Day 11 - Thursday 4th May

Overnight the boat had travelled from Medoc back to Bordeaux. Although it was another cool morning, it was bright and sunny with hardly a cloud in the sky.

Since there were no excursions this morning, we'd slept in. I got to the dining room in time for breakfast but Suzy was late and she went to the late breakfast in the "River Cafe" which is located at the front of the boat at the end of the lounge area.

Today we would be travelling from Bordeaux to Cadillac. Timing was critical because the boat had to get under the old masonry bridge at Bordeaux.

The bridge (Pont de Pierre) consists of a series of arches with limited clearance left to right and, more importantly, limited height above water level.

The captain only had a five minute window in which to get under the bridge. He had to wait until the tide was at its lowest point and the currents from the ocean had subsided. Two of the arches had lights at the top of the arch. Initially both were red. As we approached the bridge, one of them turned amber and finally green.

As the boat approached the bridge, the captain lowered the wheelhouse to reduce the height of the boat. The wheelhouse can be lowered and raised hydraulically. The captain's head pokes up above the roof of the wheelhouse so he can see his way.

There are in fact two captains on board - Jeremy the Englishman and a French captain. There is a separate set of controls on the deck outside the wheelhouse.

It must be difficult to manoeuver such a long boat. It's needle-shaped: 135m long and 12m wide. The captain has to line up the needle so that it goes straight through the gap provided by the arch under the bridge. He's got to contend with the tide, currents, breeze and passengers asking him lots of questions.

Most of the passengers were on the top deck watching and waiting to see if we would get through. The whole spectacle lasted for more than 30 minutes. In the end, he accelerated and we glided safely under the bridge and all the passengers applauded the captain.

There are several subsequent bridges near Bordeaux and along the river but none of them had clearance problems. The captain raised the wheelhouse back to its normal position and we proceeded down the river to Cadillac. We docked there at lunch time.

Along the way, we admired the scenery. From time to time, we saw a mansion overlooking the river and sometimes a little village. A surprise was to see little fishing structures along the river - like cubby houses with nets. I imagine these would be popular on the weekend.

Before lunch, Tania conducted a French lesson in the lounge area. She went through standard phrases that we might need to use in our holiday in France. Tania is Portuguese and I think some of her French pronunciation wasn't quite right.

Today we decided to have a light lunch in the River Cafe rather than a full lunch down in the dining room. The staff still made sure that we had plenty to drink. We had a long chat to Peter Collins and his wife, Monica.

This afternoon's excursion was a walking tour of Cadillac. It started at 3pm and finished at about 4:30pm. Isabelle, our guide, initially took us through the streets of the village pointing out interesting aspects of the town. Cadillac has an American connection because the man who founded Detroit in the US came from Cadillac. Hence the name of the car.

The main destination of the tour was Cadillac castle. This is an impressive four-storey structure (if you include the basement where the kitchen was located) around a large courtyard. There is no much furniture inside but there are plenty of fireplaces and tapestries on the walls.

Dinner was at 7pm in the main dining room. The first course was frog legs. This was the first time that I've had frog legs. It tasted like chicken.

It was another nice four-course dinner.

Wine for the dinner was provided by the owners of Cliff Creek Cellars from Oregon who are passengers on the cruise - along with many of their wine club members. They'd brought two dozen bottles of claret with them from the USA.

It's surprising how many staff on board come from Romania. We've chatted to most of them about our holiday there about 18 months ago.