Exclusive river cruise in France - with Grand Victoria in Burgundy

Writer: Helena Bergström

Have you ever dreamed of experiencing an exclusive river cruise in France? A floating trip through Burgundy, on the Grand Victoria, is a golden experience beyond our wildest dreams.

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Exclusive river cruise in France - on the river Saône

When you embark on an exclusive river cruise in France, on the luxury barge Grand Victoria, you travel on the river Saône, through the Burgundy wine region. In collaboration with French Barge Vacations, we tried their most classic tour. The tour sometimes alternates the river experience (open and scenic!) with the canal experience (denser and with more locks!), but at the moment the historic canals were being restored and we stayed on the river the whole time.

The tour runs from Auxonne to Mâcon - or vice versa - and offers a week-long exclusive river adventure with high end service from start to finish: five-star accommodation, luxury meals, exclusive Burgundy wines, small group guided tours, visits to Michelin-starred restaurants and much more.

Grand Victoria - a river yacht

The Grand Victoria can be described as a luxury barge or 'river yacht' - a 39-metre-long vessel designed for six passengers and a crew of the same size.

The ship is unique in many ways. Most boats that cruise here take significantly more passengers, even if they are sometimes the same size, and are often part of multi-ship groups. Cruising on the Grand Victoria is not only an exclusive experience, but also an intimate and personalised one.

The owners, Edward and Cindy, live in the US, but also have houses in Sweden and backgrounds in South Africa and Italy respectively. They have renovated and designed the boat themselves to what it is today, and it is clear that there is not only financial investment behind it, but also a lot of blood, sweat and tears. And, of course, a lot of love for the stately river cruiser Grand Victoria.

Today, both owners are always on board when cruising, which makes the experience even more intimate and genuine, and at the same time provides more opportunities for flexible solutions, such as modifying the programme according to the travellers' wishes during the trip.

Edward is the captain and also takes passengers on guided tours. Cindy makes sure that everything runs smoothly.

On board the Grand Victoria

Because there are so few passengers on such a large ship, there is plenty of space on board. On deck there is a nice seating area with sofas, dining table with chairs, a jacuzzi and bicycles that you can borrow, if you may want to pedal any of the distances instead of sliding on board.

Usually it is one parties of up to 6 people who book the whole boat. This way, the crew feels confident that they won't accidentally pair up people who don't get along. After all, you are travelling quite close together for a whole week.

In our case, we were three different couples, all open to travelling together: a couple from the US, a couple from the UK and us, from Sweden. We can say that we had a great trip together and we already miss our new friends!

Common room, dining room and bar

When you board the Grand Victoria, you are greeted by a beautiful and cosy common room with a sofa group, bar and dining room furniture. At the bar, you can browse through all kinds of exclusive drinks, if you want a drink in the afternoon or evening.

Also on board is the ship's dog Angus (who even has his own Instagram account: @captain_angus_mcangus) and who quickly stole everyone's hearts.

Five-star accommodation

There are three cabins on board and we can say that the cabin is a five-star experience, with a wide comfortable bed, beautiful furnishings, nice shower and high end service. Each time we returned to our cabin, the bed was made, fresh new water was on the bedside table and our electrical cables and phone cords were neatly coiled.

Meals on board the Grand Victoria

The Grand Victoria offers a five-star cruise experience, and the meals are top class. Each day includes breakfast, lunch, cheese platter and 3-course dinner with fine wines, and an open bar.

breakfast

If you're a fan of quality breakfasts, the Grand Victoria is a real treat. When you sit down at the breakfast table in the morning, coffee, croissants, yoghurt and fresh fruit or berries await you. Then you can take a look at the menu card, which presents the hot meal of the day: perhaps pancakes with lemon curd, vegetable omelette or eggs benedict.

lunch

Lunch is always served at 12 noon when cruising with Grand Victoria, sometimes on board and sometimes at some nice French restaurant. The lunches on board were fantastic and consisted of several small delicious dishes, such as, for example, cold cut meat, exclusive cheeses, baked small packages and various vegetable dishes.

There is of course a chef on board the Grand Victoria. The young chef working here now, Hugo, enthusiastically presents the various dishes at each meal in excellent English, with a lovely French accent that somehow makes the experience feel even more genuine.

Cheese tray

At 6pm, it's time for a cheese platter on board the Grand Victoria. If you're on an exclusive river cruise in France, you are! Each day, some new exciting cheeses are presented, along with sausages, olives, fruit and other snacks.

Dinner

Dinner on board the Grand Victoria is a special occasion. Every evening, a new beautiful table setting awaits, in a new colour scheme.

The dinner included a white wine and a red wine from Burgundy, and some "lessons" about the wines and wine regions. There was a lot of laughter as we all struggled with everything from French words to remembering different wine region in Burgundy, as well as designations such as 'Village Wine', Premier Cru and Grand Cru.

Dinner starts with a starter, which is of course presented and described by the chef. Each day offers a new creative, exciting and delicious creation.

The main courses are also both tasty and creative, and the chef also managed to balance the portion sizes well, so that you were always a little hungry and hungry for the next dish.

What about the desserts? Wow, we can still dream about those!

River and canal cruises

As I said, in our case we only cruised on the Saône River, but sometimes you also cruise through the historic canals of Burgundy, and then it becomes more crowded with more locks. However, the rivers also offer the occasional lock, which is a pleasant experience.

In between, you'll cruise peacefully along the river, surrounded by dense greenery, intense birdlife and occasionally some of Burgundy's white cows.

Occasionally you will also pass through one of the towns in Burgundy, and you will be struck by the beautiful historical settings, with stone bridges and beautiful buildings.

Every day - it can be in the morning or in the afternoon - the ship docks in a new harbour, where it stays overnight.

Cruise on the Saône - with excursions

When you cruise with the Grand Victoria, you'll experience an exclusive river cruise in France, while enjoying many pleasant excursions around Burgundy.

A guided excursion is offered every day, leaving by car from the harbour. The excursions include vineyards, wine cellars, castles, restaurants, towns and much more. In addition, you can explore on your own the towns that are within walking distance of where the boat docks.

Côte de Nuits

One of the excursions took us to the Côte de Nuits, one of the five wine districts in Burgundy, where you can find, among other things, red Grand Cru wines. A very interesting and pleasant day! Among other things included:

• Lunch at a cosy winery
• Visit to Chateau du Clos de Vougeot
• Wine tasting at the Moillard-Grivot winery

Dijon

Dijon is the capital of the Burgundy-Franche-Comté region and is best known for its Dijon mustard. We will return to this city later this summer. In brief, we can now tell you what we experienced:

• Food market
• Tour of the historic city
• Tasting of Dijon mustard

Beaune

Beaune is a beautiful and interesting city in Burgundy, which we will tell you more about later. During our guided tour we got to experience, among other things:

• Hospices du Beaune - a historic hospital
• Food market and fromagerie (cheese shop)
• Lunch at the Michelin-starred restaurant Le Carmin

Patriarch House

Beaune is home to Maison Patriarch, with 240 years of history and wine cellars under much of the city. Anyone can come here to see the cellars, taste wine and maybe buy a bottle or six. Of course, as a guest on an exclusive cruise in France, i.e. on board the Grand Victoria, you get special tasting in a private room.

Chateau de Rully

Another very special visit that was included in the cruise was the visit to Chateau de Rully. This castle has been in the same family for 26 (!) generations and it is the current lord of the castle who shows you around. Very genuine and very interesting!

Tournus

Tournus is a beautiful and historic town, where we docked the boat one afternoon. Here we strolled around on our own in the charming alleys. Among other things, you can check out the abbey of Saint-Philibert de Tournus.

Mâcon

The last stop on our journey was in the town of Mâcon. Here we had walking distance up to the centre, and here we looked around for a while on our own. A very nice town!

Would you like to try an exclusive river cruise in France?

Would you like to try an exclusive river cruise in France? Maybe you have done a river cruise at some point (exclusive or not)? Please tell us!

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