Unexcused Absences

The good news is we’re back in France aboard our canal boat Après Ski. The not-so-good news is that it’s been raining cats, dogs, and rodents for a month. The ground is saturated and the rivers are completely full (when they’re not actually in flood). In hindsight we could have delayed our arrival for a couple weeks and joined our friends vacationing in St Martin right now (hi Barbie, Sarah and Jeff!).

Après Ski during the one hour of sunshine so far this trip

Still, in the interest of maximizing fun, we’re working with what we’ve been given. Our plan to travel north on the Nivernais Canal to the Yonne River to the Seine River to Paris to Champagne to Dijon this summer still has some uncertainty because of the continuing rain, but things are better now than they were five days ago. When we arrived there were three distinct obstacles to our cruise; the Nivernais Canal to our north was blocked due to some winter repairs that had been washed out by the flooding, the Seine River was in major flood because of heavy upstream rains, and the Nivernais Canal to our south was blocked because the Loire River was in flood (the Loire Canal is a potential alternate route to Paris in case the Nivernais remains closed).

Ted in front of the floodwaters, Clamecy

But now the repairs to our north have been re-repaired, and the Seine is dropping to a manageable level. However… the new uncertainty is that the Yonne River is now in flood, and because the Nivernais Canal sometimes shares a channel with the river, the Nivernais is once again closed north of us due to a particularly dangerous river crossing.

Our friends Ted (the Minister of Leisure) and Todd joined us a few days ago for a visit to “sunny” Burgundy, where it proceeded to rain each and every day. For the first few days of their trip we moved slowly north on the canal. We visited such favorite restaurants along the way as the Auberge du Centre (mooring the boat in Montceau le Comte and taking the short jaunt into town) and the Hostellerie de la Fontaine (by car), finally arriving in Clamecy Monday evening. All the great food and cheese along the way kept our spirits up, even in the face of unending rain. With our rental car we visited the hilltop village of Vézelay, about 20 minutes away. Although it was raining (surprise), it is still a beautiful town, and we visited the big church and ate some savory crepes and toured a couple of the local wine producers, most of whom specialize in tasty un-oaked whites with a hint of flint.

Wine tasting with Raoul (left) and Luc

Tuesday we arranged a special wine tasting in Les Caves de Clamecy, our favorite wine merchant in western Burgundy. Luc set us up for a degustation of mostly local wines, and we all had a great afternoon talking about and tasting his delicious wines. We have a special relationship with Luc, as we were his very first customers a year ago when he bought the shop from the previous owner. And to make it even more special, Luc invited Raoul, the previous owner, to drop by that afternoon, so we all enjoyed a nice little reunion. Raoul, who we first met two years ago when he owned the business, speaks British English so flawlessly that it was only after all this time that we realized he’s actually French!

Raoul with his most favorite wine, a 2006 Montrachet Grand Cru

That evening we had a nice dinner at Les Deux Pieces, a place well worth the visit if you can get past the decor, which consists of a handful of cuckoo clocks and several dozen teddy bears of various shapes, sizes and colors. There are actually fewer teddy bears now than two years ago, even if some of them remain hanging in slightly disturbing manners from hooks in the ceiling. The owner/chef and his wife are delightful though, and we had a very nice relaxing evening. Wednesday our itinerary suffered a bit of a setback; the Yonne River had risen to a point that navigation was closed completely on the northern Nivernais. Rumor is that later this week there will be snow in the higher elevations around us (I guess we continue to bring snow with us wherever we go, see our previous post on the subject), so for now we will just stay in Clamecy and see what the weather brings. Odds are, more rain.

Another wine tasting in Vézelay