The Bourgogne

First of all, thanks to you who have dropped a line or two to tell us your news.  Its so comforting to have a touch of familiar and to know that you think of us too.

The weather has done everything in the month since leaving Paris from unrelenting heat to booming storms and days so glorious you wish you could bottle them.  I don’t handle the heat well.

 

We are currently traveling the Canal de Bourgogne, southeast of Paris.  It is said to be the most most beautiful of all canals, but one of the least traveled.  The reason…there are 189 locks.  I’m the first one to whine when things get too hard and I have no complaints as the scenery is so lovely.  The countryside is green with forested rolling hills.  On the valley floor and up the hills are many farms with grazing cattle and fields of grain or corn. 

By car, we are about two hour from Paris.  As it’s also one of France’s prettiest parts the whole area is scattered with old country homes and grand chateaus.  We are limited in the number we can visit because they have to be close enough to walk or ride our bikes.   We’ve seen three so far and have been astounded by the amount of wealth there was to indulged in these showplaces.

 

We have seen 100’s of villages up and down the hills.  When I say small I meant 10-30 houses all built between the 13th and 19th century.  They are built of a beautiful limestone.  The method is called “dry stacked”.  The walls are about 20 inches thick with stone on the outside and inside then filled with dirt, water and rock.  There was no mortar used originally.  But in the last fifty years, as they’ve been renovated, it’s used.

As with the villages we saw last year in the northeast of France most took a huge downturn after WWII.  Since then things have only gotten worse and now with the recession, more than 40% of the old homes are falling into ruin with not much chance of ever seeing new life.   70% of the small cafes and groceries stores in France have closed in the last 20 years.  Poor old France is going through a very rough period and yet the people have never been nicer to us.  Once they find out that we are American/Australian, and not British, they are even more happy.  Strange, but true, the French seem to like Americans very much now.

We visited Alesia, the ruins of a Roman hilltop town that seemed quite sophisticated.  There was a amphitheater (that sat 5,000), a large meeting hall, many cobbled street with two story houses, gardens, orchards and more.  They had basements, so to speak, where they would keep fires in the winter to warm the stone floors of the home.   

The highlight in the last few weeks was the Abbaye de Fontenay, “a superb example of a 12C Cistercian self-sufficient monastery nestling in a lonely but verdant valley”.   The Abby was sold during the French Revolution and became a paper mill.  In 1906 a prosperous French family bought it.  They spent a fortune restoring the original buildings, built a very tasteful large home within the grounds and created simple gardens that create a wonderful atmosphere.  The church and cloisters are elegant and. for us, more moving than any of the many Cathedrals we’ve seen.  We loved it.

The month in Paris and this last month have been so special and interesting and all we had hoped for while on our boat.  Now that we are in a more popular area of the country we have been able to enjoy many meals off the boat.  Most cafes do a lunch meal of three course tasty meal for 11-15 Euros ($16-23).  It includes a starter (entrée), main dish  and dessert.  Sometimes a glass of wine and coffee are included.  Other times they will have a cheese course as well.   We never need big dinner in the evening and will usually have soup, bread/cheese/pate or leftovers.  I love not cooking!  By the way, the stone fruit here is soooo good this year.  Is it the same where you are?

Books:  I can not recommend Erik Larson’s, “In The Garden of Beasts.”  I found it wordy, tedious and dull.  I can recommend Jane Kirkpatrick’s, “The Daughter’s Walk”, fiction based on a true story.  I was given a paperback by Anita Shreve, “Fortune’s Rock”.  An ok book for the ladies who want an easy read.  As always, I’m looking for book titles.

Just so you know not every minute is bliss.  There are times when I am just plain bored.  I really miss being able to see a movie, driving my car and a nice glass of Californian Chardonnay.  

Terry

The back of Bourgogne.

Well summer seems to have arrived! We have had several days in the 30s (90s  F) that have sent us out to sit under trees and caused us not go very far each day, which has resulted in some very quiet and rural moorings. 
Although we are not that far away from Paris it has felt like we were really in the back of beyond.  For several days there was no cell phone service and we found a big hole in the internet.  One evening we were musing on what would happen if we needed emergency medical attention.  Then the TGV whizzed past on the other side of the valley and we remembered the modern hospital in the last town that was days away by boat, but probably 15 minutes by car – not really so isolated after all.

Armida’s Log–Start of the lock staircase

Date: 28-Aug

End Location: Marigny-le-Cahouet

Weather:  Sunny with a cool breeze – perfect

Journey Time: 6 Hours 25 min (including lunch stop)

Distance Travelled: 10.4 Km

Number of Manual Locks: 28 (uphill, our most so far)

Number of Lock keepers accompanying us:  4 (students)

Other boats passed: 1

Scenery: Bucolic

Rating: ***

Notes: This canal is so delightful it is a mystery  to us why there are not more people travelling on it.

Is it summer yet?

Tanlay, Canal de Bourgogne.
Summer in France.  Hot, lazy days, warm nights, time to look for a tree to moor under and stay cool – oh yeah.  Where is it?
Earlier I posted about the stinking hot days in Paris and worried that we would have to high tail it to the country to stay cool. Well that lasted two days and that was back in June.  Since then has been a succession of cool grey and often gloomy days with glimpses of sunshine and a couple (literally) of lovely sunny days that made us think summer had finally arrived.  Perhaps our summer was in May and June which were delightful, but we want more.  Actually the weather was a blessing in Paris but now we are cruising again it has much more impact on our experience.

We enjoyed the Yonne as it had a succession of interesting towns (Joigny to the left) and pleasant cruising with the exception of the excruciatingly slow locks - but the rivers are not as intimate as the canals.  They are wide, have more trees and you can’t tie up when you feel like it. They are at the bottom of the valley so you don’t get to look out over the fields, only up.
Our domestic battery bank (the other bank is for the engine and bow thruster) wasn’t holding charge so it was time to replace them.   The sticker indicated they were installed in 1994!  It was certainly time.  The guy at the marina said that may be a record.  Not cheap though.  $1,000 (BOAT= Bring Over another Thousand) and they weighed about 150 pounds each.
We are now on the Canal de Bourgogne which climbs over the hills to Dijon with more locks and the highest elevation of any canal in France.  Since commercial freight traffic stopped a few years ago it has been neglected; there is a lot of weed and the depth is not good. On the canals you can supposedly stop anywhere but when the depth is a challenge you can’t always get to shore.  So you get the bow in and then pull the stern (with the sensitive parts) in gently as far as you can.
Now the canal is starting to wind more and get prettier. The villages are quaint with many of the buildings made of stacked limestone.  No mortar. 

Although there are signs of the decline that seems ubiquitous in rural France, there is still life and we can always find the morning pain au chocolat and frequent little restaurants.

Tanlay, as well as having an astounding Chateau, is the starting point for some of the hotel barges that frequent this canal. We were lucky to get the only free spot on the quay.  As they move slowly and take up a lot of mooring space we will be trying to avoid them.

Internet is sparse or  non-existent .  Even our 3G dongle only crawls along.  Seems that everything is slow in the countryside, so it might be a while before this gets sent.
This afternoon we set off to go one lock to a nice small village but the mooring was too shallow.  We nearly got stuck in the mud, so we went two more locks and stopped just before a fantastic thunderstorm.    

Satellites and Sens

After a season and a half of isolation we finally relented and have a TV. What we were missng was brought home to us when we met a Dutch boat with an Australian flag on the front in honour of Cadel Evans winning the Tour de France. We only knew about it the next day when we had internet. Even though all the big events are past (Royal Wedding, Tennis, Tour de France) we decided it was time. When we turned off the Seine at Montereau-fault-Yonne and found there was a giant E.Leclerc superstore in town we decide this was the place. Of course the store was 3km away and with anything like this it took 3 trips (one by bus, one on the bike and one walking and bus) and two days but we are finally connected. Life in the slow lane means ordinary things take a lot longer. We now have hundreds of channels for free and, of course, most of them are garbage but we do get all the UK channels and CNN and CNBC so we have more choices of an evening.

Now we are at the town of Sens on the river Yonne and the weather is sensational.  There are so many puns options with Sens so feel free. The river has been lovely with a few nice towns but most importantly we survived the locks.  This river that was bigger than the the Seine when it joined it has and interesting history.  It used to carry timber barges down to Paris and before they installed the locks they would get all the boats down the river by lowering the weirs in sequence to create an artificial flash flood that carried them helter skelter down the river.  I have not learnt how they got back up.
When they installed the locks the engineers chose the best structural choice of sloping sides, which is easier to build but not so good for the boats as the contact with the walls is below the waterline where fenders will not go.  Also the bollards are hard to get ropes on.  One of the boats we met reported they tried to sit in the middle and motor against the inrush – they managed to do a 360 in the lock.  A Welshman we met said they were lucky as he only managed a 180 and had to reverse out of the lock.  Needless to say, I was worried.  But we were fine.  We asked the lock keepers over the VHF radio if they would take our ropes and as we came in and they did, so we bumped gently up.  An other lock had a floating pontoon and in the last two we were in with a big barge and we tied up to him.
This looks like a great town with a good covered market and ABC (Another beautiful Cathedral) so we will probably stay a couple of days.  It makes Sens(e).

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.

Au revoir Paris

Paris, the city of light.  We spent a whole month there and Rob dragged me out kicking and screaming.  So much as been written about this city I don’t feel I have to bore you with details.  I hope you had a chance to look at the photos from a link on Rob’s last blog.   
For us the luxury of time gave us a chance to slowly savor the simple things like slipping down a tiny side street and finding an amazing old house and garden tucked away that has been there for hundreds years.
As with any city it’s better if you know someone.  We met Bill and Nancy  shortly after arriving.  I think they know more about Paris than most Parisians.  Besides tips and directions, they organized a group for two special events. 
One:  Boat tour:  “Canal Saint-Martin from Marina Arsenal to Parc de la Villette”.  A night time cruise.  Why not just go in our own boat?  The singer!   Just a few weekends a summer this tiny little woman dressed in black rides along with us through the tunnel to the narrow canal that passes through neighborhoods.  We all listen to the live commentary of the sights in both French and English. There are two locks to go through.  Each takes about 20 minutes.   Many people know “the singer” will be on board so will sit on their balconies or sit along the side with wine and a picnic to wait.  Once at the lock she stands up to perform old French romantic songs and sings her heart out.  I hope she wouldn’t be insulted if I say she sounded very much like Edith Piaf with the quiver and rolled r’s.  At night, with that voice, wine, the city people, us on the boat, we are all one big happy group.  When the boat started moving again there was a burst of applause, we raised our glasses to the crowd and they returned it or gave a wave.  There were eight very happy Americans included in that night.  It gives me goose bumps to remember it. 
Two:  Bastille Day.  Like a bunch of groupies we headed to a small café where “our singer”, along with a very handsome young singer, were to be.   Rob and I arrived a little late.  As we came to the door “our singer” came to me and danced me through to where our table was.  I think most of the costumers were regulars.  They didn’t seem to mind our intrusion on their day at all.  In fact they encouraged us to join the dancing and singing.  Even our dinner was good.  Hopefully you can see in the photo that it was a mad happy group who partied.  Even Rosie got to dance while we played “ring-around-the Rosie”.  Nancy thought of that.
There is a song, “The Flower of Paris” and the tall man was asked to wear the hat with a big red flower in the front, flag cape and carry the sunflower for the tune.  He loved the attention and didn’t want to take it off.  I danced with him and he spoke English.  Told me I was a “superb” dancer.  Charmer.  The best part, again, were the singers and old tunes.
Patricia (Patti while in SLO) Kohlen came to visit at the beginning of our stay.  At the moment she is back in SLO organizing the garden wedding celebration for her daughter Corinne and 100 people.  Let’s all hope they have fantastic weather.  Knowing Patti, it will be beautiful affair and Corinne will look stunning as she looks great in jeans!
At the end of our stay we had a very special visit from Caroline (Hope) Linfitt and family.  Caroline, Phil, Rebecca (Becca, Becs) age 16 and Annie age 13.
We suggested dinner at a restaurnat where we had a wonderful meal.  Unfortunately our cook must have left for vacation and a bus boy was cooking.  It was bad.  They kindly didn’t mention it.
The Hope / Davidson connection goes back to the early 1950’s and now spans three generation.  Phil and Caroline also have two pretty daughters.  They are as different as chalk and cheese, just as Skye and Tess.  You would all love listening to their charming English accents and to hear them tell of living back home.  They all have a very full life.  Cool family and it meant a lot to us that they made the effort to see us. 
Before I leave you in Paris I must mention Anna Davidson Trotter, no relation that we know of.  American, soft southern accent, funny and very cute.  She had a good friend  on board, Nigel, a charming long time canal devotee originally from the UK who helped her bring the boat through a rather difficult bit to arrive in Paris.  But other than that she has captained her barge, alone, for 11 years.   Amazing isn’t it.  
You can have money, be beautiful, the world on the string, but without friends and the people you meet life would be pretty lonely wouldn’t it?  Never underestimate your value in a persons life.
PS.  Rosie is finally getting over the loss of Noodle.  We are trying to put some weight back on her and make her feel more comfortable with us, not having the go between she so depended on.  Here she is after we were caught in the rain while out walking – she hates the rain.

Side note:  Rob went to the farmers market for fruit and vegies.  The bag that the apricots came in have a cute print of vegetables on  front and two recipes, Ratatouille Nicoise and Crème de Brocolis, on the back.  Great idea and we’ll try them.