Pictures for Deja-vu

Salt Factory at Dombasle sur Meurthe

Main Offices

Manager’s House

Worker’s Cottages

Private Organ Concert at Saint Nicolas du Port

Boy that rain was fun.

Deja-vu

This is our fourth trip on the canal from Nancy to Strasbourg.  On our first trip, with Susan and Craig, we planned to enjoy meals in  little cafés or sip wine while enjoying the pate, cheese, great breads and other goodies we’d discovered in the shops. 

There was some lovely scenery, an interesting mix of unusual locks, farms, forgotten petit villages, but not one blessed café or shop five, days.  After dinner on day two we’d eaten pretty much all that we’d bought before we’d left Nancy.  We then started opening cans from our pitiful emergency stash.  We were then searching the woods for nuts and berries.  Not really but Susan found some raspberries growing next to the canal. I had a small package of pancake/crepe mix, we added some blobs of blue cheese and make a delicious treat with our coffee for breakfast.  All this and cold weather too.  Add to that sleeping in a closet and I’m surprised Susan and Craig still talk to us.

Meanwhile it’s spring and again we must do the canal from hell, but this trip we planned our meals for each day and set out with joy knowing full well we were on top of things.  Saverne was our last chance for shopping.  We blew it off.  Our cupboards were full.

Five great days, 130km and 69 locks we are now stopped for our last night before reaching Nancy.  I’d made a pot of vegetable stew, couscous, our last two tomatoes and a square of chocolate for dessert.  Wine too.  There was only one other boat.  A lovely big old 100 year old peniche. 

It’s a balmy Wednesday evening on the deck.  Rob decides gets off to take the dogs for a walk, passes the peniche and stops to chat.  It’s a British couple, Helen and Chris.  There fifth year and the boat is their home. 

Rob returns with the news.  One, the next lock it being worked on and is closed for just one day.  But the lock before Nancy is closed for another five.

The canal from hell strikes again.  Deja-vu, nuts and berries.  This time with Chris and Helen who are in the same boat…so to speak.   

Saturday afternoon:

We have food and the comedy of errors just keeps coming.  The more agitated Rob gets, the more I laugh and the madder he gets. 

The first town outside Nancy has a nice church about a mile away and I want to stop. We get off the boat with the dogs and cross the street from one of the largest factories in the world stretches along the canal for about a half mile and 500 yards deep. There is a huge brick and wrought iron fence that surrounds about a two block area of grass and trees.  At the gates we enter to a large very ornate and attractive building that probably served as the head offices.  The main floor has a ballroom with windows on both sides that I imagine was used for entertaining and parties.   Going around the back enter a maze of shrubs that lead to a simple but elegant band shell.  To it’s side is a two story structure with rooms above,  maybe a large cooking room below and patio in front surrounded on two sides by a long one story building that I would guess held cloak rooms, lavatories and small sitting rooms.  Behind all this there is a tall brick wall to block the view of what is next.  The home of either the owner or head of the factory. He has a little gated archway to pop through in the morning to walk to his office in front.  All abandoned and in need of love.  Beside this blast from the past is another tall wall. That’s were the new factory was built.  The closer you get to Nancy the more modern the factory looks and it’s all, Salvoy, one of the largest salt factories in the world among other things. 

From there we walked to the town center.  Rob took off to look for a ATM while the dogs and I headed for the Cathedral.  After I’d walked about three blocks I here, “Terry”.  Rob comes flapping down the street.  When he is flustered he reminds me of a goose being chased by a dog.  That crazed look of now what am I going to do.  “The machine ate my card”!!! 

While in Strasburg we went to the bank to say we didn’t have my pin number and requested we do a new one.  They don’t do that then and there.  They will mail the number to our address, in California.  It will take about two weeks.  (Another job for poor Toni who is handling the mail)  Come to find out once our banker in Montpellier was notified, she decided to cancel both my card and Rob’s and issue new ones.  To California.  They were kind enough to give us some money in the meantime.  Only the French.

Later, back on the boat we go closer to Nancy.  Here we plan to have a nice lunch and go grocery shopping.  It’s a ways away so we leave the dogs behind and ride out bikes.  Cafes closed, except one.  It’s ten past one they aren’t serving food anymore.  Next the green grocer.  Cherries, strawberries, two bananas and two peaches.  Next the supermarket.  Food, a big bottle of grape juice and water. Get to the door a its pissing down rain.  But of course!  Rob says this isn’t going to let up so off we go.  We arrived sopping wet, scatter our wet clothes around the boat and it stops raining for the rest of the day.  I go to unload the groceries.  Rob had packed the at the store while I ran back for juice.   He put the cookies in first.  They are crumbs.  Then he through the bag into his basket.  On top of the other.  The peaches and strawberries are mush and the bananas bruised. 

now and will wait here until Monday. We figure a queue will start forming to get into Nancy. Commercial boats and pinches have priority, we get in the pleasure boat line.

Two more days before we can leave the canal from hell behind and enter Nancy.  It will feel like home.

 

Update – Monday and we are in Nancy at last!

Stuck in Crevic

After a pleasant trip towards Nancy we have discovered that the canal into Nancy has been closed for repairs since February!  No word from the VNF (the canal authority) or at the boatyard.  It is scheduled to open on Monday so now we have four days to kill on this very quiet stretch of canal. 

It could be worse, we are moored next to an english barge that has been stuck in this stretch all winter.

Leaving Strasbourg

We are on the move again.

Today we left Strasbourg and are now moored in the country on in a green and tranquil spot – the weather was warmer  than any day last year, and it’s only early May!  In fact the weather has been great the whole time so far.

We really liked Strasbourg and enjoyed our time there. It was made special because of our new friend Margot who actually met the dogs first while Terry was in a store.  Margot, who works as a tour guide, offered to show us her city.  Terry said yes, as long as we could take her to lunch.  We learned much about the history of Strasbourg and the Alsace, but what was really fascinating was her life story. 

Margot was a young girl when the German occupation took over her city.  Her stories of being evacuated the country, returning to occupied Strasbourg, being forced to join the Hilter Youth and work in the office for the local bigwigs were fascinating, informative and also fun.  She really brought the city to life for us. We feel very lucky to have met her and will keep in touch.

Here are some more pictures of the city:

 

 

Strasbourg Boat Yard

What a difference a year can make.  The weather has been fantastic.  Just like spring is supposed to be. 

We’re not moving and will be in the docks for at least another few days.  We need a part for the engine filter and have a lot of cleaning.  Last year we concentrated on learning to maintain and maneuver the boat through the waters.  We did not do a much needed deep clean as the weather was wet and cold.  Yesterday we started the detailed cleaning.  It took us both four hours just to do the area around the outside wheel with its panel of gauges, corners, crevices and various kinds of surfaces.  This is the high traffic area where we go in and out of the boat and from where we drive, eat meals and lounge in the evening.  The teak deck was filthy.  It was a hands and knees job scrubbing layers of grime.   We still have lots of areas to wash and a huge waxing job.  Even though we were tired last night we felt happy knowing we are getting Armida looking her best. 

The dock is in a little finger of water off the river that runs through Strasbourg.  We are abut 2 miles from the old town and there is a tram about a 1/4 mile walk  as well as modern really nicely designed mall with stores and multiplex theater.  The underground parking structure is incredibly well organized.   You drive down and on the ceiling at the end of each parking row there is a lit sign that tells you how many parking places are open.  You turn down one of the lanes and each parking place has a red, green or blue light on the ceiling above the trunk area.  Red being used, green open and blue large handicapped.  Each spot has it’s own number, ie 503 or 1714, row 5, spot 3 etc.  It’s a fairly big place so the walking paths have signs and directions to lifts and escalators to certain stores.  And its pretty and clean down there.  As is everywhere.

Here is a photo of one side of the water showing the buildings and cranes that were used to unload the big barges onto trains until after WWII.  The tracks have been pulled up many years ago and are now forest and park. 

In the other direction you see our neighboring boats and the new fitness center in the back ground. Seven of the boats are year round homes for two singles and five couples.  German, Dutch and French.  If you can see the boat furthest away has the best set up. They have the parking for their old van which they use for storing tools and things.  The cloths line is attached from the back to the fence.  They have their camper van and two small motor cycles as well.  There are big planters on the walk with last years dead flowers that have yet to be planted anew.  They have a washing machine, bar-b-q and many friends and visitors.  Really nice people.  On the other side of the River are the pleasure cruisers who don’t need to use the showers on this side. 

We got to see the Royal wedding live at 12N our time.  The Brits invited us.  She, Sandy, decorated the boat with little flags of union jacks, hearts and the royal crest.  They served finger food and the napkins where the Union Jack with a heart in the middle.  Both we and The New Zealanders, who we met last year, brought champagne.  It was a lovely time and we all enjoyed the pageantry.The bride was stunning!

Doggies love the boat and have settled into the routine. 

Today is May 1st, Labor day and nothing is running, including the public transport.  It is a Sunday and they don’t move the holiday to a weekday – there are rumors of a strike tomorrow as the unions still want their time off.

Getting Going Again

We arrive bleary eyed in Paris (can’t tell from the picture who is the more bleary eyed) where we collected a rental car and managed to drive the 5 hours to Strasbourg without falling asleep.  Armida was ready, and went back in the water that evening but we stayed in a Hotel.  She was just as we left her and we got things back on board the next day which was Good Friday so everything else was closed.

After a couple of days of moving things around and around until they settled in one spot I took the rental car and drove another 5 hours to Cambrai to do my barging course, leaving Terry and the Dogs to continue the organizing and cleaning.  The course was fun and interesting and despite being on a large 24m barge I still learnt a lot but the main reason was to get a licence to be legal on the French Waterways.  I am now very proud to be able to say that I am certifiably competent internationally (i.e. I have an ICC) which is something to which I have always aspired.

As I was driving back to Strasbourg  I realized that we probably put more kilometres on this car in 4 days than we will on Armida in 6 months!

It has now been a week and we are now settling in to boat life.  We will probably be here another week getting other details organized before we set off. Our mooring is not the prettiest or the most convenient we have had but it is quiet and out of the main channel and it is nice to be among other boat people who are also getting ready to set off.

We're Baack

On the boat, in the water, weather is good, a little tired.  More later.