To Our Readers – Thank You! (they said)
by unexcusedabsences 2 Sep 2011When we first started this website to document our complete abdication of responsibility, we figured it would be read by our family and a few close friends. We are delighted to discover that we are more widely read than we thought! In fact, we’ve been fortunate enough to make new friends who’ve stumbled across our little corner of the internet.
We love hearing that the Unexcused Absences site is being forwarded to folks planning a vacation or to somebody who wants to do a bit of armchair adventuring. And best of all, we love hearing from readers when they comment on our posts! We really enjoy interacting with a community of folks whose thinking and outlook are similar to ours.
So, thank you for reading, thank you for commenting, thank you for sharing with us! Unexcused Absences is nothing without our readers!
Next week we’re off to France to continue our canal cruise on Après Ski, so hopefully the posts will become more interesting very soon. As we mentioned earlier, the boat has been moved to south-west Bourgogne (Burgundy), land of farms, forests, and wine! We will be reporting from the beautiful Canal du Nivernais, a very old waterway originally used to haul firewood and limestone to Paris. As of 2011, the locks are still fully manual – in fact they are some of the few remaining manual locks in Europe – so hopefully we’ll have enough strength remaining in our arms and hands to write about the experience!
Finally, we have something new — an updated and modernized web site! Heather’s been working on the web site all summer (when she hasn’t been sewing curtains for the boat). In addition to freshening up the look and improving the comments section, the web site’s also had a number of technical changes behind the scenes that mean the site should work better on more devices (smart phones and iPads), and has a great framework for some fun additions in the future. If you normally read our posts in email or in Facebook, try clicking on over to unexcusedabsences.com to view the complete package!
Congratulations on the redesigned website. It is great!
We traveled on the Nivernais in 2000 from Corbigny to Joigny. The Corbigny end was very rural, lots of cows along the banks. We also saw deer, owls, heron. We arrived on a Saturday, biked into Corbigny to the super marche for provisions. Just enough for dinner and breakfast in the morning. Well the next day, aside from being Sunday, was Mother’s Day. Nothing was open! Around lunch time we tied up at a canal side restaurant with a large sign detailing their fabulous menu – steak frites! – CLOSED.
The guide book provided with the boat showed a market in a town a few hours away. We arrived at 3pm, biked into a town five houses big. One of the houses had a coca cola sign on the side of it but nothing else to denote a store. We got off of our bikes to discuss what to do?! A second story window opened, a man stuck his head out to ask if he could help. We said we were looking for a store. He said, “C’est moi!”, came downstairs, opened his door. We were in a one room “market” that had everything; produce, bread, meats, wine, hard liquor! We filled 3 boxes full of groceries! The gentleman delivered all to our boat on the canal. We had such a feast!
Tannay was a nice town to bike up to. The WWI monument in the town center is sobering. So many young men lost from such a small village. At that time there was a nice restaurant/inn right by the bridge over the canal where you tie up. Irancy, a nice little wine town, is well worth biking up to. There are a few degustation places in town.
We also liked Auxerre, the largest town along our route. There is a laundry mat in the marina and a huge hyper marche within walking distance. The old town on the left bank is well worth exploring. Joigny has a wonderful farmers market on Saturday that spills out of the covered maket place along the river. We walked up to a church as the town peters out up on the vine covered hill and were rewarded by a wedding in progress.
Such a lovely area! Bring gloves for opening the locks – they are often times covered with black grease,
Bon voyage…
Thanks for all of the advice! We’re actually in Corbigny right now. We arrived in Paris last Wednesday, outfitted our boat and are now on our way. Yes, the countryside here is just lovely. We traveled this stretch of canal two years ago on a hire boat before purchasing our boat, and the amazing countryside, the incredible people (I love your market story) really helped us make the decision to purchase a boat. We didn’t make it to Irancy and your suggestion of biking and tasting sounds great! Were there any particular caves you preferred? We’re definitely going to follow through on your suggestion!
Thanks for the laundromat tip, too. This part of France seems a little short of laundromats!
Please let us know next time you’re here — we’ll probably still be cruising around Bourgogne!