Historic Vienne, France

Being on the water will always be an important part any cruise experience, and not just because we seamlessly glide between ports.

Julie and I stretched out in lounge chairs on the Sun Deck to enjoy our sunny afternoon cruise from Tournon to Vienne.  If we had a French Balcony or Veranda, we might have enjoyed the views from our room, but we like getting up on top, where having to duck occasionally to stay beneath low bridges is part of the fun.

Upon arrival, we took the included afternoon tour of Vienne with a cheerful, knowledgeable guide.

Our first stop was the Cathédrale Saint-Maurice, which our guide pointed out was named after the martyr St. Maurice, as is Switzerland's world-renowned St. Mortiz (German spelling).  Maurice was an Egyptian who became a soldier in the Roman army, rising through the ranks to a position leading the Theban Legion.  It was in Gaul (the Roman name for France) that Maurice and his Christian soldiers first refused to sacrifice animals to worship pagan gods, and then refused to harass local Christians.  His commander, Maximian, punished Maurice's brigade by killing one in ten of his Christian soldiers.

When they still refused, another decimation (as this type of punishment was called) was executed.  It was at the Roman outpost of Agaunam that Maurice was among the martyred, and that city eventually became known as St. Moritz in his honor.  I'm sure you know, St. Moritz is a luxurious ski resort that you may have seen in the movie House of Gucci. 

Saint Maurice was also the patron saint of the Holy Roman Empire.

Back to the Cathedral itself, it was here that Pope Clement V held the Council of Vienne in 1311-2, from which he issued the papal bull abolishing the Knights Templar on behalf of King Philip IV of France.

The Gothic exterior of the Cathedral, which on our visit was obscured by scaffolding for refurbishment, contrasts with the Romanesque interior, a rather unique combination.

Because of our train ride in Tournon plus our afternoon cruise, the Viking-included tour of this historic city was limited to 1 1/2 hours, so there wasn't time to see everything assuming we wanted to be back on board in time for another gourmet dinner.  The ruins of a hilltop medieval castle, for example, were simply pointed out at the end of a street as we walked on to the next major stop in our tour, the Roman Temple d'Auguste et de Livie (Temple of Augustus and Livia).

When the Roman Empire fell in the fifth century, the Temple became a Christian church, with walls built inside the columns.  In the end, St. Maurice proved to be on the winning side of the cultural battle in which he sacrificed his life.  Of course, the French Revolution brought a new era, and it became the Temple of Reason in 1792.

One of our own founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson lived in France from 1784 to 1789, negotiating important treaties and trade agreements with European powers.  During those years, TJ visited Vienne and reportedly loved it. He replaced Benjamin Franklin, who served as ambassador during the war years of the American Revolution.

While it is obvious that the American Revolution inspired the French "Third Estate" to wrest power from their own monarchy, less obvious is the fact that France's backing of the fledgling United States at the urging of Franklin brought a heavy financial burden that exacerbated financial problems for the monarchy of France.  That led to higher taxes and the famous "Let theme eat cake" attribution to Queen Marie Antoinette, fomenting revolt against entrenched royal and papal power.

In any case, when Jefferson returned home to Virginia, he brought his love of Vienne in the form of a building design of this converted Temple to Augustus.  You will recognize it as the template for the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond as well as other municipal buildings in the United States.

Viking Daily reported that "the centerpiece of Vienne is the 13,000-seat Roman Theater on the slopes of Mt. Pipet, said to have been buried from the 4th century until its rediscovery in 1922." Interestingly, it was not included in our Viking-sponsored tour, presumably clipped by time constraints, or perhaps to diversify offerings in Vienne after having visited a different Roman Theater earlier on our cruise in Arles.

We made a stop at the lovely Hotel de Ville, which in French means city hall, where our guide told an amusing story about two backpackers who spent the night there, apparently believing it to be a hotel in the American sense of the word.

France is always proud of its artistic achievements.  We stopped to appreciate a large mural dedicated to the arts.  The backdrop is a clue to where we went next.

Vienne, a city of 30,000, remains most renowned for its Roman ruins, even as the setting for that painting, and we soon found ourselves at Jardin de Cybèle, an assortment of Gallic-Roman partial structures and streets about 2,000 years old.

It seems to have been an ancient neighborhood, with arcades of a portico leading to the forum, which is a public gathering place where I imagine debates about philosophy and politics among other activities. There also is seating for a theater of some sort, possibly honoring the goddess Cybèle, whose likeness was found on a fragment of a bas-relief sculpture of her, which is where the garden gets its name.

Cybèle was a Greek goddess who predated the Romans by at least a few hundred years.  Romans often allowed locals to keep gods and goddesses from their past, applying the traits of similar gods from their own pagan traditions, as they did in Bath.  The locals might have used the Roman name Magna Mater in that time.  She was an earth mother, not unlike Gaia or the Minoan goddess Rhea. Note that it was 20th Century archaeologists who attributed the name to the face on the sculpture fragment.

While we were there, two young teen-aged boys were video-taping themselves running through the ruins, jumping in a way that might look impressive on youtube, I presume.  They looked like they were having fun.

Being centrally located in a city along the Rhone, this old neighborhood was discovered beneath a hospital demolished to make way for a newer one built nearby.

We could have remained in Vienne like some others did rather than returning to the ship.

There are plenty of restaurants, including sidewalk bistros and Michelin-starred restaurants, though I believe that night when our chef aboard Delling served the best Beef Bourguignon that I've ever tasted.

As frequently happens for us and presumably most others, by the time we did the well-organized tour, we felt we had absorbed about as much beauty and information about the village as we needed for this trip, and the idea of returning to the ship to freshen up for happy hour followed by dinner lured us back to our home-away-from-home.

This may well have been the night when I joined a "Name That Tune" team with four strangers in the lounge after dinner.

Julie hyped my musical knowledge. so they called me a ringer, which we took as our team name, "The Ringers."

It was actually Julie, sitting right by me but at a different table, who came up with a song after I would say less than a second of violins that could have just as well been from Flight of the Bumblebee for all I knew.  I still don't know how she got that one, though she didn't know the actual name.  She sang a partial verse in my ear, and I recognized it as Livin' On a Prayer by Bon Jovi (extra points for knowing the artist).

Other than agreeing on some answers, I don't think I came up with any other answer the team did not know without me.

This being a rather sophisticated river cruise, after a few glasses of excellent local wine with dinner, contestants were asked to do the chicken dance in order to win extra points, so the room briefly looked like Old World Village during Oktoberfest.

After a Fats Domino song, extra points could be earned by a couple from the team getting up to do the twist.  Neither of the women officially on the team volunteered, so Julie did, dancing with a man from our team.  I'm not sure that she was officially on our team, but we were allowed to have up to six members, so she would have been legit under the rules.  From a room full of teams, we finished in second, but more importantly, for the next couple of days people knew Julie as the twist girl.

Atop the hill at the end of the street you can catch a glimpse of the Medieval castle ruins.