and already I'm wanting another drink! We settle for a tub of ice cream each as an alternative.

Then we take a seat near to the meeting place for the walk back up to the road train. I knew that I would never manage to keep up with the rest of the people in our party so I had a word with the guide and we set off up the hill. We got to the road train stop just as he arrived with another train load of passengers and soon the rest of our party was seen coming up the hill.

Back onboard the ship in Marseilles with the church of Notre-Dame de la Garde High on the hill la Garde for which it is named, it can be reached by yet another of those little road trains. It has an all-round 360 degree view of the city and from it, with a good pair of binolculars, you'd be able to spot us ignoring it for the more pressing needs of lunchtime...

Oceania Sirena Cruise Index

Oceania Sirena visits Villefranche

Saturday 26 September 2026. It's early morning and the colours are muted still as we gaze out over the ship's rail at the French resort of Villefranche which sits neatly between Nice and Monaco's Monte Carlo.

It is, I think, our fifth visit to this lovely village on the Frenh Riviera. It has a wide bay but a shallow harbour and so we are anchored safely in the bay whilst the ship's tender boats take us into the harbour, weaving through the moored fishing boats and pleasure craft to drop us conveniently at the western edge of the village.

I know that plenty of passengers look upon the prospect of getting on and off these smaller boats as something of an ordeal, but the crew will tell you when to stand still and when to step on or off and hands are waiting to ensure you make it across safely. Grasp at forearms not at hands to make it as easy as possbily. Yes the boats can move up and down quite a bit relatively to the ship's gangway, which will follow the side of the ship, not hang out over open water. But follow instructions and you will soon find yourself on or off the boat.

We have for the last few visits, made our way along to the opposite end of the attractive seafront to the very last cafe before you reach the railway station. The cafe was there but shut. And from the state of the interior, it didn't look like it was about to open soon as boxes and chairs were stacked on tables and the place looked somewhat deserted.

But almost the entire seafront is lined with cafes and tables and we had no trouble at all in finding somewhere to sit, which action soon brought forth a waiter from the cafe across the road.

And then to our surprise, there came the sound of laughter and an accordion and a small group of folk dancers appeared along the seafront road.

Stopping not far in front of our table, they did a short sequence of dance moves without a single hobby horse, wave of hanky or banging of sticks and then turned off up a narrow street where a series of steps led up into the town proper.

We made our way back towards the maritime building but stopped for almost an hour on a bench on a raised platform of land that on a previous visit had housed a collection of market stalls and where my mother had wandered off heading in the opposite direction to that which we had told her. Luckily I spotted her, just about to disappear into the town and had to go running after her... I did 75% of the pencil sketch whilst we were sitting there then finished it later in Baristas.

Oceania Sirena Cruise Index

The Road Home from Austria

Saturday 19 August 2000. We have to say goodbye to Austria as the coach set off north for Belgium. We were to stay overnight in Belgium and then back to the UK the following day.

Gazing out of the coach window brought a few reminders of the scenery we had enjoyed during our few days in Austria.

At times it threatened to remind us of some of the weather we had sheltered from during our evening walks!

We said goodbye to the musical box chalets that had been almost the only shape of building we had seen for a week!

We had seen so many chalets and other buildings of the same basic design that I was actually looking forward to seeing a house without a balcony and with a four-sided roof! The Austrian-German border came and was crossed and we turned onto a road with markers every kilometre. We would stay on this one road for several hours and the first marker read 510 km.

The Germans were building a new high-speed railway and we saw construction works every now and then as the road weaved its way alongside, over and under the embankments and cuttings of the railway.

There were also the occasional castles to break the monotony of the flat landscape. I watched throughout the day as we stayed on this one road until a marker said 1 km and we reached the border with the Netherlands.

The following day, rain spattered the coach window as we left the hotel in Belgium. "Where's your camera?" demanded Janet! It didn't do very much though and we set off from Antwerp towards France and the ferry port of Calais. A stop at a Belgian chocolate factory found the factory already full of visitors but the same firm had an outlet at the wine cash & carry near Calais so no-one seemed unduly worried! The border posts on the Belgian/French border were still there but were now deserted for most of the time as Europe had opened its frontiers to other European countries.

Er... the white bits (top left) are the reflection of the coach windows on the opposite side of the coach and not - as they might at first appear - a ghostly washing line of Y-fronts...

The odd reminder that 2 world wars were fought over this land and several typical French farms and villages flashed by until we reached Calais. The ferry crossing was smooth and we transferred to our feeder coach, swapping news and views with the people we had travelled from Blackpool with 8 days before.

Return to Austria 2000 Index

On Our Way Home

Monday 31 May 1999. So here we are heading back towards Calais, where a stop at a hypermarket is "in store" for us. The drinks were to prove cheaper than even the duty free - ridiculous really... But I suppose the French must be taxed in other ways. Anyway all the coaches suddenly got fuller!

This is a toll booth on the main road. At Calais Phil informed us that it was busy as the Channel Tunnel was on strike. Then he announced that the bad news was that so were the French port workers...

Our passage was booked for 4:30pm and we had arrived early expecting to be allowed to take the next available ferry. We had only 45 minutes to wait though so we were quite relieved when we later heard that anyone who had arrived without a booking was having to wait up to seven hours for a crossing. We boarded the ship and headed for the restaurant straight away to beat the rush. After quite surprising me all weekend by eating more or less anything that was put in front of her, Miss Franny joined me for a steak and kidney pie and calmly piled up all the pieces of kidney at the side of her plate... A good job we hadn't been expected to partake of frogs' legs or snails...

We sailed from a dull Calais and arrived back to a sunny Dover. As we docked, we went down in search of our coach and I walked past it as they had renumbered each coach. Jimmy shook his head at me and said, "You'd have thought after three days, you'd know what it looked like!" The coach trundled off the ferry and we found ourselves back at the coach interchange where we had to say goodbye to many of our companions.

There was a long ride back up to Blackpool and it was to be 2:00am on Tuesday when we got another chance to compare Blackpool Tower to its older French sibling. As we boarded the coach after a stop on the motorway around 11:30pm I leaned over to cheekily ask 86-year-old Edna if she was behaving herself. Her face lit up in a grin; "Oh no!" she assured me! Well folks, thanks for sharing our holiday - I hope some of the other people on it catch a sight of these pages and once again a big thank you to Leger who made it all possible!

Return to Paris and Versailles 1999 Index

Vimy Ridge War Memorial

Monday 31 May 1999. Ah well, all good things have to come to an end, but we are not totally finished with this holiday yet! We are leaving Paris certainly, but now there is a few hours travelling through the French countryside and a stop at Vimy Ridge, scene of terrible fighting during the First World War.

The storming and capture of the Vimy Ridge by the four Canadian Divisions in April 1917 was thought a turning point at the time and brought Canada new status in the eyes of the world. 3,600 Canadian soldiers died on the first day alone - 9 April, 1917. Their sacrifice and hard-won achievement was overturned in the stalemates, advances and retreats of the Somme, later in the war. The area was left devastated by shelling and mining. Not a blade of grass lived. This crater, more than 80 years on, shows something of the ferocity that the men lived and died through. 80 years of wind and erosion have levelled it out somewhat, but also consider that approximately two thirds of the material blown out of the ground goes straight up and therefore falls back into the crater it created.

Whilst elsewhere throughout northern France, the ground has been levelled and returned to farmland, here at Vimy it has been left as a reminder of those days and as a tribute and memorial to the victors of Vimy.

Tons of unexploded material is still under the mounds and shell holes of the area and most of it has been fenced off. The grass and trees were all grown from seed sent from Canada, as France gave the land to the Canadians in gratitude and recognition of their bravery and achievement. A small building houses displays, maps, artifacts and a story. The story of the entire army of a country, 100,000 men, working together in a single action to capture the highest ridge of land in the area.

Between April 1917 and the end of the war, 19,000 Canadians gave their lives for their country and their allies. Their bodies lay buried in the fields and villages near Vimy. This is a place for reflection and remembrance. But also a place to gain understanding and respect. The Memorial signifies also the soaring hopes for future peace. Whatever one's feeling about war are, unless there are those who are willing to risk and sacrifice all for their beliefs, then those who care nothing for the rights of others, their life, or ownership, will have their way unopposed.

The Memorial has a number of sculptures, carved where they now stand from huge blocks of stone. The monument took 11 years to build and was deigned by Canadian sculptor and architect, Walter Seymour Allward. Six thousand tons of limestone brought from a Roman quarry in the Adriatic, stand on a bed of concrete. The massive figure represents Canada, a nation mourning her dead. Carved on the monument are the names of the 11,285 Canadians who died in France and whose final resting place had not been found.

Return to Paris and Versailles 1999 Index

Sacré-Coeur

Sunday 30 May 1999. Once we had left the coach on the Boulevard de Rochechouart, we passed a line of sex shops and live shows that all the men would have liked to see and all the women were determined we wouldn't. We made our way excitedly towards the highest point in Paris.

After climbing through narrow streets to Rue Tardieu we saw the gardens and the 237 steps up to the church of Sacré-Coeur (Sacred Heart). "Stop worriting about those sex shops, Mildred," muttered one of our party, looking in dismay at the long series of steps, "I've changed my mind..."

One look at all the steps leading upwards made some of the party look left towards the funicular railway, but then first to start springing up the steps was Edna, whose 86th birthday it was that day. Everyone else followed... Buskers were at work on the steps, including one hopeful who was trying to get people either side of him to sing along in competition with the other side! Reportedly Sacré-Coeur is not the favourite Parisian monument with the locals... The stone secretes calcite whenever it rains and thus bleaches the outside, leaving it the eye-catching pure white that is seen above. At least one guide book condemns it simply: "The interior is cavernous and little else. You'd do better to stay outside on the terrace..."

We did venture inside (not having taken the guide book with us!) and there certainly was not much to stick in the mind except what I can only describe as bouncers on the door...

There was a rather spectacular view over the city from the top of the terraces. We are about to enter the area of Montmarte and the artists' quarter. The ladies are once again asking if anyone knows the French for "cup of tea laced with bromide".

Return to Paris and Versailles 1999 Index
Return to European Churches and Cathedrals Index Page

Palais de Versailles

Sunday 30 May 1999. The coach set off at 9:00am for Versailles and although warm, it was rather dull. By the time we reached the palace it was obvious that a storm was in the offing.

None-the-less we left the coach - no choice actually as it was not stopping in the coach park at the palace - and we walked into the huge cobbled courtyard and joined a horrendously long line of people waiting to go into the palace itself. The people on the right are somewhere near the back of the queue and the front of it is between the two wings on the right.

It was going darker and darker and I left Fran in the queue and went to see if there was another way in. There wasn't. On the way back I photographed the statue of Louis XIV and the sky gives you some idea. It was to get darker however. As I got back to Fran I was surprised to see she had moved up the line quite a way. The more nervous were bailing out and heading for the cafe and toilets! A few drops of rain fell - I notice these things, being bald...

Hardly had the rain started than it suddenly got a lot darker. The automatic sensors assumed it was night and the floodlighting came on. There was a test flash of lightning and it was successful so there came a lot more... Suddenly it stopped raining and instead the air turned to water. At least that's what it felt like. I've been in Florida thunderstorms which I thought were bad but this was unbelievable. In no time at all everyone was soaked through to the skin with icy water whilst thunder and lightning were horrendously close. I'll show you the scorch marks later... The cafe and shop closed its doors as there were so many people fighting to get in they were in danger of suffocating. People were literally screaming - the air was so full of water that you could hardly breathe or see.

The gutters and drains of Versailles are wonderful. Water is collected off the roofs and pours out the mouths of gargoyles. Beautiful in a shower, but in this storm the people in the narrow space between the two wings of the building were subjected to the equivalent of a row of fire hoses directed onto them from the rooftop. It was ten minutes before another door was opened and by then the mass of people was so compacted as we huddled together that we were just swept into the building. In no time the floor of the foyer was awash as all you had to do was grip a bit of clothing and water would gush forth.

It took a long time to get tickets to go into the palace proper as by then the foyer was choked with people wandering aimlessly and dripping in several different languages. The caissier had given over asking and was simply ringing up the till and pointing at the displayed price. My glasses were misted over - I took out my handkerchief and added some water... Having got the tickets we squelched up the staircase and decided the jackets we were carrying were simply making our arms wetter. We stuffed them in a plastic carrier bag and forgot about them.

When the Revolution emptied the palace of its inhabitants and showed them what a good time you could have in a condemned cell, all the furniture was being taken out and auctioned off until it was realised what was happening and what remained was left alone. Consequently many of the rooms are empty of furniture. Some contain paintings and some contain odd items. The decor though in all rooms is stunning. Gilding is in evidence throughout and there are some wonderful ceiling paintings and mouldings.

Some national stereotypes were emerging. The French were standing, dripping and sullen. The Germans were all organised and taking coats off, folding them and putting them into bags. The Brits were taking shoes off and tipping them up to literally pour a stream of water out, shouting to their mates: "Ha ha ha! Look at this!!!" A peep though a window showed that the rain had almost stopped and certainly the storm had passed over. We were later told that Paris had never had such a storm. As I said - I'll show you the scorch marks later...

It must have been heartbreaking for the staff and custodians as almost everywhere the exquisitely tiled floors were just full of water from people's feet. They were lucky the floors weren't carpeted. Meanwhile back to just before the Revolution, Paris could be dangerous and the chateau at Versailles was far enough away to have warning of any mobs but not so far as to be unaware and unable to send troops. Besides, Louis' court lived there also and thus he had them under his direct control. From 1682 to 1789 Versailles was the home of the kings of France. Everything had been built especially for Louis XIV: the palace itself, the town to house the builders and the tradesmen who served and fed them, the gardens, the water supplies, and a large hunting park. There was only a couple of villages full of peasants who had to be ejected before work could start...

The hunting park is no longer part of the estate but even so there are 800 hectares of land, 20km of roads, 200,000 trees, 35km of canals, 2153 windows, 700 rooms and 67 staircases... We had no time to go through all the rooms and the ones that we did see we saw only briefly, taking a quick glance, a photo and moving on, leaving a little puddle of water if we paused too long... Happily, water is a distinct feature of Versailles and the fountains in the garden are absolutely beautiful. We shall see some of them later, but the fountains are only switched on for a limited time and for most of that time we were indoors...

Carrying on our trip around the Palace of Versailles we complete one wing of the building and find ourselves back looking through the doorway at the beautiful Royal Chapel. Whilst the rain had stopped, as you can tell from the trousers of the chap on the left, we were still all very wet! I was relieved to find my cameras were ok. Later when Fran checked her bag, we found that any paper in it had tended to fall apart - like money for instance... I checked my pockets and brought out a few soggy scraps of paper myself - money and tickets to the garden... They had just disintegrated and there were just lots of half-inch tatters of paper!

Louis XIV's clock of 1706 in the Mercury Drawing Room. On the hour, animated figures of the King and of Fame descend from a cloud. The room was the State Bedchamber in 1682 and now contains the bed that Louis-Philippe had made for the bedchamber of Louis XIV when Versailles opened as a museum.

The Hall of Mirrors connects the War Drawing Room and the Peace Drawing Room, all devoted to the victories of Louis XIV. It was decorated from 1678 to 1686 and it was here that courtiers would wait, hoping for the ear of the King as he passed through on his way to morning worship in the Chapel. The room was spectacular to say the least and it was easy to visualise the masked and full dress balls that were held within these mirrored walls.

One of the candelabra from the Hall of Mirrors. M'sieur Vallaire had told us that there were no bathrooms or toilets in the palace. Certainly, they didn't wash as much as modern folk, believing that too much washing destroyed the body's natural resistance to disease. He also said, Napolean liked a bit of smell and always sent a messenger home two weeks in advance to warn Josephine not to wash! Perhaps that's the real reason for "Not tonight, Josephine!"

This is one of gallery rooms, hung with massive paintings, thronging with saturated tourists. The paintings depicted Napolean and someone had carelessly left a dirty great column standing in the middle of the room. Not mentioned in the guide book, I can only suppose that in a state of excitement someone put it down and forgot to pick it up again...

This gorgeous room was Queen Marie-Antoinette's bedchamber. It was here that the queen gave birth publicly so that there could be no doubt as to the true identity of the heir to the throne. In her memoirs, Madame Campan, First Woman of the Bedchamber described a huge crowd rushing into the room to witness the Queen give birth, actually climbing on the furniture for a better look. The King and Queen each had their own apartments, decorated similarly.

Ok folks, we are about to go into some very soggy grounds and gardens. The lightning scorch mark is somewhere outside - you may want some time to prepare yourselves...

Return to Paris and Versailles 1999 Index