We arrived overnight in Port Vendres, yet another beautiful seaside town in France, just inside the border with Spain. The weather turned decidedly worse today (Saturday) . . . cloudy and cold after yesterday’s warmth and sunshine. We understand that is to be expected this early in the tourist season here in the Mediterranean. And, our attitude toward the tours we’ve taken has also grown a bit cooler, with today’s results topping the bill!
Mind you that we’ve heard 100 times this week from other travelers that the tours – which we booked online in advance – were either misrepresented, too expensive, or at the very least should never be booked online – only once on board. I don’t think we agreed with that until today. This tour was billed as “The French Expressionists of Colliouere” and was intended to showcase the works of artists like Matisse who painted in this nearby (yes, another beautiful) seaside town.
There were a couple problems evident from the beginning of the tour when we disembarked in Colliouere. First, one of the thirty or forty persons on the tour was the physician from South Carolina who I mentioned in an earlier posting. A wonderful gentleman, he’s post-stroke from 3 years ago, but our “guide” paid no more attention to this than if he’d been a Martian.
After walking to the seashore in a cold, brisk wind, she promptly led the group up a pretty steep hill. Graciously, he went along, step by slow step, with the aid of Cheryl holding on to his arm. Of course he protested needing her help, but she insisted that you can't take the nurse out of the nurse. After about a 20 minute climb to the top of this hill (during which we saw little more than a steep street with some colorful houses, he finally arrived at the top and then the guide starting leading the group down the other side of the hill – no rest for the wicked!
He managed, again with Cheryl’s help, to make it to the bottom where our guide dismissed the group for a couple hours of “free time”. . . wait a minute, aren’t we here to see French impressionists work? “Oh”, she replied, and added “the museum here features only local artists. The tour was designed to show you where Matisse and others painted.” BFD.
And, the purported local art show she saw in the newspaper wasn’t there either! Instead, we saw a rummage sale with blaring Spanish music, and a host of local shops with their doors open. So, we parked our friend at a café and walked around for the rest of the time there. An ice cream for Cheryl soothed at least her savage nerves.
I can say that there are many great things about the Seabourn cruise line . . the staff is exceptionally friendly, helpful, and well trained to take care of any possible need often before we even realize we need it. The ship itself is beautiful and the cabins are large and accommodating. The food gets an A grade. The tours would’ve been a B- before today, but the grade of F for today brings down that average.
You can tell from these postings that I like to write, and I look forward to telling the Seabourn folks who work in association with local tour sponsors that they need to pick up their game on this end of the vacation business.
Apparently the weather will keep us here overnight instead of a last stop on some islands for the day on the way to final destination Monte Carlo where we disembark on Monday morning. Not sure if we’re going to get any walkaround time there or not, but I’ll see if I can spot the Prince if we do!
No comments:
Post a Comment