Jumping ahead to this past week

I have a lot of catching up to do - we haven't had the best internet connections in the countryside, so forgive me if I haven't responded to emails in the past month or so, or been able to post to this blog.  I'm fast forwarding to this past week.  We had a long-awaited visit from our Tucson friends, Bill and Mary Read, on their post-retirement trip to Europe.  We picked them up at the train station in Montargis, one of our favorite towns.  We had moved the boat the week before to Ouzouer-sur-Trezee on the Briare Canal, a lovely town a few kilometers away from Briare.  After cruelly forcing them to stay awake through an early dinner on the back deck so as to fight off jet lag, we spent the next day visiting the wine region of Sancerre, where the harvest had just ended.

Mary and Bill in Sancerre

The hilltop village of Sancerre

In the afternoon, we returned to Ouzouer, which was celebrating the annual national heritage weekend.  The old Romanesque church in town was open for tours in the afternoon, so we headed over to find a lovely local woman who took us on a tour of the church, the grounds, and pointed out some of the historic sites in town.  The Romanesque section of the church is from the 12th century, with a gothic section added later.  In 1961, as the pew of a section of the church were about to be refinished, paintings of the 12 apostles were discovered on the wood underneath the seats of the pews.  The paintings were removed and mounted on the walls of the church, and if I remember correctly, they are dated from the 16th century.  One building we had noticed every morning when heading out for a baguette has beautiful carvings, and a door much too short for Randy to go through without hitting his head.  This place also dates back to the 16th century.

The next morning we were underway, going through two locks, and crossing the Loire River on the Briare Viaduct. 

After we exited the lock, Bill noticed our big ball fender floating off behind us, so we nosed into the bank, I hopped off with the boat hook and ran back to retrieve it from the lockkeeper!  A nice morning jog for me!

Bill had a chance to drive while Mary joined me on the bow to enjoy the scenery as we cruised across the viaduct and into the town of Beaulieu.

On the viaduct over the Loire River

Although the weather is starting to turn chilly, we had another nice dinner served by Chef Randy, and the next morning, Bill and Mary were off to Paris to join a Rick Steves tour of France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy.  Not a bad way to officially start your retirement!

After dropping Bill and Mary off at the train station in Briare, we moved the boat up to Sury-pre-Lere, a favorite spot, where we have high speed internet coverage, so I'm able to post a blog or two before we get underway again tomorrow.  We plan to be in port some time around October 15th but if the weather holds, we may just enjoy some of the anchorages on the Canal Roanne a Digoin!