Viking River Cruises

Daily Itinerary

1. Day 1

   Avignon

   France

   

   Avignon's Palais des Papes — a fortress-palace of staggering medieval ambition where seven successive popes held court for seventy years — still dominates this Provençal city's skyline, its limestone bulk enclosing frescoed chapels and vast ceremonial halls that once shaped the destiny of Christendom. In July, the city transforms for the celebrated Festival d'Avignon, Europe's premier theatre gathering, turning every courtyard and cloister into a stage. Year-round, the beautifully preserved historic centre offers world-class Rhône Valley wines, refined Provençal cuisine, and the beguiling spectacle of the Pont Saint-Bénézet stretching halfway across the river. Lyon and Marseille are each accessible in under ninety minutes by TGV.

2. Day 2

   Arles

   France

   

   Arles, the most important city in Roman Gaul after Lyon, wears its history with casual magnificence: a first-century amphitheatre still hosts bullfights beneath open skies, and the haunting Alyscamps necropolis — once among the most prestigious burial grounds in the Western world — lines a poplar-shaded avenue with ancient sarcophagi. Yet Arles is equally celebrated as the city that intoxicated Vincent van Gogh, who produced over three hundred works here in fifteen fevered months; the Fondation Vincent van Gogh now honors his legacy in beautifully renovated rooms. Spring and autumn are ideal, with the Camargue's flamingo-filled wetlands just minutes south. Lyon is two hours north by TGV.

3. Day 3

   Avignon

   France

   

   Avignon's Palais des Papes — a fortress-palace of staggering medieval ambition where seven successive popes held court for seventy years — still dominates this Provençal city's skyline, its limestone bulk enclosing frescoed chapels and vast ceremonial halls that once shaped the destiny of Christendom. In July, the city transforms for the celebrated Festival d'Avignon, Europe's premier theatre gathering, turning every courtyard and cloister into a stage. Year-round, the beautifully preserved historic centre offers world-class Rhône Valley wines, refined Provençal cuisine, and the beguiling spectacle of the Pont Saint-Bénézet stretching halfway across the river. Lyon and Marseille are each accessible in under ninety minutes by TGV.

4. Day 4

   Viviers

   France

   

   Viviers is one of France's most beautifully preserved medieval secrets — a cathedral town of barely four thousand souls perched on a limestone spur above the Rhône, serving as an episcopal seat since the fifth century when its bishops chose this formidable rock over the declining Roman city below. The Romanesque bell tower, vaulted passageways, and Renaissance townhouses of the haute ville form an ensemble of extraordinary architectural coherence, virtually unaltered since the seventeenth century. River cruise guests arriving from Lyon or Avignon typically spend languid afternoons exploring these narrow, time-suspended streets, best visited in spring or early autumn when Rhône Valley light is at its most golden.

5. Day 5

   Vienne

   France

   

   Vienne is a historic French city on the Rhône, 35 kilometres south of Lyon, where an exceptionally preserved Roman temple and a thirteen-thousand-seat ancient theatre anchor a rich cultural landscape spanning two millennia. Visitors should not miss the Temple of Augustus and Livia and a gastronomic pilgrimage to La Pyramide, the restaurant that redefined modern French cuisine. The ideal season is late June through July, when the Jazz à Vienne festival transforms the Roman theatre into one of Europe's most atmospheric open-air concert venues, and the Rhône Valley vineyards reach their luminous peak.

6. Day 5

   Tain L’Hermitage

   France

   

   Tain-l'Hermitage is the beating heart of the northern Rhône wine country, a compact town whose steeply terraced granite hill has yielded some of France's most majestic Syrahs and finest Marsannes since the Roman era. The revered Hermitage hill — its legend entwined with a thirteenth-century crusader hermit — rises directly behind the main street, and the great wine estates of Jaboulet, Chapoutier, and Ferraton offer some of the Loire Valley's most memorable cellar tastings. Autumn harvest season brings the vineyards to their most photogenic golden glory; spring and summer offer ideal touring weather along the Rhône cycling routes between vines and river.

7. Day 6

   Lyon

   France

   

   Lyon sits at the confluence of the Rhône and the Saône — a geographic destiny that made it the capital of Roman Gaul, a Renaissance silk-trading powerhouse, and, by contemporary consensus, the undisputed gastronomic capital of France. The UNESCO-listed Vieux Lyon preserves Europe's finest concentration of Renaissance architecture, its labyrinthine traboules — secret passageways threading through courtyard after courtyard — offering endless discovery. Paul Bocuse's legacy lives on in the city's constellation of bouchons, where quenelles de brochet and tablier de sapeur are served with the straightforward confidence of a city that has never needed to prove its culinary supremacy. Lyon rewards a visit in any season, with the Festival of Lights in December being particularly magical.

8. Day 7

   Lyon

   France

   

   Lyon sits at the confluence of the Rhône and the Saône — a geographic destiny that made it the capital of Roman Gaul, a Renaissance silk-trading powerhouse, and, by contemporary consensus, the undisputed gastronomic capital of France. The UNESCO-listed Vieux Lyon preserves Europe's finest concentration of Renaissance architecture, its labyrinthine traboules — secret passageways threading through courtyard after courtyard — offering endless discovery. Paul Bocuse's legacy lives on in the city's constellation of bouchons, where quenelles de brochet and tablier de sapeur are served with the straightforward confidence of a city that has never needed to prove its culinary supremacy. Lyon rewards a visit in any season, with the Festival of Lights in December being particularly magical.

9. Day 8

   Lyon

   France

   

   Lyon sits at the confluence of the Rhône and the Saône — a geographic destiny that made it the capital of Roman Gaul, a Renaissance silk-trading powerhouse, and, by contemporary consensus, the undisputed gastronomic capital of France. The UNESCO-listed Vieux Lyon preserves Europe's finest concentration of Renaissance architecture, its labyrinthine traboules — secret passageways threading through courtyard after courtyard — offering endless discovery. Paul Bocuse's legacy lives on in the city's constellation of bouchons, where quenelles de brochet and tablier de sapeur are served with the straightforward confidence of a city that has never needed to prove its culinary supremacy. Lyon rewards a visit in any season, with the Festival of Lights in December being particularly magical.

10. Day 9

    Paris

    France

    

    Paris rewards every arrival as though it were the first — the sweep of the Seine, the Gothic tracery of Notre-Dame rising again from its 2019 ashes, the Eiffel Tower somehow managing to astonish at each encounter, the Louvre's glass pyramid reflecting clouds in the courtyard of a palace that served French kings for four centuries. Beyond the monuments, Paris is a city of neighbourhoods: the Belle Époque brasseries of Montparnasse, the covered passages of the 2nd arrondissement, the rooftop terraces of Le Marais. The Luxembourg Gardens in April, or a late-September evening on the Canal Saint-Martin, are among the most civilised experiences in the world.

11. Day 10

    Vernon

    France

    

    Vernon is a quietly beguiling Norman town on the Seine whose greatest treasure lies just four kilometers beyond its medieval bridge: the garden and water lily ponds at Giverny, where Claude Monet lived and painted for forty-three years, creating the luminous imagery that changed the course of modern art. The town itself retains considerable charm — a romanticly ruined twelfth-century bridge tower draped in ivy, half-timbered houses along the riverbank, and a fine museum housing several original Monet canvases. Monet's garden is open from April through October, reaching its peak splendor in May and June when his beloved water lilies are in full, painterly bloom.

12. Day 10

    La Roche Guyon

    France

    

    La Roche-Guyon is arguably the most dramatically situated village in the Île-de-France: a medieval castle and Renaissance château built directly into sheer white chalk cliffs above a perfect bend in the Seine, seventy kilometres northwest of Paris. Richard the Lionheart and Rommel both knew these cliffs, the latter using the château as his headquarters during the final weeks before D-Day. Today it rewards visitors with troglodyte caves carved into the rock, immaculate French gardens, and river views of extraordinary pastoral beauty. La Roche-Guyon is at its most enchanting April through October; it pairs naturally with a leisurely cruise along the Seine's Norman reaches.

13. Day 11

    Rouen

    France

    

    Rouen, the medieval capital of Normandy set in a wooded meander of the Seine, rewards slow exploration with one of France's richest concentrations of Gothic architecture. The vast cathedral — immortalised by Monet in his celebrated series of canvases — dominates a city where half-timbered lanes wind between Renaissance mansions and the square where Joan of Arc was burned in 1431. The covered market overflows with Normandy's great dairy bounty: camembert, livarot, and pont-l'évêque alongside cider and calvados. Paris lies just ninety minutes south by train. Spring and early autumn offer the most atmospheric conditions.

14. Day 12

    Normandy

    France

    

    Normandy is a storied French province where D-Day landing beaches, Impressionist coastlines, and dairy-rich countryside converge in one of Europe’s most emotionally resonant destinations. Must-dos include visiting the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach, tasting Camembert and Calvados in the Pays d’Auge, and marveling at Mont-Saint-Michel’s tidal island abbey. May through September offers the warmest weather and longest days for exploring this magnificent region.

15. Day 13

    Les Andelys

    France

    

    Les Andelys occupies one of the Seine's most dramatic bends, dominated by the spectral ruins of Château Gaillard — Richard the Lionheart's 'Saucy Castle,' built with medieval speed in a single year and considered a masterpiece of twelfth-century military engineering. The view from the castle's white chalk promontory across the river's great loop is among the most beautiful in Normandy, a landscape that captivated Monet and Pissarro. Below, the twin villages of Grand and Petit Andely offer excellent Normandy cuisine, notably duck dishes prepared with local cider. Les Andelys is best visited April through October as part of a Seine river cruise; golden autumn light renders the chalk cliffs particularly luminous.

16. Day 14

    Le Pecq

    France

    

    Le Pecq is a charming commune in the Île-de-France region, known for its historical significance and serene riverside atmosphere. Must-do experiences include savoring local specialties like coq au vin and visiting the weekly market. The best season to visit is spring when the gardens bloom, and the air is filled with the scents of fresh produce and flowers.

17. Day 15

    Paris

    France

    

    Paris rewards every arrival as though it were the first — the sweep of the Seine, the Gothic tracery of Notre-Dame rising again from its 2019 ashes, the Eiffel Tower somehow managing to astonish at each encounter, the Louvre's glass pyramid reflecting clouds in the courtyard of a palace that served French kings for four centuries. Beyond the monuments, Paris is a city of neighbourhoods: the Belle Époque brasseries of Montparnasse, the covered passages of the 2nd arrondissement, the rooftop terraces of Le Marais. The Luxembourg Gardens in April, or a late-September evening on the Canal Saint-Martin, are among the most civilised experiences in the world.

Cabin Categories

French Balcony- Cat C & D

Balcony

135 sq ftMax 2D

Stateroom size: 135 sq ft River-view stateroom with floor-to-ceiling sliding glass door to create a French balcony Hotel-style bed 79 in x 63 in (with optional twin-bed configuration); luxury linens & pillows Free Wi-Fi (connection speed may vary) 40" flat-screen Sony TV with infotainment system featuring Movies On Demand, plus CNBC, CNN, FOX, National Geographic & more 110/220 volt outlets & USB ports Telephone, safe, refrigerator, hair dryer & individual climate control Private bathroom with spacious glass-enclosed shower, heated bathroom floor & anti-fog mirror Premium Freyja toiletries; plush robes & slippers available upon request Bottled water replenished daily Stateroom steward & twice-daily housekeeping Space under bed for storing suitcases Roomy wardrobe with wooden hangers

Queen or Twin ConfigurationShowerToiletries ProvidedRoom Service AvailableTVFree Wi-Fi+4

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French Balcony- Cat C & D

Balcony

135 sq ftMax 2C

Stateroom size: 135 sq ft River-view stateroom with floor-to-ceiling sliding glass door to create a French balcony Hotel-style bed 79 in x 63 in (with optional twin-bed configuration); luxury linens & pillows Free Wi-Fi (connection speed may vary) 40" flat-screen Sony TV with infotainment system featuring Movies On Demand, plus CNBC, CNN, FOX, National Geographic & more 110/220 volt outlets & USB ports Telephone, safe, refrigerator, hair dryer & individual climate control Private bathroom with spacious glass-enclosed shower, heated bathroom floor & anti-fog mirror Premium Freyja toiletries; plush robes & slippers available upon request Bottled water replenished daily Stateroom steward & twice-daily housekeeping Space under bed for storing suitcases Roomy wardrobe with wooden hangers

Queen or Twin ConfigurationShowerToiletries ProvidedRoom Service AvailableTVFree Wi-Fi+4

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Veranda Stateroom- Cat A & B

Balcony

205 sq ftMax 2A

Stateroom size: 205 sq ft River-view stateroom with floor-to-ceiling sliding glass door opening to a full-size veranda Hotel-style bed 79 in x 63 in (with optional twin-bed configuration); luxury linens & pillows Free Wi-Fi (connection speed may vary) 40" flat-screen Sony TV with infotainment system featuring Movies On Demand, plus CNBC, CNN, FOX, National Geographic & more 110/220 volt outlets & USB ports Telephone, safe, refrigerator, hair dryer & individual climate control Private bathroom with spacious glass-enclosed shower, heated bathroom floor & anti-fog mirror Premium Freyja toiletries; plush robes & slippers available upon request Bottled water replenished daily Stateroom steward & twice-daily housekeeping Space under bed for storing suitcases Roomy wardrobe with wooden hangers

Queen or Twin ConfigurationShowerToiletries ProvidedRoom Service AvailableTVFree Wi-Fi+4

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Veranda Stateroom- Cat A & B

Balcony

205 sq ftMax 2B

Stateroom size: 205 sq ft River-view stateroom with floor-to-ceiling sliding glass door opening to a full-size veranda Hotel-style bed 79 in x 63 in (with optional twin-bed configuration); luxury linens & pillows Free Wi-Fi (connection speed may vary) 40" flat-screen Sony TV with infotainment system featuring Movies On Demand, plus CNBC, CNN, FOX, National Geographic & more 110/220 volt outlets & USB ports Telephone, safe, refrigerator, hair dryer & individual climate control Private bathroom with spacious glass-enclosed shower, heated bathroom floor & anti-fog mirror Premium Freyja toiletries; plush robes & slippers available upon request Bottled water replenished daily Stateroom steward & twice-daily housekeeping Space under bed for storing suitcases Roomy wardrobe with wooden hangers

Queen or Twin ConfigurationShowerToiletries ProvidedRoom Service AvailableTVFree Wi-Fi+4

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Standard Staterooms- Cat E & F

Outside

150 sq ftMax 2F

Stateroom size: 150 sq ft River-view stateroom with half-height picture window Hotel-style bed 79 in x 63 in (with optional twin-bed configuration); luxury linens & pillows Free Wi-Fi (connection speed may vary) 40" flat-screen Sony TV with infotainment system featuring Movies On Demand, plus CNBC, CNN, FOX, National Geographic & more 110/220 volt outlets & USB ports Telephone, safe, refrigerator, hair dryer & individual climate control Private bathroom with spacious glass-enclosed shower, heated bathroom floor & anti-fog mirror Premium Freyja toiletries; plush robes & slippers available upon request Bottled water replenished daily Stateroom steward & twice-daily housekeeping Space under bed for storing suitcases Roomy wardrobe with wooden hangers

Queen or Twin ConfigurationShowerToiletries ProvidedRoom Service AvailableTVFree Wi-Fi+4

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Standard Staterooms- Cat E & F

Outside

150 sq ftMax 2E

Stateroom size: 150 sq ft River-view stateroom with half-height picture window Hotel-style bed 79 in x 63 in (with optional twin-bed configuration); luxury linens & pillows Free Wi-Fi (connection speed may vary) 40" flat-screen Sony TV with infotainment system featuring Movies On Demand, plus CNBC, CNN, FOX, National Geographic & more 110/220 volt outlets & USB ports Telephone, safe, refrigerator, hair dryer & individual climate control Private bathroom with spacious glass-enclosed shower, heated bathroom floor & anti-fog mirror Premium Freyja toiletries; plush robes & slippers available upon request Bottled water replenished daily Stateroom steward & twice-daily housekeeping Space under bed for storing suitcases Roomy wardrobe with wooden hangers

Queen or Twin ConfigurationShowerToiletries ProvidedRoom Service AvailableTVFree Wi-Fi+4

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Explorer Suite- Cat ES

Suite

Max 2ES

Suite size: 445 sq ft River-view suite with private wraparound balcony offering 270-degree views off the spacious, separate sitting room & floor-to-ceiling sliding glass door, known as a French balcony, in the sleeping quarters Hotel-style bed 79 in x 63 in (with optional twin-bed configuration); luxury linens & pillows Free Wi-Fi (connection speed may vary) Two 40" flat-screen Sony TVs with infotainment system featuring Movies On Demand, plus CNBC, CNN, FOX, National Geographic & more 110/220 volt outlets & USB ports Telephone, safe, refrigerator, hair dryer & individual climate control Large private bathroom with spacious glass-enclosed shower, heated bathroom floor & anti-fog mirror Premium Freyja toiletries; plush robes & slippers Bottled water replenished daily Stateroom steward & twice-daily housekeeping Space under bed for storing suitcases Roomy wardrobe with wooden hangers Early check-in (no later than 12 PM) Complimentary Silver Spirits beverage package, laundry service, room service (during breakfast) & shoe shine service Private airport transfers in Europe Welcome champagne; mini-bar with wine, beer & soft drinks (replenished daily); daily fruit plate Binoculars, coffee brewer & cashmere blanket

Queen or Twin ConfigurationShowerToiletries ProvidedRoom Service AvailableTVFree Wi-Fi+6

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Veranda Suite- Cat AA

Suite

275 sq ftAA

Suite size: 275 sq ft River-view suite with full-size veranda off the spacious, separate sitting room & floor-to-ceiling sliding glass door, known as a French balcony, in the sleeping quarters Hotel-style bed 79 in x 63 in (with optional twin-bed configuration); luxury linens & pillows Free Wi-Fi (connection speed may vary) Two 40" flat-screen Sony TVs with infotainment system featuring Movies On Demand, plus CNBC, CNN, FOX, National Geographic & more 110/220 volt outlets & USB ports Telephone, safe, refrigerator, hair dryer & individual climate control Large private bathroom with spacious glass-enclosed shower, heated bathroom floor & anti-fog mirror Premium Freyja toiletries; plush robes & slippers Bottled water replenished daily Stateroom steward & twice-daily housekeeping Space under bed for storing suitcases Roomy wardrobe with wooden hangers Early check-in (no later than 12 PM) Complimentary laundry & shoe shine services Welcome champagne; mini-bar with wine, beer & soft drinks (replenished daily); daily fruit plate Binoculars

Queen or Twin ConfigurationShowerToiletries ProvidedRoom Service AvailableTVFree Wi-Fi+4

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