18 Days in France - LaRoche - Guyon; and then The Seine

LaRoche - Guyon from the deck of the Viking Nerthus - France
Copyright Andy Richards 2026 - All Rights Reserved

WE WOULD make a couple more stops that - after the fact - really didn't make a lot of sense to me. What I have learned, however, is that unlike ocean cruising, where ports are relatively confirmed and consistent, there are a lot of "moving parts" with river cruises. River levels, other traffic, port facility space and availability and timing of entrance to certain attractions all work together to make river cruise ports less predictable. It seems that it is not unusual for the captain to know where his mooring will be until only very shortly before landing. Those things may well have conspired to dictate our times and places.

LaRoche - Guyon from the riverbank viewpoint just off our Viking Nerthus - France
Copyright Andy Richards 2026 - All Rights Reserved

THERE IS little doubt in my mind that 2 or 3 of the stops were the primary reason for the particular itinerary here (Giverny and Monet's house and garden and the Normandy Beaches). Others may have been - to an extent - filler. That is not to say they were "bad." But the timing and placement does have to make you wonder.

At a crossroads: I walked the gravel path from the ship mooring toward the village and reached the main road here. Unsure whether to turn left or right, I walked a ways up the hill to the left and determined that it was primarily residential and somewhat more modern than expected for a Medieval city. Backtracking, I went the other way, which turned out to be the way into the old village - LaRoche-Guyon, France
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I SAID in the last blog that we were bound for Vernon as we sailed away from Paris. That would be our stop which would be very close (just a few minutes) from our objective of Giverny, the tiny little village where Monet and his family lived out the latter portion of his lifetime. We left Paris in the early evening. But before we would arrive in Vernon, we made a stop in the very early morning in another very small village, for just a few hours (5:30 a.m. to noon). There were no "included" excursions here, though there was a sole optional visit to a castle that was probably once the reason for being for this rather small, but charming village of LaRoche - Guyon. The castle is unique in that it is built right into the limestone rock face overlooking the village. The village itself is another Medieval village.

Chateau de LaRoche-Guyon, LaRoche-Guyon, France
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BECAUSE WE had a few hours in the morning, I grabbed some quick breakfast, and headed into the village, a 10 - 15 minute walk from the riverbank where the ship was docked, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. It was a quiet (especially in the early morning) little berg, with, in addition to the castle, a 15th Century Gothic Church and a tiny and quaint little central village area.

Saint Samson Church - LaRoche-Guyon, France
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I MADE a few photographs, taking advantage of the uncommon chance to use the nice early morning light. I then headed back to the ship. I found that my favorite images of that morning were taken from a high point on the bank above the ship, and from the ship's upper deck.

LaRoche-Guyon Village - LaRoche-Guyon, France
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WE DEPARTED on time, and spent the afternoon sailing the Seine. This was the first time we actually had pleasant (not overly hot nor strong winds) weather during a sailing and we were able to spend some time up on the sundeck and enjoy sailing the river.

Viking Nerthus - LaRoche-Guyon, France
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IN ADDITION to some of the sights on the river and along the banks, I had the best opportunity of the entire trip to see and photograph a trip through one of the locks from the upper deck, from pre-entry to exit. I show that sequence below:

Viking Nerthus passing through a lock on the Seine
All Images Copyright Andy Richards 2026 - All Rights Reserved

EVENTUALLY, WE reached our stop for that night: Vernon. Just minutes away from Vernon, is Giverny, the home - and for me perhaps most importantly: gardens - of Claude Monet. I had been looking forward to this the entire trip. It may have been just another lesson on not getting your expectations too high. Stay tuned.

18 Days in France - "Panoramic" Paris

Que de Grenelle is the main street immediately adjacent to the Seine and our Viking Cruise Port in Paris
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I AM old enough to remember when websites were intended to be informational and functional (heck, I am old enough to remember when there was no such thing as a website 😆). They were designed to give information about a company and its products and access to information and communications. They were usually set up for a customer to get true "support" with questions, problems, etc. That was before social media and "influencers" took over. Today, it appears to me that websites and anything else most companies do digitally are solely focused on selling. Nowhere is this more evident than on cruise line websites. They are often difficult to navigate for anything other than signing up for a new cruise. And they are all pretty much rife with hyperbole. A rant, I know, but one of my favorites is their euphemistic description of a bus tour as a "Panoramic" Tour. Sounds impressive. It is nothing more than a bus tour! And that was our Viking Excursion for the next day.

I made this image only a few steps up the access road to our Viking Paris Port
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BUT BEFORE I cover "Panoramic Paris," being overnight in the city, and knowing there would be views of the Eiffel Tower around the cruise port, I made it a point to get up and out early. I wasn't disappointed, as there were a couple of nice image-opportunities in the early morning light.

Que de Grenelle in the early morning light - Paris, France
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SHORTLY AFTER breakfast, we boarded our bus for our "panoramic" tour of the city. When I "beat up" on the cruise lines for using hyperbole, I am not necessarily saying that a bus tour is always a bad thing. In fact, in many cases, it is a pretty good way to get a proverbial "ten-thousand feet overview" of the city. And to learn some history and cultural facts at the same time.

Paris, France
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WE LEARNED, for example, that the unique building above is modular and that the units can actually be moved around. I just found it a kind of cool looking building.

Notre Dame Cathedral - Paris, France
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I KNEW we would do some driving around the city this morning, but the main goal from my personal perspective was that we would gain entrance to the famed Notre Dame Cathedral. Almost exactly 7 years ago, we had an overnight stay in Paris - only 2 months after the devastating fire that destroyed much of the old, timbered portions of the magnificent cathedral. Being one of the most known spectacles in the world, I had looked forward to visiting and photographing the great church. The fire, in addition to being a historical disaster, was a great personal disappointment to me. We made the best of it, seeing it from outside the scaffolding, and I even made a picture or two that I thought were nice. But I knew that sometime in the future I would return. It turns out that this day was my opportunity.

Notre Dame Cathedral - Paris, France
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HARSH MID-DAY sunlight and crowds really kind of foreclosed any new shots of the exterior. And at the same time, I always knew that any interior photographs were going to be a compromise. Indeed, as I have noted here in the past, I have pretty much given up trying to shoot indoors with my primary camera on these tours. They move too fast and often don't really give me time to think about the shot, change lenses if necessary, and make settings changes. I know I could (and one day maybe will) set the camera up with auto-iso and other settings, but just haven't had much success.

Notre Dame Cathedral - Paris, France
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RATHER THAN miss some of the opportunities, I have resorted to using my "smart" phone. These days, the images from these ubiquitous cell phone cameras are pretty good, especially for my purposes here. All the interior shots from this trip were made with my current Samsung Galaxy S24 plus phone camera.

Notre Dame Cathedral - Paris, France
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WHILE I don't generally have high expectations of these shots, sometimes I get a result I really liked. The phone-camera shot above is my personal favorite shot of the church interior, and I felt it was worth spending some time in post processing.

Paris, France
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AFTERWARD, WE walked around the area of the 4th Arondissment ("district"), where the Cathedral is located. The church itself is actually on a small island in the middle of the Seine: Île de la Cité. But the rest of the Arrondissment is historically famous, housing several ancient Gothic Churches. It is also where Sorbonne University is located, as well as a couple famous private high schools. It is generally a place where only the very wealthy live - and attend school. I made a couple shots of local eating establishments. One of them Odette) was the place where we met for our walking tour back in 2019 and I recognized it immediately. The other was almost just a single "storefront" in a huge building on one of the main streets. I liked the look.

Paris, France
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FOLLOWING OUR short tour, we had a few minutes of free time to get a refreshment and/or use the bathroom. I had my second truly "french" chocolate eclair of the trip. It is a favorite of mine and it was every bit as good as I expected it should be!

Paris, France
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OUR MEETING spot was a beautiful garden kiddie-corner from the Cathedral.

Dôme des Invalides - Paris, France
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WE BOARDED the bus, again, continuing our driving tour around parts of the city. As I have often pointed out, making photographs from a moving vehicle, through glary plate glass is challenging. Again, I only attempted to use my phone. The "record" shots I made of some famous Paris Landmarks were in desparate need of post-processing and I can only say: "thank you, Photoshop."

Palais Bourbon - Paris, France
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BUT YOU have to make whatever shots you can when you are reasonably certain you will not be back for a better opportunity, so I made some snapshots out the window of the bus.

Champs-Élysées - Paris, France
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SOME OF the places are sites I had already seen and photographed (back in 2019), but there were still a couple perspectives I had not had the opportunity to shoot from and I took the best opportunity I could, and worked alot with Photoshops very estimable tools to post-process these into at least reasonably likeable images. These two related images depict perhaps one of Paris' most popular sites: Champs-Élysées and at the other end of the famous street; Arch de Triomphe, made from a couple perspectives I was unable to get standing below it back in 2019.

Arch de Triomphe - Paris, France

WE MADE one more stop before returning to the ship. Another shot I have made numerous times: The Eiffel Tower. When we were in Paris in 2019, I had a chance to photograph the tower from several different perspectives, including perhaps the most popular spot, Place du Trocadéro, from directly across the Seine. I had also shot it up close and even made images of Paris from the tower. This one, though, was a "drive - by." But it was actually a good one, and our bus driver stopped right in front of it, giving us just a few minutes to unload and make a shot. While perhaps not my all time favorite, I did like the shot from here.

Eiffel Tower - Paris, France
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FROM THERE, we headed back to the ship. We would be sailing away, up the Seine, that afternoon, bound for Vernon - and Monet country.

18 Days in France - Farewell to the South (and on to Paris)

WE HAD our last night on Viking Lofn, enjoying the atmosphere in the lounge and saying our goodbye's to some of our favorite crew members, as well as a couple fellow passengers we had met. We were on a "back-to-back" denominated "France's Finest," which included transportation to our next ship - The Viking Nerthus, and another week of cruising; this time on the Seine. But of the 170 - odd cruisers, only a handful were with us. We would meet new people on the next one, but the staff/crew here had become special favorites.

Farewell to the Viking Lofus - Lyon, France
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THE NEXT morning, those of us traveling on to the Nerthus boarded yet another Viking Coach, and bid farewell to the Lofn. Fond memories of that ship.

[Viking Lofn Crew members] are friendly, helpful, good-humored, and for the most part: efficient.

I WILL be doing a more in-depth review of our Viking Experience in the near future on my other blog (I Am A Celebrity) which is more focused on the cruising aspect of our personal travels. There are certainly many things I can (and will) say about Viking; much of it not completely positive. But what I will say here is that the "on the ground" and shipboard crew members are as good as any we have known on any cruise. They are friendly, helpful, good-humored, and for the most part: efficient. That morning, we put our primary luggage out in the hallway and Viking got it to the Nerthus. It was in our stateroom when we arrived!

Welcome to Viking Nerthus - Paris, France
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HAVING HAD some experience with the French train system already, we knew it could be confusing to the uninitiated (though once you get it, it is really pretty straightforward). But in this case there were simply no worries for the travelers. A Viking staff member met us on the bus and escorted us into the station, where she got us our tickets. We were on a nice, first class coach on the direct, high speed train from Lyon to Paris. When boarding time arrived, she escorted us to and through our gates and to the doorway of our coach. It was a comfortable, 2-hour ride (most of us caught up on our sleep). Upon arrival at the (now familiar to us) Lyon Gare train station in Paris, as we exited the platform, there were Viking reps holding signs. Ours indicated that he was picking up Nerthus passengers. He had a list with names. Once all were accounted for, he took us to our bus, which in turn, took us to Viking's Paris Cruise Port on the Seine - directly to our ship. Efficient.

View from the Sundeck of our Viking Nerthus - Paris Cruise Port
Copyright Andy Richards 2026 All Rights Reserved

OF COURSE they had food waiting for us. 😀 After a lunch/snack, we settled into our stateroom, and then checked out our new ship. Interestingly, Lofn is one of the line's oldest ships and Nerthus one of the very newest, so there were some contrasts. But really not many. There is very little real estate on a river ship. 4 decks, with lowest deck having "waterline" staterooms. Deck 2 is the primary floor which has the main dining room up front and staterooms rear. Deck 3 has the Lounge up front and staterooms rear. The top deck ("sundeck) has chairs and couches designed for cruising days and sun. There is also a small "designated" (more on that below) smoking area. The Nerthus decks 1-3 were virtually identical to Lofn. The ship is a bit smaller capacity, so the dining room may have been a tad smaller, but same layout. The only real difference I could see was that the sundeck area seemed a bit nicer, with more seating up at the bow area.

THE DESIGNATED smoking area was nice, but not very well thought out. Rather than being on the very back as it was in Lofn, it is kind of in the middle of things making it unpleasant at times for other non-smokers in the seating area under the large umbrella. Viking really needs to re-think their "designated" smoking area policy. I "get" that smokers are a small minority of the passengers, but they exist and we aren't going away any time soon. On the river ships, there are a couple of pretty simple (in my opinion) setup things. First, when under sail, the wind will naturally be blowing from bow to stern. That mean the smoking area really should be back at (or near) the stern. But in port, we experienced a different phenomena on one night. The wind was directly from the stern toward the bow. With the general seating forward and the "designated" smoking area just behind it, they were getting smoke full on. There was a pretty simple solution. There is a very small area way up on the bow with a couple tables. It happened that night, that it was totally unoccupied. I think Viking should consider a "moveable designated smoking area." That night is would have made great sense to smoke up forward. We suggested it, but nobody really did anything except complain. Viking?

Night view from the Sundeck of our Viking Nerthus - Paris Cruise Port
Copyright Andy Richards 2026 All Rights Reserved

WHAT WE did appreciate was our view from the deck at the Paris/Seine Viking dock. As you sit and view forward, the Eiffel Tower is prominent in the background. It made a nice "riverboat picture." That evening, after our first dinner aboard the Nerthus, we went upstairs to the top deck. Though still very warm, the evening weather was noticeably more comfortable than it had been in the south and we spent most evenings after dinner up there. It is easy to see that the view is even more dramatic at night.

Night view from the Sundeck of our Viking Nerthus - Paris Cruise Port
Copyright Andy Richards 2026 All Rights Reserved