Unexcused Absences Spring 2012 - Week2 Recap (he said)

Spring 2012 – Week2 Recap (he said)

by Kent 26 May 2012

On the move again! The past 7 days were one of our least-traveled weeks in France since we’ve owned the boat. Our week ended with a three hour cruise to Montchanin, the summit pound of the Canal du Centre. We’d grant that Montchanin is the least charming town in France, but that doesn’t mean there’s anything bad about it; they have a nice lake on the outskirts of town with a circumferential bike trail, and the nearby hills offer a gorgeous view over the Bourgogne paysage du sud (southern Burgundy countryside), but it just has pas de charme. From here it’s downhill into the heart of Burgundy wine region, the Cote d’Or.

Port in Montceau-les-Mines

This morning we woke up in Montceau-les-Mines, a former coal mining town now trying to reinvent itself with a hip walking neighborhood at the center of a large town/small city. And from our assessment, they’re succeeding. We arrived all the way back on Wednesday, and liked the facilities and setting so much we decided to just relax and hang out for a few days. The marina has a capitainerie, hot showers, electricity and water, and all for 5.60 euros a day. Truly a bargain considering earlier this week at Paray-le-Monial they charged us 12 euros for parking and electricity only. Yesterday (Friday), we did some morning computer work, then made a picnic lunch and rode our bikes to the Parc des Mines, a nice recovery from the big strip mine that occupied the area less than 40 years ago. The park is pretty big, and encompasses several kilometers of bike trails, a couple lakes, and a farm.

Savory crêpes at Crép-a-Dine

We lucked out in Montceau-les-Mines in two ways; first, there was a big street market Saturday morning just steps from the canal port, and second, we found a delicious crêperie about 100 meters from our boat. Heather has been foiled at every turn with trying to find a crêpe. The crêperie in Corbigny (near our winter parking spot of Baye) had gone out of business, and a crêperie in Decize was closed. To top it off, the crêperie we found in Digoin turned out to only have desert crêpes, not the meal-sized galette crêpe stuffed with savory treats like ham, cheese, potato, egg, and mushrooms. We made a special exception in our restaurant budget so we could eat twice at Crép’adine, 19 rue Jules Guesde, Montceau-les-Mines.

The relatively new church in Montceau-les-Mines

Thursday was a big work day, as well as a “dry out the boat and ourselves” day. By our count we had four days of on-and-off rain, which was OK for two reasons; one, we had a lot of computer work and boat projects to do, and two, all this rain means that the Canal du Centre’s closing for lack of water has been delayed from late May to early August. And THAT means that we can go back to our original cruising itinerary for this summer, which is to cruise east across southern Burgundy, then turn northwest through Dijon and into the Burgundy canal, which will take us to our summer parking spot in Migennes. Up until our departure from the US, it was looking like we would have to retrace our route from last fall to end up at Migennes by mid summer, but now as of about ten days ago we’re on completely new territory.

The lift bridge entering Montceau-les-Mines

Wednesday we had a fun drive from a rural mooring in Palinges, a small village near the Château Digoine, a pretty substantial house and grounds that unfortunately at this time of year were only open for tours on weekends. On our bike ride to the château we met a nice German couple also out for a ride in between rain showers. They were on a similar program as us, but they were doing their France tour by freizeit-fahrzeug (camper van) instead of boat. We had a nice chat at the gates of the château, and then we said our auf wiedersehen’s and went our separate ways. That afternoon, about an hour into our cruise towards Montceau-les-Mines, we saw them biking along the canal! At the next lock, we invited them (and their bikes) aboard for a short cruise. The short cruise turned into the rest of the afternoon, and we thoroughly enjoyed their company for our trip into M-les-M.

Basilica in Paray-le-Monial

Monday was a big day of rain, but the town of Paray-le-Monial was a nice stop if not for the outrageous (at least considering the lack of facilities) charge of 12 euros per night. The town was very attractive, with a nice central walking area, numerous boulangerie and charcuterie (butcher shops), and a very impressive 11th and 12th century church that’s a big stop on the summer pilgrimage route for Catholics. The church is funny because the right-hand tower was built in 11th century style, but by the time they got around to building the left-hand tower about 150 years later, tastes had changed and they used the latest architecture in the newer tower.

Church in Digoin town center

Sunday we spent the day relaxing in Digoin, mostly exploring the central town in between loads of laundry at the laverie automatique. Digoin dates from Roman times, and was an important town because it marks the junction of the Canal du Centre with the Loire River, the Canal lateral à la Loire, and the Canal de Roanne à Digoin. It took all our willpower to stick to our restaurant budget in Digoin, as readers will remember from last week’s recap that we had stumbled into one of the better pizza restaurants we’ve ever enjoyed (Second to Pizza Paradiso in downtown DC, of course) right in the main square of Digoin. We had to console ourselves with a nice boat-cooked meal of Heather’s tartiflette aux champignons et lardons.

So now that I’ve covered this week in reverse, I’ll look back to the future. We’re both very excited to be covering new territory this summer, although there’s certainly nothing wrong with the Loire, Briare, and Loing Canals which would have been our plan B had the Canal du Centre closed on schedule. This past week has definitely been rural, but interspersed with much bigger towns than during our previous week’s cruising. It’s been nice not having to worry about where we’ll find our next baguette, or laundromat, or grocery store. And the Canal du Centre is much more scenic than we had been led to believe. Our impression from the guidebooks was that this was mostly a “utility” canal, for getting from point A to point B, but visually, the stretch we covered this week was just beautiful.

Flooded field

An interesting side effect of the “almost closure”, most other live-aboards appear to have hurried on their way to get out of the Centre Canal before the May 20 deadline, so now that the closure has been moved back to August, we’re practically the only boat around. It makes for easy cruising (no queuing for locks, and no trouble finding parking spaces), but we miss the company of fellow cruisers a bit. We’ve only got about one more week on the Centre, though, so for now we’ll enjoy the tranquility.

Pont-canal just south of Digoin

The Centre is a reasonably old canal for this region, dating from the late 1700’s; it was built to connect the Saône watershed – which ultimately dumps into the Rhône, and from there, into the Med – and the Loire valley, gateway to both the Atlantic and, if you turn north on the Briare Canal, the English Channel. For some reason, and we’ve not gotten a satisfactory answer, the locomotion on the Canal du Centre was human powered (!) right up until the early 20th century. I believe that most other canals had used animals (horses, donkeys) for that task for centuries. The historical photographs show husband/wife teams hauling their barge along; one photo even shows the wife knitting as she walks in the harness!

We’re looking forward to this coming week as we cruise into the center of the wine universe (or at least the southern end of it).

Spring 2012 Week 2 Numbers: