Day 13 - Vienne

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Another sailing day, or at least half day. We left Tournan at 0630 heading to Vienne. Only 3 locks this morning. Woken up when we hit the 1st lock - literally. Things that go bump in the night, think the new boy mistimed the edge a little. No damage done.

Got up and had breakfast and watched the river go by. Very pleasant. Morning was a lazy one then when we hit town, we actually moored across the road from the town. Very pretty. Lunch time heralded the close off of voting so the internet got a bit of a hiding while everyone surfed for election results.

Today our tour was a mixture of walking and a ride in one of those tourist mini trains - like a tractor pulling 3 carts. We were the first train group so in we piled and up to the top of the town where there was a great view back down into town and also a church. Now here is a real kicker. Chris walks out of the church with a woman we hadn't spoke to before. They are sitting 2 rows in front of us on the train. They are talking about something one of the guides had said earlier in one church about Mary having 2 sisters. Chris said that she would have to ask my cousin who is a priest about that, and mentions something like Michael. They ask the surname. We say McEntee. Next thing there is a major does of whiplash from her husband - he went to school with mike at Parade. More talk, where do you live, etc. - Blackburn. Chris mentions that my cousins husband works in real estate in Blackburn, another alarmed look, which agency. Turns out their son in law works with RoRo at Noel Jones. Oh dear, 6 degrees of separation comes back a few degrees here. Can't go anywhere.......

This town has lots of roman ruins and also had a jazz festival on this weekend. They were using the old roman amphitheatre as the main jazz stage, but had lots of groups playing in the streets. Good timing. Sights were great from the hill, then down again and walked through town. Another church, roman museum and other bits, then we finished and found a really nice garden opposite the dock so did that as well.

Back to the ship for more election news, then dinner. After dinner we had a french singer entertain us. Not overly great, but half way through, one of the older gentlemen started talking loudly. A few people asked him to be quiet to which he basically told them to shut up. Another guy went over and asked him to be quiet to which he told him to piss off. Eventually the singer finished, and this guy went to get another drink. The barman refused to serve him so he chased one of the other bar staff trying to get her to serve him. One of our dinner partners was at the bar and told him to settle Down. He got chested by this guy and offered to take him outside. At this point the batman grabbed the noisy one and walked him out of the bar. Turuns out he kept abusing people in the reception area and the tour director had to effectively take him to his room.

We spoke to the batman about how well he had coped and found out that he used to be a policeman in Romania before he started on the ships. Hmm, interesting night. What we thought was going to be a quiet night turned into a fight night.......

Never a dull moment.

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