I have recently returned from floating down the sun-caressed rivers of Burgundy and Provence in the warm embrace of France's favourite actress Catherine Deneuve. Tough, eh?
All right, that's not exactly true. I was not actually in the arms of the still-stunning star of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg.
But I was enjoying the exquisite care and comfort offered by the imperiously glamorous SS Catherine, the latest hotel-on-water in the Uniworld river-cruise chain. The ship was named after, and launched by, Deneuve last year, not long after the release of her film, On My Way.
I was on my way at 3.45 am on a quiet July Sunday when the punctual driver sent by the travel company Titan arrived at my house to take me to Heathrow - all part of the package wherever you live, it seems. After a BA hop to Lyon airport, our transfer bus took us to the Quai Claude Bernard, where the Catherine, all 443 feet of her, stood in stately splendour at the edge of the Rhone. It was quickly apparent that this was to be a week of luxury.
My cabin was in the superior category and exemplified Uniworld's attention to detail. Ingeniously designed, it somehow provides extensive space for clothes - I counted 28 coat-hangers (yes, I know that sounds sad but it is phenomenal, and they were proper hangers, too, not those infernal, nail-head theft-proof jobs). The bathroom, too, makes perfect use of its dimensions, has a great shower and top-name toiletries.
Getting there
Package: An eight-day Burgundy and Provence river cruise starts from £1,699 per person (departs March 20, 2016) including a saving of £800 per person for bookings made before September 30, 2015. Includes return scheduled flights, seven nights' all-inclusive cruise on board the SS Catherine, unlimited beverages and all gratuities on board, shore excursions with English-speaking, expert local guides, all transfers and the VIP Home Departure Service.
Tel: 0800 988 5873 titantravel.co.uk
I could gaze across the water from a small balcony with windows that open, plus a mosquito-net mesh that can be slid up and down independently of the windows. There are British and continental electric sockets, and modern, flexible reading lights are placed either side of the sumptuously comfortable double bed.
The cheaper cabins on the deck below are slightly smaller with narrower windows. Still, there is plenty to see from the bars, restaurant and lounge - and, of course, outside on the long, wide and magnificent sun deck.
The clientele, including a generous sprinkling of American couples, was largely elderly but, although the ship caters more than amply for the sedentary (the package is all-inclusive, including gratuities, so you can eat and drink as much as you like), the atmosphere was lively and outgoing. On board, there is a gym and various spa activities, while for getting about on dry land you can hire a bicycle or what I now know are "Nordic walking sticks". If you are really energetic, you can even go kayaking!
Lyon, our starting point as well as a later destination, is a seductively French city. It stands on the confluence of two rivers, the Rhône and the Saone, and is an agreeable mixture of the old and the new. With its open-air bookstalls and relaxed, riverside air it has something of a Parisian feel. The old town is laced with traboules - passageways through buildings with dwellings protectively grouped inside - and signs and remnants of its silk-weaving past.
The city has a sizeable Jewish community with a range of synagogues, the most famous being the 19th-century Grande Synagogue, located on the River Saone and renovated in 2014.
Food and drink feature prominently on this cruise with a very high standard on board, where the restaurant, though certainly not kosher, does offer plenteous vegetarian and fish dishes.
The location is a very important wine region, of course, and the week offers opportunities on board and ashore to taste the likes of Crozes-Hermitage and the celebrated Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
The stopping points on the Catherine programme include Beaune, the Burgundy wine capital, in the Mâcon region. And later, at Tain l'Hermitage, we would taste local Côtes du Rhône, though some in our group lamented that the official tour didn't leave enough time for an equally lingering visit to the nearby Valrhona chocolate factory.
Another, Arles, is the Roman town where Van Gogh lived for many years and painted Starry Night Over the Rhône. His "yellow house" is now a creperie. The Roman presence can still be felt at the amphitheatre, where modern entertainments include bull-fighting.
We arrived in Avignon when its festival was in full flow with crowds soaking up sunshine and featuring the produce of a legion of outdoor bars and cafés as well as the 1,500 plays and shows overthree weeks.
Avignon, with its famous pont is a magnet for visitors, partly because of its Pope's Palace, the largest single-built Gothic building in Europe.
But it has a strong Jewish history, too. Avignon became part of France only in 1791 and was a sanctuary for French Jews for the previous 480 years after the 14th-century expulsion from France. The centuries-old synagogue was rebuilt in the 19th century by a locally appointed, non-Jewish architect who created a shul in the round, with a central bimah and circular ladies' gallery above.
During the Second World War, many of the town's Jews were deported and there is a prominent memorial plaque dedicated to them.
There is a Jewish story, too, in perhaps the most Provençal of our destinations.
At the climax of a tour through the picturesque, small, walled town of Viviers, our guide, Frances, served us rosé wine in her beautiful, rambling house, owned by her family for well over 100 years. We saw its formerly secret passages through which many Jews and other political enemies of the Nazis were hidden and helped to escape. Though occupied, Viviers resisted. The former Gestapo headquarters has been converted into apartments but locals refuse to live there. One day, Frances told us, she took cover in the building's porch from a rainstorm. A man passing avoided sheltering. "It is better to get wet," he said.
It was a week of satisfying contrasts, from listening in Arles to an old, female busker accompanying her Provençal song with bells on her shoes, and a much younger street singer in Avignon captivating her audience, to sitting on a sun deck watching early evening flecks of sun on the river's surface as endless banks of identical trees appeared to pass, in a kind of peaceful, moving stillness. Paradis!
