The communities of Tain/L’Hermitage and Tournon are co-located on the banks of the Rhone river. After our ritual breakfast of more food than you could ever choose from, we departed on our guided walking tour. We started with a tour of Tournon which required us to cross the Passerelle Marc-Seguin bridge over the Rhone. Its builder, Marc Seguin, invented the wire cable suspension bridge and built this bridge in 1847. It is now a strictly pedestrian bridge and some of the wooden support beams seemed to be original, very weathered and not confidence inspiring. The town appeared to be very proud of this inventor as almost everywhere we looked something was dedicated to him. He was not the only innovator from this community. The Montgolfier brothers, who created the hot air ballon in 1783, were also born here.

The town of Tournon was built around the castle. It was abandoned in the 1600s and served many purposes, including that of a prison and a school, before being rescued and turned into a museum.

We crossed back on the bridge to the L’Hermitage side of the Rhone. In 1243 a crusader returning from the holy land came to this area. He was allowed to build a hut near the chapel on the top of the hill. He lived there as a hermit (aka the name L’Hermitage) and started to tend to grape vines and started the wine tradition in this area.

Of course that was just an appetizer for the main course which was a visit to Valhrona, the City of Chocolate. A while back a friend and I took a baking class at the Duchess Bakery in Edmonton. There we were introduced to Valhrona chocolate, known as one of the finest chocolates in the world. We were able to visit the factory site, sample and buy some incredible chocolate. The whole community (not growing wine) makes chocolate.

After making it back to the riverboat laden with a significant amount of chocolate, we set sail upriver for Lyon.