Fall in Provence: Cruising the Rhône

The weather is wonderful in Provence right now: sunny days and cool evenings. In Avignon, a nice thing to do on a warm afternoon is a 60-minute site-seeing cruise on the Rhône that's only 12€ for adults and 2 € for kids age 2-8. When I travel I love to get out on the water, if possible, and there aren't so many ways to do that in my part of Provence. This is a good one: easy to book last minute, super relaxing and cheap!

The 60-minute tour on La Saône sails upstream along the town walls, so you can see the Rocher des Doms and the Pont St Bénezet, the famous Avignon  bridge. Then it heads over so you can discover the Philippe Le Bel Tower of Villeneuve Les Avignon and its historic Fort St André.  

In September, the one-hour cruises are offered at 3 pm and 4:15 pm. Reservations aren't required and tickets can be purchased 15 minutes prior to departure. Cruises run every day, until the end of the month.

A slightly longer "Popes Cruise" leaves at 12:30 and returns at 2:30; it's offered September 28, October 2, October 30, November 8 and December 8.

Full-day luncheon cruises are offered in autumn as well. These include one to Arles (leave at 11:30 am, return at 6:45 pm), one to Tarascon (11:30 to 6:15 pm) and a "Winemakers Cruise" (12/12:30 to 4 pm). There's an afternoon Disco Cruise (with music from the '80s and dancing) and a number of dinner cruises as well. Details about all of them are here. The company operates year round, with a schedule that changes each month. 

To see what's offered each day, see monthly schedules here but be sure to choose your preferred month from the drop-down menu.

Where to park? If you know where the Ferris Wheel is in Avignon, that's a great lot to park in; it's called the Le Parking des Allées de L’Oulle (good luck pronouncing that!). But the Ferris Wheel comes down for the season on September 23 so best to just GPS the parking lot, which is directly in front of the tour boats. Or leave your car wherever it is in town and walk over...the dock is just outside the city walls.

Mireio Croisieres

Le Chardonnay, Le Mireio & La Saône
Allée de l'Oulle 
84000 AVIGNON
Tel +33(0)4 90 85 62 25
Fax +33(0)4 90 85 61 14
mireio.net
contact@mireio.net

Note from Julie: Sometimes people ask if they can pay me to write about them but the answer is no, there's no pay for play on Provence Post! I write about the things I think my readers would most enjoy learning about...that's it.  And I make it a point to not to write about my advertisers, for obvious reasons. But no sooner had I posted this story than Google put an ad on my blog for the very same company, Mireio. Those of you who know about Google Adwords know how it works...they place ads on your site that specifically target who they think your readers are and what they think interests them. So if you see that ad like I do (and you may not), well that's how it got there...twasn't my doing and I'm not promoting an advertiser here. I just enjoy these cruises and thought you might too!