Silver Whisper overnighted in Bordeaux last night, and this morning I awoke to a gorgeous sunrise. The promise of a new day, from my balcony on Silver Whisper, with beautiful Bordeaux in the background. Could there be a better start to a new day?

My daughter Britton and I had signed up for a half-day half-day sightseeing excursion to the UNESCO World Heritage Site Saint-Emilion. If you appreciate wine, you may know of  Saint-Emilion’s celebrated vineyards and its delicious wines. In fact, the vineyards reach all the way up to Saint-Emilion’s ancient town walls.

After a 35-minute coach transfer from the bottom of Silver Whisper’s gangway to Saint-Emilion, we began a guided walking tour of the village and its underground monuments.

We saw the Collegiale Church and its 12th-century cloister as well as the 12th-century ramparts, the marketplace and Eglise Monolithe, the largest underground church in Europe. Adjacent to the church, we visited the catacombs, which included a charnel house and numerous sepulchers dating from the 11th and 12th centuries.

Following the guide tour, we had a little more than an hour of free time to explore the village on our own and browse the shops before heading back for Silver Whisper, which departs for Saint-Jean-de-Luz at 4 p.m. today.