Oysters and S$40,000 beds: Redefining the cruise experience on Bordeaux’s rivers
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Oysters and S$forty,000 beds: Redefining the prowl experience on Bordeaux's rivers
We took a leisurely five-solar day sail effectually France's vino region on a lush boutique river cruise that carries simply 124 passengers and a heated infinity pool.
The deck of the SS Bon Voyage, Uniworld Boutique River Cruise Collection's latest Super Ship. (Photo: Uniworld)
xix Apr 2022 06:30AM (Updated: 09 Jul 2022 07:23AM)
If you lot're like me, the idea of a cruise will strike fear into your heart, bringing to mind enormous sea liners, hordes of screaming children running from the puddle in wet flip flops, and long queues for overboiled sausages and limp pasta at the cafe. Thanks, I'd love to come, only I have to stay home and wash my pilus.
Things inverse when I was recently introduced to a unlike sort of cruising: The boutique river cruise, sailing not the high seas but the distinguished waterways.
A five-day meander along the Garonne and Dordogne rivers of Bordeaux, France, on the mannerly SS Bon Voyage was a sojourn that hearkened back to a bygone era where sailing was a glamorous affair – waking up in a luxuriously appointed stateroom; spending long, languid afternoons hugging the shoreline; and spotting 18th-century chateaux forth the banks while lounging in a sun-drenched deckchair.
IN SHIPSHAPE Condition
Yes, this was certainly no Singapore River boat ride. The SS Bon Voyage, part of the Uniworld Boutique River Prowl Drove, is a newly transformed and completely redesigned ship that carries just 124 passengers. It has a Murano glass chandelier presiding over the entrance hall, a champagne bar modelled after Yves Saint Laurent's own drawing room, marble bathrooms, works of art from the owners' personal collection hanging on the walls and the merely infinity pool – heated, might we add – on the rivers.
And it's not just nigh discreet luxury but also almost impeccable service with Uniworld, which has one of the highest staff-to-guest ratios of any cruise line.
Just the ultimate luxury, as far every bit I was concerned, was the Savoir bed, made famous by London's Savoy Hotel, that takes pride of place in each stateroom.
There were whispers of this legendary US$30,000 (S$40,500) bed going around the ship long before I even had the gamble to lay my plebeian caput on its otherworldly pillow. Savoir beds, I read, are crafted with things like "cashmere combed from the neck of Mongolian goats" and "tufts of hand-laid loose equus caballus tail". I still don't know what hand-laid equus caballus tail is. Only I do know now that sleeping in this bed of glory is truly the just civilised manner to spend a night. I woke up feeling like if at that place had been a pea under the mattress, information technology could never have escaped my royal notice.
Of class, a leisurely vacation is only 50 per cent sleeping – the other 50 per cent, needless to say, is eating.
With iv different dining venues on board, the chefs pay great attention to the seasonality and regionality of the produce, drawing menus up based on what's available at the local markets on whatsoever given solar day. When I spotted mussels in white vino listed every bit a starter i evening, I asked if I could take them as a main. I was served a towering plate of fresh, sugariness Bouchot mussels served with toasted garlic staff of life.
On other days, the dining rooms served upward regional specialties, such as white edible bean soup topped with a spoonful of apple mimose (the apples are diced and marinaded in lemon juice, the chef explained to me); flammkuchen or tarte flambee, an Alsacian pizza; and deconstructed gateau basque, a crumbly custard tart.
Pavel, our waiter, urged me to have a cannele – the eggy, caramelised seize with teeth-sized treats baked in distinctive copper moulds originated right here in Bordeaux. "These are my favourite," he sighed, with infectious enthusiasm.
As the prowl fare is all-inclusive – gratuities equally well – y'all feel free to indulge in as many spectacles of wine as polite club would deem appropriate. Afterward all, what else would you lot practice in the wine state of Bordeaux?
IMBIBE AND DEGUST
Naturally, many of the shore excursions had to practise with learning most and tasting wine.
The urban center of Bordeaux is home to La Cite du Vin museum with its iconic building shaped like a swirl of wine. And the region effectually it offers innumerable picturesque chateaux, with their vineyards and wineries.
I wandered around Chateau La Tour Carnet in the Medoc, on the left banking concern of the Gironde Estuary, and got a peek into its medieval fortress as well as its cellar, where wine is aged in oaken barrels. Needless to say, I had to sample the product too.
Then, at Chateau Ambe Tour Pourret, I donned an apron and gained an insight into French cooking at an intimate session conducted by individual chef Jerome Oillic.
Together, we made a meal of crispy shrimps and Bayonne ham with salad; craven with mushroom cream, courgettes and raisins in homemade pesto – in that location is just something about fresh French chickens that blows all other birds out of the water – and caramelised pineapple with vanilla and bister rum foam for dessert.
Of course, when you lot have sliced your ain courgettes betwixt sips of wine and non lost any fingers in the process, it is quite easy to convince yourself that you are Alain Passard or Pierre Herme.
Only often, when it comes to delicious delicacies, you lot don't need any fancy kitchen action – simply incredible freshness. At a regal old fort where our transport pulled up, we were met by Bertrand, a local farmer who was already at work shucking oysters. The small, plump bivalves, slurped straight from their shells with a eject of lemon and paired with champagne, were crisp, sweet and briny, tasting intensely of freshness, table salt and ocean – specially when inhaled in the nippy morning time air.
Summit DECK
The ship offered a host of other activities, including biking tours, yoga sessions with the on-board wellness motorbus, an archaeological bout of bunkers synthetic during the second World War, and a walking tour of the town of Saint Emilion, a UNESCO World Heritage site with an impressive 12th-century Monolithic Church building.
My favourite excursion required a 5am start that ultimately proved to be worth sacrificing the time that could otherwise have been spent in my United states$30,000 bed: A pre-dawn hike upwardly the famous Dune of Pilat in the Arcachon Bay expanse. At 110m above sea level, it is the tallest sand dune in Europe.
France is perhaps the last place yous would look to detect a giant pile of sand, but here, nature has decided to form one by blowing sand inland from the Atlantic bounding main. On 1 side of the towering dune is wood and a bird sanctuary; on the other side is the beach and blue water. The hike is non for the faint of center, only the view of the sunrise from its summit is a transcendent experience and an unforgettable way to welcome a new twenty-four hour period.
After the round, orangish French sun had risen into the sky, I trekked downwardly the other side of the dune to observe myself on a breathtaking stretch of beach, from which it was a short walk to a breakfast of what just might exist the best croissants in the whole of France, in the bakery-cafe of the stunning yet cosy Hotel Ha(a)itza designed by Philippe Starck.
From the shore of the mighty ocean, I returned to the stately rivers and estuaries, to continue sailing into the splendour of an endless afternoon, with no people I had to run into and no places I had to be – just a glass of wine, a deckchair in the sun and a whole lot of savoir faire.
The SS Bon Voyage sails on three itineraries through France: The eight-day Brilliant Bordeaux, fifteen-day A Portrait of France and 22-day Ultimate French republic. For more information, visit uniworld.com or contact the reservations team at 6292 2936.
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