FRANCE - CANALS

 Lock 42 – what shall we do?  Hot topic for all skippers, Heard any news? What are you going to do? We heard so many different versions that we in thed end we didn’t know what was the truth!  We decided to take things as they come and carry on.  

Out onto the Canal de l’Est, we looked forward to and feared this point at the same time!  The Canal de L’Est is the River Meuse which has been canalised and locked and winds through the Ardennes.  We were looking forward to it as the most spectacular landscape France could offer us, we feared it because the guaranteed minimum depth of the canals is 1.8 metres whilst we have a draft of 1.9 metres!  

The Ardennes are mountains not hills.  They rise up from the river banks in seemingly layers of ash and stone which must be millions of years old.  It’s not often that we see the rock though, because most of the time time the mountains are totally covered with trees and bushes of all kinds as far as the eye can see. 

Vicki says that it looks like a really soft cushion made out of green cotton wool. 

Just try to imagine all the shades of green possible, then add a clear blue sky with just a few white cotton wool clouds, it’s like some 3 dimensional work of art! 

Right now we have arrived to Waulsort, where we must work our way across the river to the town, in a little ferry boat which is pulled across with a rusty old cable from the harbour to the village.  

It’s evening, the temperature has fallen a little and it’s totally quiet.  No cars, motorcycles, speedboats or city noise – just a quiet that I have never before experienced.  Vicki says that the silence seems to fall and cover everything like some heavy blanket over the  whole area. 

The only sounds we can hear faraway is a dog barking, and when a fish jumps out of the water to catch  a fly, we hear it so clearly that we both look up in surprise!

The time has finally come, our bags are packed, our tickets are in our hands, we’re off to Paris.  Before we left Denmark, Per and his family had planned to meet in Paris for 5 days, as our plan was to sail along the Seine together.  However our sailing plans have been changed so instead we took a train into Paris.  It was a comfortable train journey, driving through Epernay and Reims – the Champagne district – it was very tempting to get off the train and buy a few bottles!

The first person we saw as we arrived at Rue de Clichy to find our hotel was Bendi waving frantically !! The rest of the Christensens were two doors down sitting at a pavement cafe (one of the many we would visit in the following 5 days).   

We visited all the typical places anybody visiting Paris would – Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees,  and even a day trip to Versailles.    It was fun to be together again with the Christensens and I think we all didn’t stop talking for the five days we were together.   

After 5 hectic days in Paris, Erik, Bendi, Per and Vicki said goodbye to Helle and Kurt and took the train back to Charleville-Mezieres and Sunray.  It felt good to be home again, away from the bustle of the big city. 

We soon fell into our canal sailing/lock working routine again.  Setting off between 8.30 and 9.00 a.m. with breakfast as we sail, consisting of fresh baguettes and coffee.   
The landscape around us was mainly fields in this part of France, and the weather was changing all the time, from hot sunshine and bikini weather, to sudden big downpours, when Erik managed to convince us to sail with our cockpit ”tent” zipped up so as to remain dry.  OK, we tried it once, but next time there was a downpour we preferred to put on our rain gear and use our blue parasol (which was intended to be used in the sunshine but served a better purpose in the rain!).

We stopped in Mouzon, Dun sur Meuse, Verdun (for 2 nights – see next entry), St. Miheil and Pagny sur Meuse and took a total of 42 locks along the way.  
In Mouzon we found a fresh water tap but no hose so we filled buckets of fresh water and just threw them over us to cool us down.  We had tied up outside an english boat, but when the owner returned was very upset to find strangers outside his boat, asking us very sarcastically if it was ok with us that his boat was lying inside ours, and going on about bad seamanship etc…  
Next day along the way to our next stop in Dun sur Meuse in the canal between lock 32 and Stenay we had to really slow down because the depth was only 2.0 metres,  we hit the bottom also and stopped for a while until all the crew was used as ballast and ordered by Skipper to stand on the starboard side to make her lean a bit – it worked and we sailed onwards again!

Dun sur Meuse had a good floating pontoon, however to be on the safe side because of low water we tied up outside a dutch boat.  Per and Erik went into the village in search of food and came back with ”petit moo” (veal) chops for supper (their french is rather limited!).

After Dun sur Meuse, we were approaching the one lock that we were concerned about – lock no. 24 (Consenvoye) which has sloping walls in the chamber.  However we were lucky to enter the lock with 2 other boats who took the sides and all we had to do was tie up to the boat alongside us plus a long line to the other wall to hold them out.  No problems at all, and the lock keeper is very careful to let the water in slowly so as not to cause too much turburlence too. 

Arriving in Verdun we met our first danish boats – two sailing boats in fact – following the same course as us all the way to the Mediterranean.  We tied up on the east bank as we were told it was free to lie there, whereas the west bank was a proper pontoon where one must pay.  We had water and electricity and a fine view of the river, bridge and fountain, so why pay money when you can enjoy it for free?

St.Miheil, our next stop, also had a good pontoon with water/el., and a supermarket close to the bridge too.  We took a little walk in town and had a pastis before dinner.

In Pagny sur Meuse we met an uncommonly unfriendly dutch man who took it very badly that we wanted to tie up to his boat, shouting at us that we were destroying his privacy – the boat further along was also dutch but much more friendly and we were allowed to tied up to them.  The village had nothing much to offer apart from a church, cemetery, baker and grocer, but a 5 minute walk out of town there was a trucker’s restaurant offering a full menu for the total cost of F.65 including wine!  Pity we had already eaten! 

Verdun deserves a stopover.  It is impossible to visit Verdun and not be reminded of repeated wartime slaughter.  Verdun has been fought over for centuries although the slaughter of the 1914-18 must surely have been the worst.  900,000 men were killed here in World War I.  We took a guided bus tour up to the Ossuary de Douamont, the largest memorial in memory of the War, where we of course expected to see the huge cemeteries full of crosses and flowers.  But after seeing that, and hearing the stories about the war, then we were told to go up to the huge memorial and look through the windows of the cellar.  We had a look in and jumped back in horror – what we saw the most grim sight – rooms upon rooms full of bones and skulls of unidentified soldiers – you cannot imagine how many bones there were.  A graveyard of 130,000 unidentified soldiers – french and german buried together.  This was something we had never been told about and was too shocking. 

We also visited the Fort Beaumont, and experienced the cold dark damp and miserable cramped life these poor soldiers had to endure.   After the war the battlefields and trenches were meant to be returned to their rightful use again – farmland, however it was impossible to try and cultivate anything here as the farmers found out – it was too dangerous to plough because of old mines, and too many bones and skeletons were being dug up.   Now the whole area has been planted with pine trees so as to cover the ugly scars of the trenches and craters, however the whole area is dotted with small memorials and crosses.   Driving along in our airconditioned bus, we passed some of the 13 towns or  villages that had been totally destroyed and are now just a memory.   A black and white photo shows a scene after the war – one gigantic lump of mud and corpses lying in craters that would have looked more natural on the moon.  The caption beneath it said ” The end of the world but not the end of the war” .  That picture and quotation will forever be in our minds.

Almost 1 million young men died just here in this battlefield, in a war that was fought in trenches with bayonets and primitive weaponery.  The men or boys were only 18 to 20 years old when they died, and their death was not a quick death but a slow and painful one with disease, gas poisoning and infected wounds.  And what about the men who survived the horrors of this war?  They went back home, only to die from lung disease, shell shock or insanity.  This really should have been the war to end all wars.  

We have 93 locks ahead of us in this part of the Canal de l’Est   - 47 of which will be locking up until we reach our highest point on our tour of 360 metres above sea level and from then on we will be locking down all the way to the Mediterranean.   Before reaching the southern part of this canal, we had to sail onto the Moselle  from Toul to Messein, through a number of what seemed to be enormous locks taking us up 7 meters every time, after the little locks we were used to of 1 to 3 metres in height.

The landscape now changed from open fields to thick forest.  The Moselle river is wide and deep, but when we again entered the Canal de l’Est, the canals were narrow, with forest lining the banks all the way along.  In some places if two people stood with their arms out on either side of the boat we could reach out and touch the trees and pluck leaves off the branches if we wanted to.  It was like sailing in the jungles of the Amazon river.

We stopped along the way at Richarmenil,  Charmes, Thaon sur Vosges, Girancourt and Fontenoy les Chateau. 

Richarmenil is not even a pontoon but just a grass bank, too low for us to go right to the water’s edge but ok to tie up to another boat, this time a typical english canal boat – the owner was a very friendly english pensioner who has lived on his little narrowboat for around 10 years, sailing up and down all the french canals.  There is water and electricity too, although the water taps are not good to connect to hoses as they are the kind that you push and gives you a litre of water.

Charmes is ”a small but rather dull little town” according”Cruising French Waterways” written by Hugh McKnight.  We decided to see for ourselves, but he was right, there is nothing much that is charming about Charmes, except that there is water and electricity at the pontoon and a good supermarket within walking distance.   Our next day is ”Bastille Day” so we decided that we should try and find a better place to stop to enjoy the festivities.

Thaon sur Vosges was the place of our choice for 14th July.  In one of the locks along the way, a friendly lock-keeper  warned us against stopping in Thaon ”it’s dangerous – the young people jump onto your boat and play with fireworks”.  We decided to find out for ourselves, and we discovered that the party had been held the night before, so we celebrated Bastille Day in our own way with good food and wine and we even stayed up until after 10.00 p.m. which was our usual bedtime after a long hard day of sailing and locking.  

Girancourt, yet another little sleepy french village, but again with a good pontoon for an overnight stop.  No facilities, but lots of place for us to have a little barbecue without bothering anyone and the water is deep enough right up to the banks so we could even moor to the bank instead of to another boat – what luxury!  

Barbeque chefs - skål!!

Our next and last stop on the Canal de l’Est was Fontenoy les Chateau.  This was the day we took our record number of locks – 34 in one day and 30 kms!!  It was raining heavily all day but Vicki decided it would be easier to walk from one lock to another than climb up and down the slimy ladders in the lock chambers in the rain.  There is only 200 metres between the locks which are automatic, and we managed to get through the set of 15 locks in 2 hours – not bad !    After Vicki’s adventure in the mud and rain on her own personal little ”Tour de France”, it was Erik’s chance for adventure.  Further up along the canal was an old rusty barge which had slipped its mooring and was lying diagonally in the canal blocking our passage.  Erik heroically jumped off Sunray with kilometres of rope wrapped around him and clamboured onto the barge to drag it back to the river bank with the help of the local village idiot who  was just standing there looking blankly at the whole situation, until his brain suddenly sprung into gear and helped Erik to pull the rust-bucket back to shore.    

Since this was to be our last evening together with our temporary crew, Erik and Bendi, we decided to spoil ourselves and eat in some local restaurant.  There was not much choice – there is only one restaurant in Fontenoy!   It is just 5 minutes walk from the small harbour which is used by a river boat charter company.  The harbour master speaks perfect english and is very helpful.  There are all facilities here.  

Moules & frites - our favourite meal in France.

So now we are leaving the narrow, shallow, forest lined Canal de L’Est and we’re out onto the Saone River.  Now we are no longer 30 metres above sea level but only 100 metres.  The Saone is a river by definition but in many places it has been canalised and locks built in to steer the sheer volume of water that comes from the Alps just to our east.  We were only lowered 59 metres in locks along the Saone River. 
The Saone is the backbone of all the french canal system because no less than 4 rivers / canals over the next 150 km feed this waterway, which slowly becomes larger, wider and with a stronger current.  First to join is the Canal de la Marne á la Saone from Champagne area.  Later both the Rhine from Basel in Switzerland and the Alps and Canal de Bourgogne from the wine regions of the same name and finaly Canal de Centre from Paris – this last canal is the route we should have taken originally.  This is where Europe’s waterways meet, and the landscape changes character yet again.

The riverbanks are no longer overgrown with trees, villages are no longer just 3 little houses and a lock, there are more boats on the river, and it’s a lot more commercial, with charter boats or ”floating bathtubs” as we call them, full of well fed tourists who have absolutely no idea about sailing.

A common sight now is hawks hovering high above the river, circling round and round, higher and higher, until suddenly they plunge down to the river to catch some fish that their sharp eyes have spotted from way up high.

Otters and beavers poke their little heads above the water and swim around us.  The first time we saw them we thought they were snakes!  They live in the clay or muddy riverbanks and usually vanish before the boat gets close enough to see them properly.

Now it’s a wide open landscape agin with poplar trees lining the river again.  We can see cornfields everywhere, and sometimes huges fields full of beautiful yellow sunflowers.  These sunflower fields herald the start of southern France and especially the town of Arles.  It was in this town that Van Gogh, whose works of art we saw in Amsterdam, spent a large part of his life, and where he painted many of his works, including ”The Sunflowers”.

Another everyday scene is the cows grazing peacefully along the river, we’ve seen Friesian black and white cows, now we’re seeing the famous Charollais cattle, chewing away quietly and looking up at us with their big brown eyes.

Big towns too, towns that are hundreds of years old, with the light stone houses and roof tiled in the typical Bourgogne coloured tiles.  Still not enough shops for Vicki’s liking, but that’s good for our budget!

One other sight that has become really commonplace – fishermen.  We never knew that the french were such keen fishermen. Wherever you look you can see them – totally still, staring at the little coloured cork floating on the water.  They are so well equipped too, they have all the right equipment – green parasol, fishing stool, 5 – 10 rods on a special stand, a net at the waters edge, boxes and baskets full of hooks and lines and a bucket full of bait .  The fishing tackle shops must make a fortune!  The only trouble is – we’ve never seen any of them catch anything

We had our first stop in Port sur Saone, where we first shared a ”few” drinks and exchanged some gifts with a german boat whom we had been following all day in the locks.  Then feeling a little bit tipsy we made our way up the steep hill to the local Intermarché to stock up with food and more drink.  We were expecting guests this night.  Erik, Inge and Kasper from Skive had been on their summer holiday up in Lac d’Annecy and were coming to visit us!  We had a great evening together, talking and laughing until the early hours of the morning.

In Seveux our next stop, we moored in a little harbour where we were looking forward to a nice drink at their terrace bar, however it was closed, so we improvised.  We took our pate, bread, chips and red wine and made use of their tables.  

St. Albin Tunnel 680 m. long

At Pontailler Sur Saone , we bought ourselves a pizza, we had been dreaming of it all day long.  But unfortunately it was the absolute worst pizza we have ever eaten in our lives – we don’t recommend the restaurant there!  However we had some entertainment – the boat we were moored to, had been filling up with water but had not noticed that the hose had jumped out of the hole and instead the whole boat was full of water

Last but not least, we visited St Jean des Losne , one of the main attractions here for us being the launderette.  We packed all our bags and cycled eagerly to the marina where the launderette was, only to find that it comprised of one washing machine, one tumbler, in a tiny smelly little room next to the toilets – ugh !   We had to give up the idea of clean clothes, at least for one more day.

I actually was under the impression that the southern part of the Saone was the Rhone.  But the Rhone doesn’t start until further south just after Lyon.  We are in wine country, in Bourgogne.

According to our ”Guide to the Mediterranean” from the FTFL (long distance sailers club in Denmark) we read that there is an disused lock that is now being used as a marina and which also has a fine restaurant, so we decided to push on for a further 20 kms to Gigny.   This was surely the best decision we had taken (especially after the pizza disaster), on arriving, the harbour master, a german who spoke perfect english, helped us moor, and showed us where we could fill up with water.  The first thing we did because of the heat was just turn the hose of fresh water and take a lovely cold shower!  We spoilt ourselves rotten at the little restaurant which was the old lock house.  Fine food and wine for only 329 francs for two people – just our budget!! 

Onwards to the mecca of wine – Macon – or so we thought!!  We first had to cycle a long way because the harbour is pretty far from town, then we must have cycled a further 20 km in search of wine!! The only place we could stock up our dwindling wine cellar was at the ”Maison de Vin” – a tourist trap with tourist prices.  Our budget did not stretch to such prices, so we were forced to leave Macon with an empty wine cellar.

Neuville had absolutely nothing to offer except a floating pontoon, so we sailed early next day to Lyon – we didn’t stop but it looks like a lovely town.  We had read and heard that it’s not safe to leave the boat unattended here, and also Vicki is worried about getting to Marseilles by 2nd August when Mikey will be joining us .  We sailed onwards towards the Rhone – but more about the Rhone in our next installment of the logbook!  

This is the last part of our ”Tour de France” the Rhone !   With its strong currents and huge cavernous locks – the largest being 25 metres high and the long hot hours waiting for the locks to open.  The Rhone is a more commercial river and the lock keepers are not particularly interested in locking little sailing boats. 

Once more the landscape is different, a big wide ”grown up” river.  We thought Saone was a wine area, but the ”Cotes du Rhone” vineyards really do line the riverbanks for a good part of the way. 

It took us only 6 days to sail down from Lyon to Port St. Louis – that’s 310 km in 6 days.  We had a current helping us all along the way, at least 2 knots per hour faster all the time.

Our first stop was the little town of Les Roches de Condrieu, then on to Valence where we hoped to visit the town, but its way too far way from the marina.  But our next visit was to Viviers which is such a pretty town (for those who know it, it resembles Mdina in Malta a lot).  It’s a medieval town with tiny winding streets climbing up the steep hill to the huge Cathedral and the town ramparts with a beautiful view of the whole Rhone Valley.  We met a danish couple who actually live in this town, so we were lucky enough to be invited into their house for an evening drink.

Next port of call for Sunray , and the last stop on the Rhone is Arles, where  Van Gogh lived for many years.  We arrived early in the afternoon, and moored alongside a belgian boat.  He seemed to be extremely friendly and helpful, and spoke english too.  He helped us tie up, loaned us his hose pipe for water and told us where the Intermarché was.  Fine, it’s nice to meet friendly people.  Since it was so early and so hot we had an afternoon nap before unpacking the bikes and heading into town – first to the supermarket and then we wanted to visit the famous Arena of Arles, which is a copy of the Colosseum in Rome, unfortunately it was closed and covered with scaffolding so we could only peep through the gates.  We consoled ourselves with a cold drink at one of the many pavement cafes around the Arena.   Back to the boat, our friendly belgian neighbour is acting a little bit weird now, sitting in his little cockpit, with music blaring loudly – surely all Arles could hear it. 
It was too noisy for us so we took a little walk to talk to the boat further down, with swiss, new zealand and swedish people.  We were immediately invited on board and many bottles of wine later made our way back to Sunray.  Now the weird belgian was waiting up for us with arms angrily folded across his chest and glaring at us.  He ignored our polite goodnights and started shouting at us for keeping him up late with the noise of our laughter from the other boat (what about his music?), we decided to play dumb, said goodnight and hid downstairs.  He kept on shouting at us in belgian, throwing water on our deck and banging on our boat with his frying pan!!   I must admit I was pretty scared and expected him at any moment to remove our lines from his boat and let us drift off.  Crazy Belgian!!  Next morning, we decided to leave Arles and head south, we didn’t want any more to do with the Belgian from Hell, especially after finding a pjece of his frying pan on our deck!   As I write we are 3 kms away from Port St. Louis and the Mediterranean!! J