A cruise in Blue de France.
It was my wife’s idea to do a cruise as a change from a voyage to a holiday resort in France or abroad.
I had taken a long voyage when I left Sri Lanka in 1964 to come France. It was a French ship “Vietnam” a passenger cum cargo ship. The cabins were large and I shared one with a Sri Lankan up to Bombay , where two passengers an Indian and a German joined to share our cabin. It took one month to come to Port of Marseille in France. This is not to write about my boat trip from Colombo to Marseille, which is another story.
This is to relate a cruise of one week in a beautiful French passenger ship I took with my wife. I am not a great fan of travelling in style on board ships, but I gave in to my wife’s desires and on the 26 September, 2010, we were on board the Blued de France. Built in 1981, it had been redecorated and launched as a holiday cruise ship in 2008. It was built in Germany and had taken different names before it was called Blue de France. It was 199.6 metres long It has the capacity for 758 passengers and 426 crew members.
Our Cruise started with our friends the Bertrands-Claud and Ginette taking us to the Regional train (RER) at Neuilly Plaisance which took us to the Gare de Nord- the Railway Station to take the French Express the TGV to Marseille. Three hours after we were having a short lunch at the Marseille Railway Station .
We had to board the Blue de France at 15h.30 and we had time to relax a while before we took a Taxi to the Port where the Blue de France was awaiting us.
We checked in with very joyous and gleeful, but noisy crowd of our passengers to be on Board the ship for one whole week. At the check –in, we were given our cabin number and our baggage were taken.
We were received at the ship and directed to our cabin. Our baggage which had come before us was waiting at the door of our cabin 1059. The Ship was packed to full capacity
