Unexcused Absences Spring 2012 - Week4 Recap (he said)

Spring 2012 – Week4 Recap (he said)

by Kent 10 Jun 2012

If you remember from last week’s update, we spent Saturday night tied up to the bank on the river Seille. Sunday morning, we had just slipped our lines from the tree-and-wooden-post mooring when the rain started. And then turned into a downpour. We motored in the pouring rain upstream on the river to the end of the navigable portion at the old market village of Louhans.

Chalon-sur-Saône

Meanwhile, the Floating Village is starting to fill up, two boats exiting a lock we were queued for were flying big American flags. And as we passed, we realized one of the boats belonged to Karen & John, folks we had met during our boat-buying trip to France two years ago. Lots of waving and a quick exchange of “where-are-you-headed” before we had to enter the lock, it looks like we can catch up with them early next week in St. Jean-de-Losne.

Church in Louhans

In the fall of 2010, in the first stages of our boat-buying trip to France, we had spent a couple days chasing dead ends. Lots of boats that looked great on the internet in the summer of 2010 looked pretty beat up in person that autumn. And to make matters worse, a very promising ex-charter boat we had watched all summer had sold a week before we arrived in France. So by late in the day, when we were inspecting boats at Bourgogne Marine, on the western end of the Doubs Canal a few kilometers from St. Jean-de-Losne, we were in a pretty glum mood (we had not yet met “Comet 13”, which was to become Après Ski). And then we heard a boat in the lock, and turned to see a big American flag flying behind a beautiful steel Dutch cruiser. We walked over and introduced ourselves to Karen and John, and they invited us over for happy hour once they got parked back in St. J-de-L. They were a fount of good boating knowledge, and gave us a full tour of their boat, along with some good advice for our hope-to-be-soon boat purchase. We have exchanged a few emails since, and it was really fun to see them in person drive out of a lock, from the deck of our own boat!

Louhans

Monday morning the water had risen about half a meter – and with the rise, a corresponding increase in current – a meaningful amount on a small river like this. So we let prudence dictate that we stay a second night in Louhans, a lovely port with a nice Capitainerie whose mooring fee included high speed internet and nice hot showers. That morning we walked a kilometer to the famous weekly poultry market in Louhans, with acres of live chickens, ducks, geese, grouse, quail, guineafowl, etc., plus an actual 47 pound rooster, like on the label for Rex Goliath wine! This bird was the size of a Labrador Retriever.

The bifurcated church in Louhans – note the two altars!

The afternoon gave us a nice chance to thoroughly explore the town, including the ancient (13th century) market street with an arched covered walkway, and l’église Saint-Pierre, a church with two altars. Really! The altars are side-by-side, in two separate rooms. Two sets of pews, two sets of stained glass windows – heck, for all we know, two priests – but all in one church. And no explanation, either in the church or on Wikipedia.

Cuisery, the “book village”

Tuesday the river level had dropped, so we set off back downstream and pulled up in Loissy, a rural mooring near an old mill (still in operation, but no visitors allowed), and had a terrific bike ride further downstream to the “Book Village” of Cuisery. Cuisery is one of four official book villages in France, and about 80% of the shops on the main street are either booksellers, book binders, or in some way connected with books – a great way to spend an afternoon. On our ride back to the boat we popped into a wine cave and discovered some white Mâconnais and a red Bergerac we liked (yes, Bergerac is in the south). Our plans for dinner were foiled, though, we had received several independent recommendations for the restaurant on the hill in Loissy, and walking up there discovered it was “fermé Mardi” (closed Tuesday), again reinforcing Heather’s thesis that much of France is usually closed.

Tournus

Wednesday we cruised about 20 minutes into Cuisery, parked for a couple hours so we could get another hit of the delicious baguette from Amelie Aurelier Boulangerie, and walked up the hill to discover they were… closed Wednesdays. Fortunately Cuisery is a two-boulangerie town, and we found a good baguette for lunch. In the afternoon we continued down river, exited the Seille, and turned back north towards Chalon-sur-Saône. Had we turned south, we would come to first Mâcon, then Lyon, and then could join the Rhône and continue all the way to the Med. But we turned north.

An hour upriver brought us to Tournus, a very old city we had passed on our way downriver about five days previously. Tournus has a nice walking section full of restaurants and shops, including a restaurant, Le Bourgogne, for which we had received two independent reviews. It supposedly served delicious regional cuisine at a very reasonable price in a great atmosphere, and in addition to the direct reviews we saw that it had a top rating on Trip Advisor. Excited to try it out, we stopped by on our walk around town to discover that it was… closed Wednesdays (yes, much of France is usually closed).

Tournus waterfront

The abbey church in Tournus

Tournus has been around for a very long time. The townhouses – still in use – in the city center were built in the first half of the 16th century. The 11th century abbey church of St-Philbert (built on the site of a 6th century sanctuary) is a regional tourist destination, and serves as a reminder of the extensive history of the area; a Roman garrison back in the day, it has seen its share of epidemics, feudal and religious wars, etc.

Thursday morning we woke to a freshening wind, fortunately for us from the south. By the time we got underway, it was blowing a solid 25 knots, but as a dead-on tail wind, it didn’t affect our travels. I would not, however, want to have cruised against the wind that day; since the river was quite wide it built up some pretty serious chop. Our timing was perfect, because we arrived in Chalon-sur-Saône about one hour ahead of a massive thunderstorm, which we rode out safely tied to the dock at the port de plaisance. After the storm, we again visited the world’s biggest grocery store, Carrefour, to re-provision. This grocery/clothing/hardware/housewares/winery/electronics/appliance store actually had staff on rollerblades to help speed their trips around the floor.

Friday market in Chalon

Friday morning was again market day in Chalon-sur-Saône, readers may remember we timed last week’s visit to the city to coincide with the big street market, and we got to have a second go at it this week. More sausage, more cheese, and more roti chicken from the same vendor as last week occupied our morning. The vendor again complimented our American accent, he either actually finds our accent charming (doubtful), or else he is really grateful that we continue to buy his delicious chicken.

Le Petit Buchon

On the way back to the boat we decided to defer the chicken to a later meal and try a little restaurant we had seen a week ago. Remember that Chalon-sur-Saône has a regionally famous restaurant row, and we were curious about this little place just off the main drag. As a general rule, when there are a number of expensive restaurants in a well-known rue gastronomique (gourmet street), it’s often the places off the main drag that have to step up their game or go out of business, because they can’t compete on location alone. Such was the case with Le Petit Bouchon (roughly, the Little Wine Cork). We inspected their 19 euro menu (fixed-price multi-course meal) and decided to give it a try. We have rarely made such a monumentally good choice as our decision to eat here. My appetizer was a stunning array of flavors; a salad with French-style bacon, a scoop of curried rice and beans, and a two-cheese-filled pastry with melted brie all over the top (that’s three cheeses, if you’re counting). The main was a fillet of white fish in a bed of tangy red tomato and mint sauce, with a scoop of pureed avocado and herb and a bunch of other stuff on the side. Dessert was a meringue-type ball of deliciousness floating in the most unreal swirl of melted white and dark chocolate with banana slices milling around the edge of the dish. This incredible meal is made almost entirely from ingredients grown, raised, smoked and cured à maison (in house).

My app at Le Petit Bouchon; cheese-filled pastry, bacon, salad, and other yummy stuff

This restaurant gave us one of our top meals ever. The wait staff was a hoot too, a nice young guy who spoke only French, and his sidekick, a wise-cracking 30-something who knew lots of English slang and was happy to show it off. He also happily volunteered to teach us naughty French words, vastly expanding our vocabulary. Anytime we are anywhere near southern Burgundy in the future we will seek out Le Petit Bouchon. It was a memorable meal in every possible respect. And on top of all that, two huge meals plus wine came to 44 euros. A stunning bargain in gastronomie.

That afternoon we made our first fuel purchase of the season, 160 liters of diesel (we’ve dropped our burn 20% to two liters per hour with the new propeller), then motored up the Saône to a delightful spot, Verdun-sur-le-Doubs. This town has even more history than Tournus; the Romans established a river port here in the first century AD! The church was not terribly old, but was quite unique of all the churches we’ve toured in France. The ceiling was a wooden half-circle, like the inside of a barrel. A friendly and knowledgeable Capitainerie and a nice town square directly over the port rounded out the facilities.

Unique church in Verdun-sur-le-Doubs

Saturday was the definition of a full rich day. We awoke early and jumped on the bikes for a bit of exercise, riding back downriver to a town we had passed on our drive up the previous day, Gergy (two soft g’s). We didn’t notice anything special about the town until we spied a small sign down a side road that read ferme de chèvre (goat cheese farm). Readers may not be aware that my favorite wife absolutely adores goat cheese. And we have followed several dead ends over the past year trying to find a working goat farm to taste and buy cheese.

Baby goat at the cheese farm

But that’s exactly what we found in Gergy; a real live goat cheese operation with a very friendly matrone (matriarch). She led us through a tasting of various types and ages of goat cheese, and we bought a slab of aged goat cheese of a type we had bypassed multiple times at markets and cheese counters because of the quite unappetizing look of the thing; sort of a rotten-moldy rind of several unsavory colors. Yes, we love bleu cheese with its ribbons of mold, as well as the thick and hard moldy rinds of Cantal and Salers, but this one just didn’t look like something you’d want to put in your mouth. And yet one taste, and we knew we’d been making a big mistake the past year. If you close your eyes and don’t think too hard about what you’re eating (like a lot of things in France, come to think about it), you’re rewarded with a savory, complex, absolutely delicious suite of flavors. So I guess there are still things to learn about French cheese!

Verdun-sur-le-Doubs

We rode back to Verdun a little heavier, some cheese in our stomachs and some strapped to the bikes, and enjoyed a smashing lunch at the Kebab des Trois Rivieres (Three-River Kebab), done Turkish-style by a young couple who were quite surprised when I greeted them with a “merhaba” (hello in Turkish). This kebab was absolutely one of the top three we’ve ever tasted. It was probably better than Le Royal Kebab in St. Gilles, whose real specialty is baklava. And it might even have been better than the Istanbul Kebab in Sens on the river Yonne in northern Burgundy. Whatever its exact place in the top three, it was by far the juiciest kebab out there.

A baguette-delivery bike at the bread museum

An hour later we showed up at the door of la Maison du Blé et du Pain (the House of Wheat and Bread), a museum devoted to all things that strike terror in the heart of a Celiac sufferer. The most interesting part was a 10-minute video detailing the exact process of creating a baguette, something extremely close to our hearts. It’s surprisingly complex. I think I remember from the museum that there are something like 44,000 boulangerie (bakeries) in France. We will do our best to report on as many of them as possible.

Europa Cup soccer on the dock

Saturday afternoon, in spite of all the things we had done so far, we found time to motor a couple hours up-river to the town of Seurre, where we moored up on the visitor’s pontoon a half kilometer below the lock. We had seen a placard in Verdun advertising the evening’s Europa Cup 2012 football (soccer) match between Germany and Poland, so were hoping to find a cafe in Seurre to watch the game.

We noticed all the German guys from the boat two slips down had set up chairs on the dock, and we just figured they were sick of the boat and wanted to enjoy happy hour on dry land. But once we walked over, we noticed they had a big flat-panel TV with satellite antenna set up on the deck of their rental boat, and were gearing up to watch the match! So Heather whipped together her famous apple spice cake for intermission and we ended our week by joining the Germans for an evening of Fußball. Fortunately for our hosts, Germany won the match 1-0 on a late header by Mario Gómez (good German name).

See, I told you Saturday was a full, rich day!

Spring 2012 Week 4 Numbers: