One of the wonderful things about river cruising is waking up in a different place every morning. On full-day one, we woke up in Macon. It’s actually on the Saone, not the Rhone, and we spent just one day in this area. This one area that we will need to come back to for a much longer journey!

Each day begins with a buffet breakfast. Most of the elements are the same, but always include made-to-order eggs, pastries, cheeses, fresh fruit, cereal, yogurt, beans, charcuterie, and so many other things. We were asked to wear a mask when at the buffets at both breakfast and lunch, and they were STRICT about it. You are no longer required to test at any time on the ship, in France, or to reenter the US, but I checked for my own piece of mind yesterday when we were home. Yes, I had heard a few people on the cruise had contracted COVID and were in quarantine. But, as of yesterday, neither Richard nor I have it. Everyone had to be vaccinated and boosted (once) in order to enter France, and we had to fill out a locator form, but the only people who asked to see it were the airlines in Canada and the cruise ship. Lunch is also a buffet. It has cold and hot options. The hot options change daily, and there is a meat carving station which also changes daily. Burgundy was the only day that lunch wasn’t offered on the boat.

The bus ride on this Burgundian day was longer than the others (about an hour and 20 minutes), and we did opt to do the masterpiece collection, partly because it included lunch. The masterpiece collections generally range between about $50 to $300 more per person based on the excursion (all other excursions are included in the price of the cruise with usually 2 or 3 choices occurring simultaneously per day. Some days had an AM and a PM excursion and you could do both.) This one was $90. Although it was excellent to see a small, modern day wine operation in a medieval castle, I don’t know that this one was necessarily worth it to me. If I had it to do again, I’d still do the Beaune part of the excursion, but perhaps spend more time wandering or see about doing my own tastings in Burgundy. Still, I don’t REGRET going, it just wasn’t the “best” of the extra excursions for me.

Beaune was such a LOVELY and fascinating little town. Likely the MOST famous part was the Hospices de Beaune. This was the hospital for the poor. The roof is iconic, for sure. They took in everyone, except those with leprosy or the plague.

Just a logistical side note here: I had been worried about what to wear, hearing that wearing shorts made you a target for pickpockets as an American, that it’s frowned upon for women to wear dresses that show their knees, or that the walking was so very strenuous. It was HOT while we were there, and I wore dresses every day because they’re cooler. Many women did, but people wore everything. Most of the men wore shorts. I wore the same kind of shoes I wear every day (generally Clarks), and I was MOSTLY fine, except for a day that I wore a pair that were too worn out. Most nights, I wore compression socks at night to help with recovery, and I was good-to-go the next day. I’m not just a curvy woman, I’m a big, fat lumpy woman, and do not exercise enough. Still, I never felt like I couldn’t keep up or that I didn’t fit in places. Yes, I want to be healthier, but for this trip, I did fine the way I was. Also, I had heard horror stories about the restrooms in France. The guides were sure to point out those that were acceptable and free on the tour at each place where we went, so my fears were unfounded. Most of the busses had a restroom as well, but they strongly discouraged us from using those.

But, as for this first day tour…

We realized if we stuck close on the tour the whole time, we’d have no real chance to explore Beaune, so we walked away from the tour guide about a quarter of the way through. That was no problem for any of the guides. They’d give you a meeting spot and a time, and if you’d rather go explore on your own, you could leave whenever. When we were wandering around, we went to the first of MANY churches on the trip. They are all so gorgeous! I admit, I didn’t keep track of which one was which, I THINK this one might be La basilique collégiale Notre-Dame de Beaune, but I may have just guessed that from my Google choices…

Still, our main reason for going to this area of France was the wine and the food, so we loved checking out some of the wine shops in the city and even buying a few bottles that we wouldn’t be able to get back at home. I’m not a big fan of chardonnay from the US, but how I love the crisp acidity when it comes from Burgundy. And there is a reason that the pinot noir there is the most expensive wine in the world. The prices on the wine we saw was so shockingly low to us! When we saw bottles there that we COULD buy here, they were about 1/3 of the price in France!

On the ship, they will open anything you buy with no corkage fee, so we had two bottles there. We also bought seven to bring home. We used a wine suitcase for those. We were pleasantly surprised when we were just waved through immigration and didn’t have to pay any kind of tax to customs. We thought we were only allowed a bottle each.

From Beaune it was back onto the bus to go through the wine road of Burgundy. I have gone to wine classes and tastings for years… to hear .”we are now entering Pommard…then, Volnay… followed by Meursault continuing to…Puligny-Montrachet, Chassagne-Montrachet” it seemed as though a hundred one classes had come to life! Oh, and these narrow TINY roads in the villages. Goodness! Sometimes there were only mere centimeters between the busses and the walls on the sides of the village. It was equal parts fascinating and unnerving!

Our masterpiece excursion was to Chateau de Rully for a private tasting in the caves of the castle.

It was a scorcher of a day out, but still wonderful to meet an actual modern day count/winemaker in his ancestral estate where he still lives. He and his family served us gratin dauphinois – some of the most wonderful potatoes I’ve ever had; beef bourguignon; and an apple tart. How wonderful to have it alongside the pinot noir that he made! My husband, Richard, is quite an accomplished cook. He said, with a laugh, that the food there just made him angry because he can’t make it as good at home. It’s a matter of getting the ingredients! The eggs, the cream, even the potatoes are all finer quality than we can get here, so the food is extraordinary!

After, lunch, the count took us for a tour of his home, including the kitchen which even stayed cool in the heat of the afternoon because of the thick walls. He sold his wine there. You could only pay cash or write a check, no credit card or Venmo for the count!

The first day was long – 9-5 on the bus – then back with enough time to change for the Captain’s Welcome dinner and the overview of the entire cruise. Speaking of the tours, the bus drivers and tour guides are independent contractors, and not part of Uniworld. Uniworld suggests tipping them a euro or two per tour. We often tipped a little more than that, but that’s obviously up to the individual. Those drivers are IMPRESSIVE.

On this night, we were sailing back to Lyon before heading further south for the rest of the trip. I didn’t bring anything overly dressy for the captain’s dinner, and it didn’t seem necessary. SOME were most dressed than others. Most of the men wore long-sleeved dress shirts, but not much dressier than that. According to the cruise guide, shorts are not allowed in the dining room during dinner but most slacks were casual. I never saw jeans. We picked the rest of our excursions. We were VERY disappointed to see that one of the Masterpiece collection excursion was no longer listed. In fact, that excursion was one of the main reasons we booked the trip. (Spoiler alert: the excursion reappeared later, and we were thrilled). So we booked one other “extra” excursion to take its place and made our plans for the week.

Again, dinner included your choice of beverages with a recommended red and white from the sommelier. That night, we chose to dine just the two of us, but there are VERY few tables for two. They are at the very back of the restaurant, and they’re close to all the other tables for two. In essence, we ended up dining with the lovely newlywed couple next to us- Sam and Gus. They were in their 20s. Richard and I, RELATIVELY young for the trip in our mid/late 40s, asked them what made them choose a river cruise. They had made a deal with each other that every time anyone asked them that that they would do a shot! They, like many other couples on the ship had started in Paris on their own, did the river cruise in the middle, and would end on the beaches in Nice. I LOVED that idea. Everyone I talked to on this trip said that we hadn’t missed anything by skipping Paris. They said that the train stations were packed, the city was oppressively hot, and the Tour de France was about to come through so things were completely nuts. Maybe they said it to be nice, but it made me feel better!

Dinner was another exercise in gluttony, starting with foie gras and ending with cheese before we went out to a deck for another night and another nightcap while sailing back to Lyon. Oh, what a LOVELY day!