‘Why do the French eat snails?” asks Sophie, our guide, before providing the answer: “Because we don’t like fast food!” The joke is well timed, as our coach inches snail-like through the narrow lanes of rural France, passing villages whose signs have been turned upside down by disgruntled farmers in silent protest against EU laws. Soon enough, we arrive at our destination, Chèvrerie de la Trufière, a goat farm where we are greeted by blue-eyed goatherd, Corentin, and his 120 fragrant charges.
I am on a river cruise through the Rhône Valley, from Lyon to Arles, on Scenic’s 147-passenger Scenic Sapphire and we are driving from Mâcon through chardonnay territory on one of the many included excursions. This grape, according to one version, was brought back from Jerusalem by the Crusaders, along with Charolais cattle.
Our itinerary covers an area so rich in culture and natural beauty that choosing just one of the tempting daily side-trip options (up to four of them) invariably poses a dilemma. And this, of course, is the rub, when it comes to cruising: you sacrifice time and flexibility for ease, convenience and that glorious abdication of responsibility.
On this day, the goats — and the prospect of those delicious cheeses — trump the now-absent monks of the formerly powerful Cluny Abbey, an excursion that was also high on my wish list. Instead, at the Chèvrerie, I fall in love with Marbrée, aka No 24031, a five-month-old black-and-white Alpine goat of exceptional obedience and charm. I learn about the art of cheese-making and sample some of the 80,000 cheeses produced annually in this small cottage industry. The morning provides a light palate cleanser amid the weighty diet of more historically significant excursions — and a brace of bibulous wine tours.
Scenic Sapphire can accommodate 147 passengers
Days follow a pattern. Before lunch on board, there’s a morning’s guided excursion, either around our port of call, or by coach to a destination further afield. I usually opt for the latter, using the free afternoons when we are not sailing for solo exploration locally. Most guests prefer to sunbathe or soak in the hot tub on the AstroTurfed top deck during “free time” and complimentary alcohol flows freely from dawn until the early hours.
You can, incidentally, order a cocktail or the house champagne, François Dubois, at any time, but a glass of Evian or Badoit or any mineral water feels like an impossibility. Given the taste of the filtered alternative, small wonder so much alcohol is consumed.
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We sail stealthily through 155 miles of vineyards, surprisingly, without so much as a nod to the famous Côte Rôtie and Côtes du Rhône Villages by way of commentary. But our journey is bookended by two wine tours. At the northernmost point of our journey, I visit Beaujolais — a region so geologically complex that it is designated a Unesco global geoPark — best known for its gamay grape, of which 13,000 hectares carpet the stony soil on low, shrubby vines. We pass the hilltop chapel of Our Lady of the Grape, erected to protect the vines from frost and other blight but not always successfully.
Beaujolais is best known for its gamay grape
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We visit the idyllic Château de Pravins, with a fortified entrance and mullion windows, where Isabelle Brossard, the owner, welcomes us in. The château has been a winegrowing estate since 1251, and wines are now made using organic and biodynamic methods.
“Beaujolais has been struggling to recover from the poor reputation of beaujolais nouveau wines, which was a marketing gimmick that began in 1951,” she tells us, as we taste a mid-range, 2018 Argile Ardente in the cellars. A typical gamay wine, it is quite light, and low in tannins.
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Only 46 of the 134 passengers on board opt for the Beaujolais excursion, but there is a larger uptake for Châteauneuf du Pape, where we visit the more commercial set-up of Maison Bouachon, to taste the classic “GSM blend” of grenache, syrah and mourvèdre — three of the 13 grape varieties permitted for the coveted Châteauneuf appellation and its distinctive bottle, stamped with the papal crown above the keys of St Peter.
It is to the 14th-century Pope John XXII — one of the nine Avignon popes — that we owe these wines, in name at least. Despite the ravages of the Black Death and the Hundred Years War, this oenophile pontiff found time to plant vines and build the eponymous “new castle” of Châteauneuf du Pape as the popes’ summer residence. Now, it’s a distinguished ruin, having been blown up by the Germans in 1944.
In between these visits is an orgy of architectural splendour. I explore the medieval hilltop town of Pérouges and marvel at its 15th-century fortified church built into the ramparts, imagining the clergy firing arrows through the slits and loopholes and pouring goodness-knows-what over invading armies. It’s designated one of the Most Beautiful Villages in France, making it part of an association of 180 historic villages with cultural interest. The stone houses and cobbled streets were faithfully restored in the early 20th century, to reflect its heyday under the House of Savoy, when it flourished as a centre of linen weavers. Today, just 80 people live within the walls and traditional artisans have returned.
Pérouges has been designated one of the most beautiful villages in France
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History is tangible wherever we go. When we reach Vienne, despite its impressive Roman ruins such as the theatre and the Temple to Augustus and Livia, slap bang in the centre of town, it is for its association with the Templars that the city fascinates me. For it was here, in the magnificent Romanesque-gothic Cathedral of St Maurice, that Gui de Bourgogne was crowned Pope Calixtus II in 1119, the year the Order of the Knights Templar was founded. It was also here that the fateful Council of Vienne took place, in 1311 and 1312, which abolished the Order for good.
When we dock at medieval Viviers, I decide to fast-forward to a Renaissance aesthetic and visit the Château de Grignan, a triumph of architectural bravado dominating the medieval fortified village, with views all the way to the Dentelles de Montmirail. It’s a glorious drive that takes us through a Provençal landscape of vineyards, olive groves, truffle oaks and nodding sunflowers. A couple of months earlier, the fields would have been ablaze with lavender.
But it is in homage to Mme de Sévigné, buried in the church beneath the château’s expansive terrace, that I go. This 17th-century aristocrat, wit, and lady of letters (in every sense), stayed at the château on visits to her daughter, the Comtesse de Grignan — to whom she wrote some 600 deliciously indiscreet letters on subjects ranging from life at the court of Louis XIV to the benefits of viper broth as a tonic.
Back on board, we are welcomed by friendly staff adept at multi-tasking. Scenic Sapphire is comfortable, if shrouded in a 1970s palette of brown inside. But cabins are bright, with enclosed balconies and panoramic windows offering great views, barring the odd pyjama’d bottom looming over your coffee when you wake to another cruise ship moored alongside. I develop a taste for bacon sandwiches at breakfast, and prefer to lunch upstairs by the bar, or on deck (think buttery-style offerings such as mac’n’cheese with salad) rather than in the downstairs dining room.
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Care is taken to devise inventive dinner menus, with variable success. A notable exception is the invitation-only dinner at La Rive, reserved for guests of the top category cabins, one per trip. Here, the executive chef Adrian Constantin and his staff excel with a five-course feast and paired wines. The mushroom and truffle soup with mascarpone, and the octopus carpaccio with lobster medallions are delicious, as is the Châteauneuf du Pape from Domaine Guigal that accompanies the beef tenderloin. There’s even mineral water! I wish I could dine here every night.
In Avignon, we have missed the mass for the blessing of the harvest by one day. In the evening, a private chamber concert is laid on for us in the vast banqueting hall of the Palais des Papes. The venue is a treat in itself, the palace’s Rapunzel-esque turrets illuminated like a fairytale castle when we emerge.
The trip includes a private concert in the banquet hall of Palais des Papes
Our trip ends, quite literally, on a high. From Arles, we drive through the Camargue, land of bulls, white horses, Van Gogh and Hugh Grant, who has a house here — and the gorgeous Alpilles Natural Park with its 16 villages, among them Fontvieille, the windmill of which inspired Alphonse Daudet’s Lettres de Mon Moulin.
Plane trees, planted by Napoleon to shade his troops, arch over country lanes as we head for our final destination: Les Baux de Provence, a stone village camouflaged on the summit of a vast limestone cliff. Once ruled by powerful lords and much prized for its commanding position, Les Baux had a turbulent history, until Richelieu brought it to book. But the place holds nostalgic memories for me and I am delighted to find it little changed as I wander past the former house of Picasso’s print-maker, sellers of saucissons and the semi-troglodytic church of St Vincent, patron saint of wine.
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I perch at a quiet cliff-edge bar overlooking the Val d’Enfer, or Hell Valley, order a pastis à l’ancienne, and inhale what is to me the essence of Provence: lavender and pine, mixed with wafts of aniseed from my glass. Sheer bliss — the best saved until last.
The historic city of Arles
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My fellow guests — many of whom are seasoned “Sceniors” — are also happy. I overhear just one grievance on board: an Australian lady complaining to the Romanian receptionist about an American fellow guest: “He was wearing shorts at dinner. I thought you said shorts were not allowed at dinner. What are you going to do about it?”
Actually, they were swimming trunks. But I thought it best not to intervene.
Teresa Levonian Cole was a guest of Scenic, which has seven nights’ all-inclusive from £3,845pp on the Idyllic Rhône itinerary, including flights, excursions, tips and drinks, departing on September 25, 2026 (scenic.co.uk)
Dining and Cooking