Sunday morning 6 October and we finally leave Lyon, but not before coming face to face with a race issue. We awoke to grey skies and a cooler temperature, bit of a breeze, and looked out the stateroom windows to see men tying striped tape all around the Confluence shopping centre, beside the ends of Lovers' Bridge, and all along the other side of the marina. We had heard shouting in the night and wondered if there had been a murder, and we were trapped inside th...

One thing we haven't written too much about is Life aboard Liberty, and what the boat is actually like. So, here goes (you'll need to refer to the new album photos too). First the details... Liberty was born in Holland in 1994, conceived by Aquanaut, and, we think, weighs a healthy 17 tonnes. Or maybe 10 tonnes. Or more likely somewhere in between, and anyway the actual tonnage at any one time would depend on whether the fuel tanks (total 600 litres) and the wat...

Germans are gruff, French are impolite, young people are all trouble, Belgians dont't have a sense of humour, and the Swiss are exact. Oh, and French food is always fabulous. These are cliches and stereotypical statements on which many a comedy sketch has been founded. Monty Python ("Don't mention the war!"), Not the Nine O'Clock News, Armstrong and Miller, Aufweidersehen Pet... all have got mirthly mileage out of cultural stereotypes, rightly or wrongly. So, wi...

Love is in the air, even though it's not spring. We are in Lyon, third largest of France's main cities, and will stay for a few days. Unlike the Romans, who in 43BC decided to stay here for a few hundred years, establishing Lugdunum on the hillside west of the Saone. They must have loved it here because they built a substantial settlement, which became the most important Roman centre this side of Rome for a while, and was the focal point of Roman Gaul and German...

Last evening the Excellence Rhone slipped its moorings and headed up river, going past us at a rate of knots. On board we could see people in the dining room. It looked very cosy. But we were cosy on board Liberty too... conserving our battery power, Liz reading by just one light and me reading a novel on my iPad. This morning we strolled in to town expecting to find the small market in the town square, only to discover the market actually took up a whole stree...