Bourg, Blaye, and Gauriac in France
- Amaris Scipione
- Apr 17
- 4 min read
Updated: May 17
This morning we are docked in Bourg and the excursion for this morning is Wine and Art in Blaye. We ride on the bus to this quaint town where we meet an entertaining man from South Africa. It’s only around 9am, but when you are on a wine cruise, the wine sampling starts early. We sit inside the La Petite Cave and enjoy views of a wine shop. Once we all have wine, we move outside and take a short stroll to another building which has barrels and is a small winery. We learn more about wine making and of course more wine tasting.
Next, we move to another building nearby which is the art gallery. This is normally a tour given by a couple: one is a winemaker and one is an artist. The winemaker is with us today, but his wife is ill, so the art part of the tour is a little light. We see her artwork and then make our way back to La Petite Cave where we have the opportunity to buy wine. The one thing that I am learning about wine is that I have expensive taste. The one that I usually like the most, is usually the most expensive one. I had considered buying a bottle of wine here, but the one I wanted was a little pricey.
We return to the ship, which is now docked in Gauriac, eat lunch, and soon enough it’s time for our afternoon excursion. This afternoon is another bike ride! This bike ride is offered by the adventure host on our ship and the bikes we use for this bike ride are the ones from our ship. These bikes seemed nice enough when I’ve seen them on the ship and available for use on other days. After my bike ride yesterday on bougie e-bikes, I really do notice a difference in the bicycles. The seat is a little smaller which makes it a little uncomfortable compared to yesterday and the bicycles are 100% self-powered. The bikes are nice and if I didn’t have fancy ones yesterday, these bikes would seem completely wonderful. There are eleven of us who go on this bike ride and I’m expecting a leisurely bike ride along the river. Paths near rivers are generally flat. We start going by the river and then ride through a small town and then soon we are riding around vineyards. It’s beautiful. We then turn inland and my leisurely bike ride becomes a fantasy. There are hills. Steep hills. The warm sun and steep roads leave many of us walking our bikes up the largest hill. We end at a church, and I’ve never been so excited to enter a church. The church is made from stone and feels twenty degrees cooler inside. It’s a nice break from the bike ride. The way back is much easier and involves coasting down hills and passing vineyards again. It was definitely a workout and not the “old-people river cruise excursion” that you might expect on a river cruise.
Dinner tonight is back on the ship. Overall, I’ve been really impressed with how Avalon has handled allergies. I’ve had delicious food and I don’t feel limited with options. They have customized any dish to make it something I can enjoy. There are a lot of new crew members onboard our ship and we can see that the more seasoned crew are training and helping the new crew members. It has overall been going well, but today is the first slip-up. I’m served my entree with a side of peppers. Peppers being the vegetable I cannot eat. I’m 99% sure they are peppers, but I have a friend eat one to confirm. The waiter seemed to understand so it’s sort of weird. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but the crew was very apologetic, and they quickly fixed my meal. I think what happened is that the wrong dish was grabbed from the kitchen instead of my allergy-friendly option. Luckily, it was an obvious display of my allergy, so I didn’t eat it. No harm done and my replacement was delicious. Dinner tonight consisted of a wonderful salad, French onion soup, lamb, and a mousse tart.
I’m trying a new travel trick on this trip. I flew Aer Lingus to France which has a baggage limit of 45 lb. Additionally, I plan to bring some wine home, so I want to leave some weight for wine. I pack 41 pounds which meant I needed to remove some items from my originally packed bag. One of the things I removed was my outfit for the plane ride back home. My plan is to have Avalon wash my travel outfit early on in the trip and then re-wear that outfit. The fun thing about this trip is that I’m traveling with my travel friends. These are a group of friends that travel as much as I do and we learn how to travel better from each other. A couple of the ladies talked about these laundry soap sheets. They use them to hand-wash items in the sink and they are easy to pack. This is especially handy if you are on a trip which is longer than a week which is common on European trips. My friend gives me one of her sheets and I decide to try handwashing my outfit instead of paying around $10 to wash a pair of pants and a shirt. It is relatively easy to hand wash the items and then I hang them up in the shower. Mission accomplished.
The back of the ship has a nice lounge that has a bunch of games. Many of us spend the evening playing a few rounds of Phase 10. I’ve never heard of this game or played it, but it was pretty quick to learn. We enjoyed sipping our drinks and playing and then finishing the evening with glasses of magnesium water. This fancy water at the back of the ship is the best.
