France and Africa 2025-2026

We stay at a lovely rental that we have been to for years just minutes from Christian’s family. It is in the small medieval village of St Victor la Coste.

Our Christmas tree 🙂

We went to the vineyard Chateau d’ Aqueiria that Christian’s niece manages to get some great wines for the stay.

Then the weather become really iffy. Rain, clouds and gloom 😦 We had a break in the grayness for a day and went to Abbaye de Montmajour, which was first built in the 10th century on a hill that was surrounded by marsh.

At that time it was home to Benedictine monks and expanded over the following century. The abbey was fortified during the 100-Year War in the 14th century.

The long dark shadows in the picture below were rock tombs. As early as the 3rd millennium BC the island was used as a cemetery, with individual graves carved into the rock.

Numerous additions were made in subsequent years. It was an important pilgrimage site during the Middle Ages, and in the 18th century it was the site of a large Maurist monastery, now in ruins as is much of the rest of the site. But it is remarkable how much of the ancient construction still stands solid.

Van Gough chose to sketch and paint the abbey numerous times.

credit: abbaye-montmajour.fr

After touring the Abbey, we had a great lunch in Avignon at Wilson Cafe.

I had an incredible truffle risotto.

Then we visited a farm where they distilled essential oils from lavender, rose geranium, verbena, and other plants as well as make perfume and cosmetics. The weather and time of year did not lend to any photos worth sharing. But it was a very interesting visit.

The weather forecast for the next few days is rain, and we will be visiting the family so likely no posts for a bit.

We made it on our standby flight to France but just barely! This time we broke up the drive south from Charles de Gaulle to the south of France with a stay in Beaune. We were here previously but it was too short a stay, so this time we thought we would spend two nights. Well… we were totally exhausted when we got here (Beaune) and slept like logs this morning. Our arrival into the city.

We are staying right in the walled city which is absolutely charming. Out our window there was a holiday projection on the nearby church.

The hotel.

But today it was incredibly cold and thick fog and not how I wanted to see the area. But we were able to tour the Chateau Mersault and their cellars with a tasting. It was still beautiful.

The tree in the picture above was very old and massive.

This is only a portion of their production facilities.

So our tour began.

And then the tasting of seven wines, four red (pinot noir grape) and three white (chardonnay grape). These wines aren’t cheap!

We returned in the dense fog to our hotel, and walked and got a bit lost through the fog to a charming restaurant for dinner.

Then a foggy walk back.

Next, off to the south of France where Christian is from.

In the last post I mentioned a storm? Well it was a whopper! We had to reroute to Tahiti to tie up to the dock for a night while they waited to figure out the storm’s path, and then we headed out to sea rather than to the Cook Islands. Tahiti ended up issuing a code red storm alert after we left.

So now we would be at sea for another 7 days :((((

The first 3 days were pretty rough, 12 foot+ waves and winds up to 100 kph. The furniture on our deck was lashed down, the barf bags were out in the elevators and public spaces, and it just wasn’t pretty lol. Entertainment and some aspects of dinner service had to be scaled back because of the rock and roll. But now we are in calmer waters, albeit without our stop (where we would have been diving) on the Cook Islands, and are headed to New Zealand.

The Superbowl for us will be on Monday at (we think) 11:30 am because we cross the dateline. They have a party planned, so we’ll see how it goes. If worst comes to worst and we have internet, I can still watch on it on my NFL international pass and we’ll have a party in our living room for my football friends I’ve met on the cruise, like I did for the Conference championships:) Today we didn’t have an internet connection most of the day and I had planned to work. So, we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

As the seas settled down and things returned to normal we had a lovely Chef’s Table Dinner with a number of other folks. Warning for non-foodies, the pics below will be boring!

I know, this post is a long time coming, but I took too many pictures :) We made it to Fakarava, which wasn’t anything special.

And then to Moorea which was spectacular! First we did an excursion to see the spinner dolphins. They have a really interesting social structure, it is all about love not war :) They have sex constantly and it can be with members of the same or opposite sex, so there is no fighting or dominance behaviors between them. The pod composition changes regularly as well, and it is a democratic structure where group movements are decided by the pod, not an individual.

Then we did a tour of the island which was incredibly beautiful, the pictures don’t do it justice.

A baby pineapple.

The next day we had the scuba diving experience from hell. Ten minutes into it we aborted. The equipment didn’t work, and the dive master was an idiot. We were so bummed out because the waters there were so beautiful. So much for 5-star reviews!

From there we went to the island of Raiatea.

There we had two wonderful dives, just gorgeous. But the weather was moving in. When you dive you’re wet anyway, so rain doesn’t matter but it does cut down on the light that penetrates to the corals. The storm was coming…..

Our next stop was at Pitcairn Island. For Mutiny on the Bounty fans it probably doesn’t need any more explanation, but for the rest of us – here goes.

The Bounty had left England in 1787 to transport breadfruit plants from Tahiti to the West Indies. After a number of months on Tahiti, many of the crew had formed “attachments” to some of the native population. The relationship between Captain Bligh and his crew subsequently deteriorated as Bligh handed out more and more severe punishments as the time on the island passed. After heading back out to sea, on April 28 of 1789, Fletcher Christian led the crew to a mutiny, setting Bligh and 18 crew loyal to him to sea in an open boat. Bligh then navigated ~ 4,000 miles in that open boat to a safe harbor and set about his revenge.

credit Wikipedia

The British Admiralty sent the Pandora from England to seek out the mutineers and bring them to justice. Christian and crew took the Bounty and sailed to find a refuge from Bligh’s prosecution, while some crew remained on Tahiti. Christian found that refuge on Pitcairn Island which at the time was uninhabited and due to an error in previous navigation, was not located accurately on the British maps. The Pandora captured the crew that had remained on Tahiti and, on the way back to England, ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef resulting in the loss of 31 crew and four of the prisoners. The remaining prisoners were then transferred to England where they met their fate.

Christian, the crew and the accompanying natives that made a home on Pitcairn Island set fire to the Bounty in January of 1790 to hide their presence on the island. This was successful until 1808, at which time all but one were dead and that original member was pardoned. The current population of the island traces its ancestry to the crew of the Bounty and the natives that accompanied them. There are currently only ~45 residents on the island.

While a small number of cruise ships visit Pitcairn, almost none are able to land passengers on the island. Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of Captain Carl and his sailors, they were able to do so via tenders! Here is a pic of the landing area in Bounty Bay.

It was a 45 minute hike from the structure at the water’s edge to the top of the ridge and then down another 15 minutes to the small town and museum and then the return trip and the tender loading process was very dicey with the huge swell. There was no transportation on the island as an option. My ankle decided it wouldn’t be a smart move for me :( I have to pick my battles after the surgery to do the things I really, really want to do.

A number of the island folk came onboard and set up a little market and a resident gave a very good talk about life on the island. Even without making land ourselves, it was incredible to be in a spot where such a rich historical event occurred. Here are some pictures of Bounty Bay.

That night they had a Captain’s Party for the folks that have cruised before on Azamara. There were some amazing statistics – only 80 people on the ship had not cruised with Azamara previously, and some folks had cruised over 900 nights with the company!

Tomorrow – our first stop in French Polynesia at Fakarava!

Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is over 1,300 miles from any other settlement in the Pacific. The more than 900 moai statues were carved by the island people between 1250 and 1500 from the volcanic tuff. The carvings were of their ancestor gods and some say of political leaders, which they believed held the sacred spirits or mana. It was thought that the dead would provide everything that the living needed.

Our first siting of moai from the ship.

And a view of the ship from those same moai.

The statues are set on an “alter” called an ahu. To this day, the area within the ahu (which is ringed by stones) is considered sacred and not to be walked on. The majority of the moai standing today do not have the eyes remaining, which were made from white coral. Some of the more recent moai (as in ~1500) have a topknot made from red scoria from a different quarry on the island, which denoted an elevated status as chieftain like the one below. 

The moai were carved from the volcanic tuff (solidified ash) at the quarry Rana Raraku (the red star on the map above), where approximately half of the statues are still located. In the picture below you can see that some are still only partially carved in the rock and appear to be laying down as they were being carved.

The rest of moai were moved to all of the locations around the perimeter of the island facing inward from the sea that are shown on the map at the top of the post. It was quite a feat, as some weighed over 180,000 lbs.!

The island itself it very dry, and in the past water was very scarce until recently when they were able to access groundwater. There are theories that the deforestation of the island during the early days of settlement destabilized the ecosystem that was then further affected by the arrival of invasive species from the ships. The overall result was that there was a significant drop in the native population from ~15,000 to ~ 2,500 by the 1700’s. The population now is ~8,000.

As I’ve said, the Captain of our ship is a funny guy. I was trying to frame the “perfect” picture of the statues and through my lens finder I see this idiot jumping up and down in my frame. I’m thinking to myself what an a-hole! Still working on getting a great shot, all of a sudden someone gives me a big hug and guess what? Captain Carl was the dude trying to get my attention while visiting the island with some of the crew:) So I told him to make like a moai and he did his best – he just cracks me up :)))) I’m going to be so bummed when he leaves the ship in Papeete.

When we got back to the ship it was the White Night Party. It is held on the pool deck. First they introduce almost the entire crew who are waving the flags of their countries.

The passengers are encouraged to dress in white, the senior officers are serving the barbeque and the band is rocking!

There was a gorgeous sunset that night

And because this is still 3 for the road in spirit, Beau has been conditioning jogging with his aunt on her bicycle. I would have thought it that would be a train wreck but he is just a champ! Here is a picture of Beau from today, he will enter his first show in a couple of weeks :) We miss him so much!

Next stop, Pitcairn Island, where the Bounty, Fletcher Christian, and the mutiny crew made their home.

With all these sea days – while I’ve been working quite a bit, the ship’s crew comes up with all kinds of things to keep people entertained. We are particularly fortunate given our cabin that we were invited to a couple of special things hosted by the Captain today.

The first was a tour of the ship’s bridge with only eight of us. It is incredibly impressive with the electronics and all of the redundancy, however in Chile, there are no electronic navigation charts! So it’s back to the paper versions which the Captain explained so well.

As I mentioned before, he is a proponent of the use of the sextant which is so rare in navigation of large vessels today, but he has instilled a spark in his officers who are carrying the torch and have a bit of a competition to see who can mark the location of the ship most accurately. There were at least six nationalities represented on the bridge, all of whom had unbelievable credentials. We are safe!

The next event was our dinner. It is called the Best of the Best and happens for passengers in particular cabin classes. The Executive Chef gets to strut his stuff and the head sommelier as well with the wine parings. Other than the incredible multi-course menu, the fun is having such a fabulous time with all of the chief officers and their great stories. We were seated halfway down the table on the right across from the Captain which made for lively conversation.

The menu.

Needless to say the food and wine pairings were phenomenal! Yes, that is gold leaf on top of the caviar on top of the lobster!

Tomorrow, hopefully the Moai statues of Easter Island! While the swells are pretty big, he has a plan to get us on the island. Many cruise ships that come here (~40%) never can actually visit. This ship is small so he has more options.

We are somewhere in the Pacific, this is where we are according to Azamara’s data.

The seas have been 9 to 12 feet. Because we are at the bow of the ship, it is a bit of a rock and roll experience, but it doesn’t bother us and actually at night it is like a cradle rocking 🙂

Temps have been surprisingly cool so close to the equator, just around 70 degrees F. We have had some periods of sun when it is nice and warm in the shelter of the pool deck, but the waves in the pool have kept me from taking the plunge. 

The ship is lovely, here is a shot near sunset from our living room over the bow.

A shot from the promenade over the pool deck.

Captain Carl is from the Isle of Man and is an absolute hoot. His noon chats over the system are hysterical, he is in love with his sextant! He has said there will be 6 to 9 foot swells when we get to Easter Island which normally would mean we couldn’t go ashore (for cruise ships it’s a 50/50 chance you will) but he says he has a “brilliant” plan in place to get us there, we’ll see!

On this ship they have debuted a craft cocktail bar called Atlas, incredibly inventive drinks and the bartenders are the entertainment:)

As you may have noticed from the pictures, the ship is very mellow. It only has <700 passengers and there are so many places for people to go, but it does not have the bells and whistles of the large ships. We love the intimate experience where we and the crew and other passengers get to actually know one another. They had a dinner on the pool deck tonight, it is so great to be able to dine outside.

And not to worry, our third for the road is having a great time at dog show boot camp, and he has been evaluated by a top handler that finished his dad to multiple titles and others as having an excellent chance to obtain his titles! Here he is relaxing with a new Big Bird toy from his auntie. We miss him so much, but giggle about how it would be if Beau was on the ship – total chaos!

We made it to the ship which was no easy feat. The cruise docks are in the middle of the shipping port and there is “no easy way to get there from here”. It took us a couple of days and a very helpful limo service to get us to a place where there were dedicated shuttles to get us to the ship.

I apologize for the quality of the pics, I was trying to get the post done before internet connection goes spotty.

So we made it and are on board, woo hoo! Some pics of the suite before we mess it up.

We had a nice late lunch relaxing on the aft of the ship. Then did our sail-away at 5 pm. Views from our balcony at the front of the ship.

Lima is an interesting place. The population here is over 11,000,000 people, for comparison, NYC has a population of about 4,000,500. Traffic here is nuts and people drive like madmen. We didn’t get to see many sites as it was just to difficult to get to them. However, we did have a couple of wonderful meals. Lima is know as a foodie city and with good reason, Peruvian cuisine is fresh, filled with flavors, and beautifully presented – and the restaurants we ate at were stylish. We didn’t go to any of the high end restaurants as I dropped the reservation ball, but what we had was excellent.

It was fun to discover pisco in its many forms, all were yummy.

It is an amazingly dog-friendly city, and the owners are diligent about picking up after them, and treating their babies 🙂 This cutie came in off leash and politely went to his table.

Surfing and paragliding are a big thing here. And there is a beautiful ruin in the middle of all of this.

But there are vast inequities in living conditions.