Unexcused Absences

A lot of things happen in a week. Sunday morning the three of us (me, Dad and Heather) woke up in our little (and I mean little) rental apartment in Paris and walked over to Rue Daguerre for an amazing pastry breakfast at the boulangerie about one block west of Place Denfert-Rochereau.

At least someone back then had a sense of humor

From there we went directly to the Louvre since we had promised Dad some quality time with the Dutch Masters. Embracing local knowledge, we entered through the side door (line: approximately 1 minute), not the front (line: approximately 1 hour). Thank you Dana! It took the entire morning just to get to the 15th/16th/17th century Dutch section because there were so many other interesting paintings along the way (if you haven’t visited yet, the Louvre is BIG).

La Tour Eiffel at dusk

Sunday evening we found a small crêperie  for dinner – we were staying in Montparnasse, after all, the center of Bretagne ex-pats in Paris. Afterwards we took Le Métro over to La Tour Eiffel to enjoy the tower in its ideal state, all lit up at dusk. And then all too soon it was Monday morning and time to get Dad on the bus back to the airport for his flight home (but not before visiting the same boulangerie for some more delicious pastries).

The train back to Nevers and then Decize was a piece-o-cake, and we picked up some incredible kebabs at Istanbul Kebab on the north side of old Decize. I think this was our fifth time through Decize, and the proprietor remembered us from previous visits. I’m not sure how a 5 euro dinner of shaved Halal meat with white sauce stuffed into a pita can be so delicious, but it is.

Locking through at Decize with David and Ondra

Tuesday I got a recommendation from the Le Boat base for where to buy batteries, as the original “house” batteries that came with our boat were nearing the end of their useful life. The nice folks at the Dumas-Colinot auto-supply store gave me a discount when I said I wanted to buy two, and they even gave me a lift back to the boat so I didn’t have to carry two 70lb batteries two miles to the marina. Total bill for two 12 Volt, 100 Amp-hour batteries was just under 200 euros, quite a deal I think.

That afternoon David and Ondra from Old and Bold invited us over for tea, and we got fully caught up on the comings and goings of this nice couple from New Zealand. We had a brief happy hour with them last week in Cercy-la-Tour, but there is just so much for boaters to talk about (questions about each other’s boats, questions about where everyone’s boated, dreams about where to go boating next, etc.). Late afternoon we locked up into the Loire Canal together and then they turned right towards Briare and the Seine and we turned left towards Digoin and the Saone.

Tuesday eve was an uneventful night in Gannay-sur-Loire, we met a nice couple from Pennsylvania on a hire boat and spent some time with them reviewing highlights of the Nivernais Canal, where they were headed. The next morning, on their suggestion, we rode our bikes to a goat farm a few km south and tasted and bought three different types of chèvre.

A lock on the southern Loire Canal

Wednesday evening as we pulled into Pierrefitte-sur-Loire a local family showed up with a big step ladder and a bunch of kids. The kids climbed up into a couple of cherry trees and the dad set up his step ladder and the family proceeded to gather a big bucket of ripe cherries from these public trees. We wandered over and were soon using our boat hook to pull cherries off the outer branches. In 10 minutes we had probably picked a couple kilos of fresh cherries. The family was very nice, the kids practiced their English (which was quite good) on us, and mom (Valérie) also spoke pretty good English. They had lived on a boat up until a few years ago, so were well acquainted with the waterways.

Monsieur on the step-ladder

Me with the boat hook

LOTS of cherries

Fresh cherries

Thursday we drove the final couple hours into Digoin, then I set to work on a boat project that had been on my “to-do” list for quite some time, and Heather put in an afternoon of work for our client in the Bahamas. And then late in the afternoon, a knock on the hull, and it was Marianne and Jean-Pierre, our good friends from Dijon! This wasn’t quite the surprise I make it out to be, as we had spoken to them the day before about coming for a visit, but it was still wonderful to see them and we still can’t believe they drove almost two hours (each way) to come visit us on a weeknight. We caught up with all our mutual news since we saw them last fall on our trip to the grape harvest.

Jean-Pierre’s appetizer – shaved melon and smoked duck’s breast

Friday we remained in Digoin and visited the weekly market, then did some more work for our client back home, and that evening we settled in to the shaded picnic table for a happy hour visit with Tony and Yvonne of Hors d’Age (roughly, “Ageless”). They were sailors from England who had basically “sold up and sailed out,” as the English say, and were enjoying a relaxed retirement cruising the French and Belgian waterways. And then an actual surprise, Valerie (from the cherry picking two days ago) and her co-worker showed up, they had been right across the street for some work that day and saw our boat and came over. Such a nice surprise. Her co-worker was originally Italian, so a the table we had several conversations going (Heather and Enzo in Italian, and me, Valerie and Tony alternating between English and French). There are few things better than relaxing on the banks of the canal eating French cheese and talking with new friends.

I also have to mention the pizza restaurant in the main square next to the church, Resto-Pizz. We ate there last year accidentally – we were out for a walk and suddenly a downpour hit so we ducked into the nearest door, which happened to be Resto-Pizz – and the pizzas were absolutely delicious. This year we had to confirm that it was as good as we remembered, and it was. So if you crave a good pizza and find yourself in the vicinity of Digoin, make sure you give them a try.

Crossing the Loire into Digoin

All too soon it was Saturday morning and time to move on, so we pointed Après Ski north-east and plotted a course (not too difficult in a narrow ditch) to Génelard. On the way we stopped in Paray-le-Monial, a pretty tourist town with nice walking streets and many boulangerie and an interesting basilica from about the 11th century. Later in the afternoon we arrived in Génelard and saw not one, but two American flags flying from big Dutch barges. I wandered over to chat with the folks on Pelican and discovered that Bob had been an airline pilot for United and had lived in the DC area for a number of years, including a few years living on a sailboat in Baltimore’s inner harbor! Jacqui was English and loved to travel, so their 14 years of retirement (so far) have not gone to waste. They are both skiers and sailors so we had almost infinite topics to chat about. We ended up having happy hour and then dinner with them on their beautiful 101-year-old boat. And to make matters even more interesting, they know our “barge mentors” Eric and Sudi from Oldtimer very well. The “floating village” is actually quite small.

Port in Génelard

So in the seven days of Week 4 we visited the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the rural countryside, a couple small Burgundian towns, and met two new sets of friends and re-connected with two old sets of friends. Not bad for a week’s work.

France 2013 Week 4 Numbers:

• Kilometers: 102
• Locks: 26
• Engine Hours: 18
• Cost of Moorings: 18.50 euros (two nights in Digoin)

France 2013 Total Numbers:

• Kilometers: 264
• Locks: 147
• Engine Hours: 67
• Cost of Moorings: 18.50 euros

France 2013 -Week 4 Route

The Digoin post office

Fill ‘em up and drive ‘em home

Basilica in Paray-le-Monial

Dusk in Digoin

Paray-le-Monial

11th Century Basilica in Paray-le-Monial

And then summer came to Burgundy! Up through week 2, the weather was distinctly wintery; highs in the 50′s, lows approaching freezing (fortunately, Michel got our heater working again over the winter).

And then, the sun

But Dad showed up Saturday afternoon, and apparently he has the magic touch because the sun came out and by Monday we were in short pants. The French tourist bureau should consider comping his plane ticket. Rather than continuing to wait in Clamecy for the Nivernais Canal to open to the north, we decided to point Après Ski south towards Decize – at least we would be on the move again.

Lock mechanism

Our enthusiasm for getting on the road was tempered slightly because the delicious Auberge du Centre, at our Sunday night stop of Monceaux-le-Comte, was, predictably, closed Sunday. But Heather came through with a pork-mushroom-red-pepper-cream-sauce-over-rice for dinner. The wines we bought at Luc’s place (Caves de Clamecy) made an appearance, and we ate very well, indeed.

Hand-cranked lift bridge in Dirol

Monday we drove to the base of the Sardy lock staircase, a set of 16 locks in a 4 km stretch. Incredibly, Tuesday morning we climbed the entire staircase between the 9am opening and the noon closing for lunch. Quite a feat of canal travel. After lunch we cruised through the three tunnels at La Colancelle, and arrived in Baye (our winter spot for the past few years and the starting point for this year’s cruise) by early afternoon. Michel, the owner of the marina, was very kind to let me borrow his car to get a new starting battery for the engine, as our old one was showing signs of age. Fortunately, in rural France, there are tractor stores everywhere, and tractor stores mean diesel starting batteries (which cost a fraction of marine batteries).

Going up the staircase

New battery in place, we started down the south side of the Nivernais, descending eight more locks to the little hamlet of Mont-et-Marré. On Michel’s recommendation we went to the little local restaurant, La Béroalde, which turned out to be an amazing find. The place is very basic, not much more than picnic tables on a concrete floor, with the kitchen occupying a corner of the main room. But wow, the meal – Burgundy snail and hot chèvre salad appetizers, faux-filet of beef with mushroom and Roquefort sauce, magret de canard, and both a cheese course and a desert course (homemade fondant au chocolate) plus a liter of delicious Côtes du Rhône wine, and the bill for three was 66 euros.  Our only regret was missing this restaurant the last four times we’ve passed this way. The owner/cook would put many gastronomique restaurants to shame, if he lived anywhere but deepest rural France.

Après ski in Châtillon-en-Bazois

Wednesday the beautiful weather continued and we drove to Châtillon-en-Bazois for lunch and a stroll through town. With the free water we topped off our tanks, then continued down the canal to Fleury, in hopes of finally eating at the restaurant next to lock 21. Each time previously through this stretch of canal had been in either early or late season, and the restaurant is only open June through September. It was a good sign that some patrons were relaxing with drinks at a table, but when I went in to make a reservation for the evening I discovered that the kitchen was under renovation! So again, another year passes and we have yet to try the restaurant at lock 21.

Flowers in Châtillon-en-Bazois

As we approached the quay in Cercy-la-Tour Thursday afternoon we spotted our friends, David and Ondra, on “Old and Bold”, a Dutch river cruiser. We had seen them briefly in Chitry-les-Mines a few weeks earlier, but at that point we had a schedule to keep to pick up our friends Todd and Ted, so we didn’t get much of a chance to catch up. We originally met them two years ago, when we were both just starting our canal cruising lives. Now, with two years cruising under our belts, we had a lot to catch up on during our long happy hour at a picnic table by the quay.

That evening we took the recommendation of the eclusierre (lock keeper) and made a reservation at La Flambée, on top of the hill in front of the church. It was basic cooking, but there is not a better value in all of France; appetizer, main course, cheese, dessert, and pitcher of wine for 12.50 euro each. Total bill for a tasty – if not exactly gastronomique – meal for three was 37.50.

Friday morning we exited the southern end of the Nivernais canal at St Léger-des-Vignes and transited the Loire River to the boat basin at Decize. The crossing only opened two days earlier (due to flooding), and the Loire was still flowing mighty quickly for our little boat. The current was easily 5km/hr, and at our speed of 8km/hr it took us 40 minutes to motor two kilometers upstream. It was a relief to cross the river, because from Decize we can now stay in canals either most of the way to Paris (north), or almost to Dijon (east). We will decide this weekend which way to go.

Lunch spot near Cercy-la-Tour

Friday evening we strolled through the old section of Decize, with its city walls and one 14th century covered gate still standing. Heather wanted to people-watch so we settled in to a table in the main square and enjoyed a proper French evening of cafe sitting. The bar/cafe/restaurant (Brasserie le Decetia- the old Latin name for Decize when the area was under Roman rule) also served simple meals, so we stayed for dinner and had delicious moules-frites (steamed mussels and fries) and a  filet de bœuf with creamy mushroom sauce. With happy hour drinks and appetizers and desert and a liter of Macon-Villages white wine it was again a very tasty and reasonably priced evening – less than 70 euros.

Dad checks out the old stamps

Saturday morning we packed up and hopped a train to Paris, as we had promised Dad some big city living on this trip. Of course if the weather had cooperated we would have been in Paris on our boat, but this was the next best thing. We found a little apartment suite near Montparnasse for the weekend, and Heather and I will return to the boat Monday evening after sending Dad back to the US. We finished off the week with a visit to the big Paris marché aux timbres (stamp market), as Dad is an avid collector and is very close to having a complete French stamp collection (at least for the first 100 years of the French postal service, 1840 to 1940). Saturday evening our friend Dana hosted us at her gorgeous apartment near Luxembourg Gardens for a nice dinner and get-together.

I think all of France (as well as we) can be grateful that Dad came to visit; the weather was glorious this week. He leaves Monday, and it is forecast to start raining again.

France 2013 Week 3 Numbers:

• Kilometers: 115
• Locks: 74
• Engine Hours: 32
• Cost of Moorings: 0.00 euros

France 2013 Total Numbers:

• Kilometers: 162
• Locks: 121
• Engine Hours: 49
• Cost of Moorings: 0.00 euros

France 2013 – Week 3 Route

Countryside near Tannay

Countryside near Baye/Bazolles

Morning in Mont-et-Marré

Double lock at Mont-et-Marré

Stamp vendor checking inventory

Château at Châtillon

A scenic lock on the southern Nivernais

A quick look at the “numbers” section at the bottom of this post should tell the tale; we have been “stuck” in Clamecy for a week. Of course being “stuck” in a beautiful historic town in rural Burgundy with a fun market, great boulangerie, a nice wine merchant,  free moorings and a tasty kebab stand isn’t too much of a tragedy, so don’t break out the tiny violins for us just yet.

A (rare) sunny moment in Clamecy

The cause of the delay is the continued rain throughout France. Because the canals sometimes share space with the rivers, a flood can shut down sections of the canal. At Clamecy, just past lock 47, the canal enters the Yonne River, which has been flooded for a couple weeks. And so we (and Après Ski) wait.

Place de l’église, Clamecy

Our week was quite productive, though. Heather put in quite a few hours of work on the big website we’re building for our client in the Bahamas, and I got some other work and reading done. I also took some time to go out and snap photos, and in general we had a very relaxing week with no schedule or itinerary to maintain.

By far the highlight of the week was the Wednesday visit by our friends Marie-Hélène and Christian, who we met while we were cruising the Briare Canal in October, 2011. They live in the southern suburbs of Paris and spend summers aboard their river cruiser, Wisdom. We were hoping to rendezvous with them on the Seine River in early June, but because of all the closures (the Seine is also currently closed to small boat traffic), they kindly offered to drive down to see us in Clamecy.

Chateau de Bazoches

We had a proper French lunch (sit down, bottle of local wine, delicious meal) up in the main square at La Vieille Rome, an Italian place we have visited before. After lunch they offered to drive us over to Château de Bazoches, the home of the famous French military engineer Maréchal Vauban. During the rein of Louis XIV Vauban quite literally wrote the book on both securing fortresses against attack and in laying siege to enemy forts. He was truly a prodigy; by his 27th birthday he had participated in or directed ten sieges with distinction. By the time he was 30, he had directed another three big sieges such that he received a promotion to colonel.

A unique church

While he is mainly famous these days for designing fortresses and fortified towns throughout France, his greatest renown during his life was as an architect of methods of attack against strongholds. His systematic approach was so well thought-out and documented that his methods remained relevant from the mid 17th century right up to the dawn of the 20th century. He was most certainly not an under-achiever; during the last 40 years of his life he upgraded the fortifications of close to 300 cities, and directed the building of 37 new fortresses.

A close second to our Wednesday rendezvous was a surprise visit by Bruce, of the barge Rival. We were enjoying a rare moment of good weather late one afternoon, sitting on our upper deck, when a car pulled into port. The driver looked at us and did a double-take; Bruce had just arrived from Seattle that day and was driving to his boat, located another hour or so south of Clamecy. He had driven into the port to see what the situation was with the flooding, and there we were! His wife Yerda was planning to join him in a couple weeks for their summer cruise, and he had arrived early to begin de-wintering their boat. Heather cooked up a dinner and we had a fun time catching up since we had parted ways last October on the Loire Canal. The floating village is filling with its summer residents!

Saturday saw the arrival of my father, who showed up on time at the train station in Clamecy for a nine day visit. Unless a miracle occurs and the canal opens to our north Sunday morning, we will turn south at the start of Week 3 and see where the open canals take us.

France 2013 Week 2 Numbers:

• Kilometers: 0
• Locks: 0
• Engine Hours: 0
• Cost of Moorings: 0.00 euros

France 2013 Total Numbers:

• Kilometers: 47
• Locks: 47
• Engine Hours: 18
• Cost of Moorings: 0.00 euros

France 2013 Week 2 Route

Old section of Clamecy

Old bollard in the port

Bazoches

Misty morning in Clamecy

As noted in our previous post, the rain that has plagued France since about Christmas time continues. Because the canals are tightly integrated with the local rivers (both to gain water during dry periods and to shed excess water during wet periods), the river state can have an impact on whether certain canal sections are open or closed.

Definitely NOT navigable; the flooded Yonne River in Clamecy

We continue to find ourselves in Clamecy, on the Nivernais Canal. It’s actually a perfect place to be stuck, as the town boasts four boulangerie, two kebab stands, a nice market, and bigger stores (including a professional bricolage for the inevitable boat projects) a short bike ride away. Plus the town has a very scenic old walking quarter.

The NIvernais Canal is close to 200 years old

Like many small towns in France, this place of ~4,500 souls has a quirky claim to fame. The town was founded in the 7th century by the Bishop of Auxerre, and remained in his abbey for close to five centuries, when it passed to the Count of Nevers (perhaps the Bishop lost it in a poker game). And this is where it gets interesting; Count William IV of Nevers, while out on the Second Crusade, promised the Bishop of Bethlehem that he would welcome him in Clamecy. And when Jerusalem fell to Saladin in 1187, that’s exactly what happened. The Bishop of Bethlehem duly took up residence in the hospital of Panthenor, Clamecy, which remained the continuous in partibus infidelium (Latin for “in the lands of unbelievers”) seat of the Bishopric of Bethlehem for almost 600 years until the French Revolution in 1789. Wow!

Our 2013 cruise started in our winter spot in Baye, at the top of the Nivernais Canal. Michel, owner of Aqua Fluvial, did a very nice rebuild of our upper deck to repair a large soft spot, and Après Ski wears her new deck proudly. The first few days of travel north were through a very rural section on the edge of the Morvan forest. Civilization gradually appeared at the towns Chitry-les-Mines, Monceaux-le-Comte, and Tannay. Our friends Todd and Ted joined us in Chitry and shared a few days of travel with us into Clamecy.

The original plan was to spend a couple nights in Clamecy, then continue northward and arrive in Auxerre by the end of Week 1. Mother Nature had other plans for us, and so we spent the remainder of the week in Clamecy. The good news is the Hostellerie-de-la-Poste, a small inn near the port, offered us hot showers (nice!). And we still took full advantage of all the town has to offer, like the weekly food market, beautiful evening walks, and wine tastings at Les Caves de Clamecy, our favorite wine merchant we talked about in the previous post.

Wine tasting at Luc’s place

So other than being a bit behind in our summer itinerary, for which we have a couple weeks of slack built in for contingencies such as this, we’re both very happy to be back on our little canal boat in France.

France 2013 Week 1 Numbers:

• Kilometers: 47
• Locks: 47
• Engine Hours: 18
• Cost of Moorings: 0.00 euros

France 2013 Total Numbers:

• Kilometers: 47
• Locks: 47
• Engine Hours: 18
• Cost of Moorings: 0.00 euros

France 2013 Week1 Route

Lock 24 near Corbigny

WWI monument in Vézelay

Our wine “closet” after visiting Luc

Clamecy

After getting the boat parked and winterized at the Aqua Fluvial boatyard in Baye, on the Canal du Nivernais in western Burgundy, we hopped in the rental car and pointed north. First stop was a visit to Vézelay, an historic and beautiful hilltop village between the Nivernais and Burgundy canals.

A door in the church courtyard, Vézelay

Legend has it that about 1000 years ago a monk named Baudillon brought relics (bones) of Mary Magdalene to Vézelay. Pope Stephen IX confirmed the authenticity of the relics, triggering an influx of pilgrims that continues to this day. Vézelay Abbey was also a starting point for pilgrims on the Way of St. James to Santiago de Compostela, one of the most important of all medieval pilgrimage centres.

Vineyards in Vézelay

The majority of the religious Crusades launched from southern France, but in 1146 the Pope commissioned Bernard of Clairvaux to preach the Second Crusade, and he did it from the big church in town, Basilica of St Magdelene. And in 1189 the Frankish and English contingent of the Third Crusade met at Vézelay before heading off to the Holy Land. Today the town is a major tourist destination, and also anchors the Bourgogne Vézelay winemaking region, a respected appellation that produces a “fresh, steely white wine,” at least according to Wine Searcher.

After our brief stop in Vézelay we continued northward for 45 minutes and arrived in Auxerre to spend the night with Wendy and Roger on Izula. Readers might remember we had a surprise reunion with them in Sens during Week 1. They had finished their cruising for the year and were settling into their winter mooring with a gorgeous view of the Auxerre Cathedral. Winterizing our boat, Après Ski, is a slightly different process than preparing for winter aboard a 24 meter, 80-ton barge. Whereas we just change the oil and flush out all fresh water, Izula packs in several cords of wood for their cozy iron stove belowdecks. Wendy cooked a delicious dinner and we caught up on our travels since we had gone our separate ways a month ago on the Yonne River.

Evening with Wendy and Roger onboard “Izula”

The next morning we visited the fantastic wine and cheese sections at LeClerc Supermarché one last time, then drove to Paris where we dropped the car at the airport, took a train back to the city, and met our friend from Washington who had just started her new job with Renault-Nissan and was now living full-time in Paris. Wow, talk about a great life trajectory, living in arguably the most beautiful city in the world on someone else’s dime, with an important position in a world-famous company like Renault-Nissan, hers is a truly amazing achievement. We all enjoyed dinner at a local bistro, then spent one more night in France before flying home the next day.

Dawn view from our friend’s apartment in Paris

And that’s it for our time in France for 2012. We were lucky enough to get bumped on our flight home, so our return tickets for next year have been heavily subsidized, courtesy of Air France. We will continue to update our website this winter, and are already counting the days until our return to France next spring.

Like the “French Castle” scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail

“Telegraph” style engine control on Izula