I found little time while travelling up the Rhine to actually sit and sketch, though I did manage a few times. I have shown you the windmill sketch already, just outside Amsterdam. But here I show one sketched from my cabin as we moved closer to Basel and the finish of our cruise.

For this sketch I used fine pen, 6B pencil, and aquarelle pencil. I sketched swiftly across the two pages, getting this down in a matter of minutes, as dinner was ready to be served. I like using a darker pencil on a smooth paper (as this was), as I love rubbing the lead with a fingertip hinting at shadow or contour. I popped in blue and green to remind me of where I could lay a watercolour wash through at a later date. I never did the wash, but quite liked the immediacy of the sketch.

After Basel, Kerry and I took the train to Lyon (a 2 hour journey), where we spent a week. What a fabulous place! Lucky that we’d chosen a hotel beside the river Rhöne, and been given a corner room with this wonderful view (above). We set off early every day, using the great Lyon card which one buys for a choice of days, and can use on the metro, buses, the funicular, and for free entry into art galleries and museums.

We headed to the Musée Des Confluences on our first major outing, jumping aboard a metro then walking further to the confluence of the Rhöne and Saône Rivers. The Saône being just a short distance from the Rhöne, and running almost parallel until its confluence.

Wow. What amazingly different architecture in this area. The Musée des Confluences looked as if it had been dropped from a Star Wars set. It is a museum which concerns itself with the culture, history and science of humanity, and we certainly saw interesting exhibits, from underwater photography featuring the mystery of the rings off the coast of Cape Corsica, to the lives of several tribes of the Amazon (the link above gives more information). The following day we took the funicular to the remains of a Roman amphitheatre on a hill looking over the city. It was fabulous walking around such an old site. Talk about contrasts in engineering between the ancient and the modern!

The next day, we had hoped to see the Contemporary Art museum, but found it closed for restoration. Our second choice was the Musée Des Beaux Arts, a hearty walk from our hotel.

As it was a very hot day, it was necessary to pause under the towering Plane trees along the way – well, I kept saying to Kerry, please let’s stop a minute, and he kindly obliged. Inside the bag I am holding, I have my sketchbook, ever hopeful I’ll get to use it. Fortunately I did!

Once we had explored the art museum we sat in the lush gardens outside. The nicest part about sitting there sketching was that a woman and young child also had their sketchbooks open and were happily drawing too!

For this one, I used a B and 6B pencil, green aquarelle pencil and a fine ink pen. Again, I imagined I’d do more work on this sketch once back in the cool, and comfort of our hotel. Maybe I added a little more pen as I sipped on a Prosecco while sitting in the lounge?

I am currently working on another sketch, which I’ll show next time.