‘ello Loire

After climbing out of the Saone valley and descending the side of the Loire valley we crossed the mighty river itself at Digoin on a dramatic bridge.  This marked the end of the Canal du Centre and the beginning of the Canal lateral a la Loire.  The Loire has never been tamed and is not navigable so the canal runs along the edge of the flood plain and is very different from the Canal du Centre.  The winding stretches and automatic locks have been replaced by long straight runs between trees with occasional glimpses of the river, the hills opposite and briefly, a Chateau. Here the locks are infrequent and manual and manned by lock keepers who still live in the cottages by the lock and therefore take pride in their appearance and the gardens.  But it is well maintained and we can stop and put down stakes for a quiet rural mooring wherever we want.

Agriculture has changed from the vineyards on the Saone side of the Cote, and the Charoillais cattle on the Loire side ( the beef from the supermarket is some of the best we have had) to a varied mix in the plain of the Loire. They seem to to take pride here in the farm buildings and we have seen some lovely half timbered barns we would call Tudor but I am sure the French would not – Renaissance perhaps?

The weather is getting hotter and seems to build through hot and muggy to dramatic thunderstorms that have reshaped our bimini to where it needs a little help.  As much as I have discounted the weather forecast I now know that when it looks like this for the next day I should pay attention.

After we get to Decize we will turn off into the much more rural and quaint Canal de Nivernais where we will start climbing again.

So, are there fish in those canals?

Saint Legher-sur-Duhene

Oh Yeah!

These kids woke me up at 6am when they snagged our boat with their casting. I removed a hook about 1cm long from our front fender rope. At 8:30 they managed to haul this monster ashore and slide it into a bag for the later photo-op.  After this they let him go for another young pêcheur to catch for his tall tale.

The boating life.

We are settled into our little boat, everything in it’s place and colorful flowers in the planter boxes.  There are a few reasons that are obvious about why we are traveling this way.  It’s cheaper than a car and hotels, we can make our own meals, no suitcases and we can curl up in our own space at the end of the day.  When people are on holiday you expect to see, experience and learn new things.  Some days we do and some days we don’t.  It’s the people we meet that round out the total experience.  I should also mention Rosie and  madcap Lilou’s contribution to the quiet pleasure.  We feel so fortunate to be able to do this.
In Chagny we had an opportunity to go to a three star Michelin restaurant.  We stood outside, looked at the menu prices and decided we just couldn’t justify $500+ for one meal. Instead we took the advice of a local Frenchmen who told us to go to place whose name translated to, “The Kitchen Across”.  We walked to the address he had given and it turned out to be the much cheaper café, across the street from the three star, owned by the same people.  It was so good I can’t imagine how anything could be five times better to be worth the price.  I’ve included a photo that actually makes the amount of food look smaller because the piece of fois gras on top of the roasted duck breast in a was huge and the best I’ve ever tasted.   Rob had the quail with a very light lemon wine sauce.  Yummy.

We’ve met quite a few people doing the pilgrimage to Santiago Compostella.  If you saw the Martin Sheen movie, The Way, you know what we are talking about.  One morning just as we took off we passed a lady with a big backpack and a little Jack Russell walking the footpath next to the canal.  After we passed her I thought we could have asked if she wanted a lift.  That evening we stopped and who comes along but the gal. (That’s how slow we go on the water).  It was a warm day so I asked if she (Maryange) would like some cold water for herself and the dog.  We were chatting and she asked if her dog could play with ours.  But of course.  The three dogs had a gay old time and in the end she spend an hour on the deck, sharing a glass of bubbly and telling us of her travels.  I thought she was very interesting and brave.  .

Speaking of brave people there was the handsome young German couple we met at the Laundromat on a horrible rainy day.  They were camping, traveling by bicycle for six weeks from the Atlantic coast of France to their home near Frankfurt, with their four children aged 5, 3 and one year old twins.  True.  She rode a bike with a seat behind her for the three year old and towing a little wagon full of gear.  He had a bike with big saddlebags and pulled the basket on wheels with the twins and the five year old road his own bike. They were all smiles having a great time, although not so much when we met them in the pouring rain in St. Jean de Losne. Note the two little ones fast asleep in their weatherproof cart.

The countryside is especially beautiful with rolling hills planted with grape vines, accented with thick patches of trees and small very picturesque little villages.  We had lunch today with a Canadian couple.  They have come from the direction we are going to we swapped information about moorings, interesting sights, etc.  As we were leaving a couple who had heard our accents stopped us.  They were from San Diego and bought a house here in 1999 when they were dirt cheap.  They explained that there is a lot of money here with the wine so all the old villages have been renovated and the food shops and restaurants are top notch.  Just like Napa in many ways.  There are two hundred people in their village and yet there are three Brits and two Dutch households that speak English.  It’s true for the area which is why they say their French isn’t as good as it should be.
A week ago we were sitting on the boat and Rob said there’s a fire on the other side of the canal.  Next to a wheat field there were about five attractive newer built two story homes.  Smoke was coming from one and within five minutes it was a huge plume of black smoke.  I said to Rob that I couldn’t believe a house could burn so quickly and wondered if someone had set it.  The fire department came, but couldn’t do anything except to keep it from spreading to the houses on either side.  Ten minutes later the whole house collapsed.  it took less than a half hour.  The next day a French woman told us the story that was in the paper.  A 70 year old man, who was sick, committed suicide.  It wasn’t his first attempt.  He used gas to start the fire, his wife got out with some burns.  It didn’t say if he had tried to keep her in.  The sad thing is that because of the circumstances insurance will probably not pay for anything.  It was a sad bizarre thing to do to his poor wife. 

On a lighter note we had drinks one evening with two couples from Brittan and one from South Africa.  We got to talking about current news from our countries.  The big stink in S.A. is about a painting being shown in a gallery that has Zuma, the S.A. President, painted in frontal nudity with a big “stiffy” and of course the shower head over his head.  We didn’t get the shower head part.  It seems this guy is a is a semi-educated chieftain (with four wives) and made a very stupid statement two years ago.  His comment about aids was that you didn’t have to wear condoms, just shower after sex.  He has since retracted his statement, but since then every time there is a cartoon in the paper there is a shower over his head.  And we thought we had lame politicians.
We love news from friends and family.  Skye has a new car.  Alice and John are on a honeymoon.  Martha poked her eye with a stick.  Toni and Craig are in Germany.  Barbara and Betty are as busy as always.  Keep the news coming.

Ed: I just noticed that for some reason Blogger credited this post to me when, obviously, it is from Terry

Wine Time

Rully (roo-ee)

Now we have left the Saone river and are on the Canal du Centre we are heading for the hills, so to speak. Here, the hills are the Côte du Chalonnais which is the southern section of the famed Côte d’Or of Burgundy.  In other words – premier wine country. There is a narrow strip of land a few kilometres wide that is the grape growing area and we are crossing it at right angles so the opportunities for visiting the good  “caves” are short. We are also limited how close we can get with the boat but the canal does go close to the village of Rully whose red and white wines we have tried and liked, so we moored here for two nights. Turns out Rully is also the center of manufacture of the “Cremant de Bourgogne” which is Burgundy’s answer to that other bubbly drink who’s name they can’t use, and one of Terry’s favourite tipples. The village is 2km from the canal and involved a bike ride so we thought we would take the dogs, have lunch, do some wine tasting and return later in the day.

The day was grey and cool with black clouds threatening rain.  Fortunately they never mustered enough energy to deliver more than a sprinkle and we set off with our little road warriors in their wicker baskets on our clown bikes.

Rully turned out to be a charming village with fine old houses and about 30 wine “caves”, but only one grocery store, no bank and two restaurants, both of which closed on Wednesdays.  Of course today is Wednesday! So our  lunch was a pizza from the bakery under the shelter of the canopy of the (closed) restaurant. No big deal.  While Terry bought food for our evening meal in the grocery before it, too closed for lunch I took the road warriors back to the cozy boat and returned to continue our explorations without them.

We tried a couple of Cremant houses and found one we liked and bought eight bottles. “Would it be possible to deliver to the boat?”, “But of course!”

So now for some Rully Red and we only had to go to one place.  In Chalon sur Saone we took Lilou to the vet as she was limping.  It was a detached patella, which is common in little dogs.  The vet manipulated it and gave us some anti-inflammatory for her. He did not speak much English (less than my French) but that did not stop him, unbidden, to tell us which were the best wines of the region and where to get them.  One was “Vincent Dureuil-Janthal” in Rully so that was our next stop. 

Sadly the winemaker was out so there were no tastings.  OK we’ll order anyway, but they only take cash and we were out.  Did I mention there was no bank in Rully.  “Pas de problem”, the lady would deliver to our boat tomorrow in Chagny, the next town on our route, which did have a bank.  On the dot of two she arrives with our little box of wine and our cellar (the hatch in the Galley floor) is now full.

Of course Rully doesn’t have WiFi either so I don’t know when this will get sent.  It does have some very good wine though.

Weather

Chalon sur Saone

On the California coast the saying is “ We don’t have weather, we have climate” and I agree. In Melbourne they have all four seasons in a day. France is a place that has real weather which is probably why the forecast is so unreliable.  This means it has real clouds.

We stayed is Seurre yesterday to let the rain pass, which it did by evening so we could have a nice sunset. 

This morning we set off in a slight drizzle that quickly cleared. We went through one of the big locks on the Saone which was very sedate even though they require us to wear life jackets while in the lock.

By midday the wind had picked up and gained some heat.  By two the wind was hot and dry and gusting to 30 knots like a Melbourne northerly,and even the cows needed a drink.

Early afternoon found us tucked into the delightful mooring behind the old town island at Chalon-sur-Saone, the second largest city in Burgundy.  A walk for the dogs and Terry and I set of to the large supermarket with our trusty shopping trolley. As we are checking out we hear the rain pounding on the roof, the wind gusting and the thunder rumbling. The entrance to the shopping center was inundated with pouring rain and very strong winds which fortunately did not carry off the Bimini, or the boat or the dogs. We don’t have pictures of me getting sopping wet walking back to check in them until it cleared but here is the next squall.

And about half an hour later.

So what will tomorrow bring?  We could check the forecast, but why bother?

Cruising again!

Seurre

Our throttle cable is fixed and I can add one more skill to my list, and at last we are away.

 

Today started  off cool but ended sunny and warm in the little town of Seurre which is at the start of the “large” Saone.  This where the river gets wider and even slower as it makes its way to Lyon where it joins the Rhone. Seurre is a lovely little town and the mooring, when we arrived at noon, pretty and peaceful.  Now it is 6pm and the rental boats are still arriving, “Rembrandt”  the big tourist hotel boat has just moored further down so it is not quite as peaceful, but still pleasant.

Now we can take our time, leave when we want, and stop when we feel like it - what we like about this life.  I have not quite relaxed into the slower pace yet but it won’t take long. Terry is already there and the dogs - well they have their own rhythm anyway.

It is supposed to rain tomorrow so we may stay here, or not.  When we do leave we will take a day to Chalon sur Saone and spend a few days exploring this larger town before heading into the Canal du Centre.

Here’s wishing Skye a very happy birthday.

A day at a French Laundry

Saint Jean de Losne

No, of course not THE French Laundry, but one more important to us. Here there is a Laundromat right on the quay in town which makes doing laundry not such a chore.  It is a grey, rainy day and we can pop the clothes in the machine and retreat to our cozy boat and watch TV with British people outside on boats wet and cold in London as they celebrate the Queens Jubilee. 

We have just had our friends/neighbours Craig and Toni visit us in Dole, where we puttered about for a couple of days in glorious weather. We hope they enjoyed their introduction to canal life as we enjoyed having them here.  They were very easy to have on board, pitched in with meal making and are now off for another three weeks of travel.

Coming back from Dole I went to increase speed coming out of the lock and nothing happened, we just slid out to the waiting pontoon.  After some poking about I discovered a broken throttle cable to the outside steering position and was able to rig it so the inside on still worked, which got us back here. Let’s hope this is the last thing to go wrong this year and I will spend tomorrow (no more I hope) snaking in a new one so we can set off on Tuesday,when the weather is supposed to improve, down the river Saone and into the Canal du Centre.