From Pink Floyd to French-Floyd and on to Besançon

Besançon

After we eventually left Ray we did go upstream for groceries which enabled us to go downstream where we tied up on a grassy bank on a bend in the Saone.  There we had one of our favorite type of evenings. A swim in the river (for me) as it’s still hot.  Dinner outside with some nice wine watching the sun go down and the nearly full moon come up, with the music from the iPod playing softly on the outside speakers. And no one else around.  Well there were several rental boats on the same stretch of river having similar experiences but we couldn’t see or hear them from our bend.  We finished the evening with the full album of Dark Side of the Moon while we looked at the bright side.  By the way this is also our favorite album for long tunnels.  One of this year’s projects was a gangplank which worked as well as holding us off the bank.

Then it was retracing our route back to Saint Jean de Losne for some more socializing and working on the boat.  Along the way we had some of the best mussels at the portside restaurant in Pontallier.
The weather got hot again and on one day of 38C (100F) and no wind Terry wanted to go home (wherever that is).  I guess you know when the weather has heated up the steel boat when you take the wine glasses out of the cupboard and they are warm! 
It did cool off a bit and on the Saturday we were entertained by a concert from “French Floyd” who were performing across the marina.  We didn’t go but the sound was  just perfect on the back deck of Armida.
We still had three weeks left so decided to head to Dole for a change of scene.  It is still one of our favorite towns and we had a nice meal at Le Gren de Sel, again but then overshot and kept going to Besançon. This is now our most traveled stretch of the French waterways as well as our first  – and we still love it.


Tomorrow we head back down the Doubs and the canal to Saint Jean de Losne where we begin the process of putting Armida to bed for another year before leaving for California on the 8th.
I don’t think Lilou wants to leave.