Yes, we have no diesel today.

Moret-sur-Loing

We stopped here because a) we were told it was a delightful mooring and a very nice town (it is) and b) there is a fuel station on the Seine that has reasonable prices.  It is there but for some reason they are out of fuel, so we will stay another day.  We last topped up in Epernay and Armida has a 500L tank so we are probably still 3/4 full but fuel stations on the water are very rare in France, so it is good to fill up when we can.

The weather is still odd and we get rain, clouds and sunshine everyday.  It’s not cold and the wind that seemed to blow the whole time we were in Paris has dropped so the cruising has been pleasant.

We did a very long day out of Paris (9 hours and 60km) as there are not many places to stop along the river and the first part is industrial and built up.  The locks are the biggest we have seen since Holland and are busy with commercial traffic, mainly carrying sand and gravel downstream.

The barge to the right of the picture is four empty sand barges lashed together and pushed by a “pusher” tug at the back. As we followed them upstream they stopped in the middle of the river next to another set of laden barges with a pusher coming downstream.  The pushers then unhooked themselves and did a do-se-do around the barges and exchanged loads and then headed off again.  Quite entertaining.

We stopped the first night in Melun which was a very pleasant town but we discovered the joys of mooring on the river the next morning  when the commercial traffic started going by at 6:30 and Armida was “rocking and rolling”.  After Melun the Seine is very pretty with lots of woodland and grand houses on the river’s edge.  We skirted the forests of Fontainebleau here and had a couple of nights of lovely moorings in beautiful villages.

After this we will be heading up the Yonne towards the Burgundy canal that has more locks than in all of Holland and most of them are manual so it should be slow progress.  But first we have to negotiate the dreaded “slope sided” lock of the Yonne.  More about those later.

Please read on for Terry’s wrap up of Paris.