Day 4: Vienne

Our ship finally sailed in the early morning and we arrived in Vienne about 8:30 am.  We enjoyed looking out our large veranda windows as the ship moved smoothly along.

My breakfast treat this morning- gluten free croissants!  

Compare them to the regular croissants:

We had a walking tour of the city of Vienne.  Founded by Pontius Pilate, the city has many remains of Roman structures throughout.  But we started at the Gothic Cathedral of St. Maurice built over the course of 500 years:

A trolley took us to the top of Mont Pipet where we could view the whole city.

Retuning to the center of the city, we visited the remains of an old Romain city in a place called the Garden of Cybele.  For the current citizens of Vienne, it was just another work day - a big truck parked in front blocked views of a painting on an exterior wall and maintenance workers were using a very loud lawnmower.  These structures are just part of their everyday life!

A few blocks away we visited the Temple of Augustus and Livia - built in the 1st century!  After the Romans, it had been used as a Catholic Church.  And during the French Resistance, it was used for storage.  That's why the structure survived to become an historical landmark.  Once again, I was amazed at shops, cafes, apartments and "everyday" life going on all around it.

This afternoon has been spent cruising to our next destination.  Passengers who are experienced river cruisers had already staked out all the chairs on the upper deck, so we've been enjoying the peaceful sailing and lovely scenery from the veranda of our stateroom.  

Here's our ship, the Viking Buri

Here's the house we want to buy:

And here's what our stateroom looks like: