Cabottes, Soupapes and Chateaus...Part I

This morning we will shove off heading towards the end of this canal, and onto the Saone River, perhaps by the end of this week.  Its been a great week with friends Eric and Sudi on Oldtimer, who have shared their great local knowledge of this section of Burgundy with us.

Early last week, we set out by car for a little wine tasting in the villages of the Cote de Beaune, followed by lunch and shopping in the town of Beaune.  We took the back roads through the hills and vineyards.  Eric pulled off onto a tiny road in the middle of the vineyards to show us this cabotte:

We had seen small structures like this dotting the vineyards, they were originally built to provide shelter for the vineyard workers during lightening storms, or de pause casse-croute . . . snack breaks.  This one is a recent build, beautifully constructed of stacked stone from the surrounding fields.

The sun was out and so were the vineyard workers.  We saw many of the specialized tractors, which to me look like something out of Star Wars, very high off the ground in order to drive over the rows of vines on tall stakes. We were not prepared for this sight  . . .

Tilling the old fashioned way.  We watched as the horse responded to commands, going forward only a few feet, to be told to stop, as the worker repositioned the tiller.  It looked like a lot of vines were being damaged in the process, but later that day we saw two horses out working the fields.  There are many agricultural festivals around France, and often we see demonstrations of traditional methods at those events, so perhaps this was a practice session.  Hard work!  Great bicep/ tricep workout for the guy!

As we passed through the town of Cheilly-les-Marangues, we spotted signs for a Fete (festival) de Soupapes.  Having lived here for a while, you never travel anywhere without an Enlish/French dictionary.  Sudi even keeps one in the car; I have two on my Ipod and one on my new smart phone.  "Valves" said Randy as he checked Sudi's dictionary.  What was a festival of valves? Eric guessed something to do with cars, perhaps old cars.  More on that later.

We stopped at two wine villages, Volnay,  and Nuits-Saint-Georges, to taste wines:

And after shopping and lunch, headed home to the boats with a full trunk!

The next day was Thursday, the feast day of the Ascension, somewhat of a holiday here, and the Festival of Soupapes.  We rode over on our bikes to the town to see what it was about.  Eric was right, antique cars, motorcycles, electric bicycles, and a vide grenier sale of all sorts of parts for all of the above, and more:

Pas a vendre - Not for sale electric bikes

My favorite classic Citroen

A cute little Karmann Ghia, with a faux California plates, surfing stickers on the windows and a Hawaiian Lei hanging from the rear view mirror

I regret not taking a picture of the Volkswagon camper van, pop-top open, with the owners sitting out front in lawn chairs, grilling!  It even had flower stickers on it.

For the motorcycles fans, there were all sorts of antique bikes from the 30's and 40's, but I had to take a couple of pictures of the Harley, and the Indian on display:

Harley!

Indian!

More later, we are on our way to Santenay ....

Good News!

Water in the Canal du Centre! We shoved off from Parey Le Monial, steaming towards the end of the canal, with stops in the port of Genelard,  the town of Montceau-les-Mines, and the village of St. Julien-sur- Dheune.  We've had rain, off and on, for weeks, and last Friday, it was announced that the Canal will remain open, at least until August 20th.  Great news for us, we can slow down, and are now enjoying this beautiful region in Burgundy.  We had planned to stay in the port of St. Leger-sur-Dheune, one of our favorite little ports, but as we pulled in, the docks were full, so we passed through the port, past the a spot where hotel barges berth, and on down the canal to a beautiful sight, off the grid (no electricity or other services), where we are moored under beautiful trees, with a view of the church steeple peeking through the branches.  Here we were able to meet up with our friends Eric and Sudi on their barge, Oldtimer. Eric and Sudi know this area well, and took us on a beautiful bike ride up the canal path, to an old railway bed, now a bike path, up to the village of Nolay, with its 14th century market (Les Halles) constructed with huge posts and beams, topped with a stone roof.  It is still used today as the town's open air market. We stopped for lunch in Nolay at the charming tea room, Le The dans la Vigne, which opens out onto Les Halles.

Sudi and Sylvie

Madame Sylvie, the charming proprietess, even brought us blankets to use until the sun warmed our table.

 

The guys ordered the chicken stew - delivered in a big casserole

Fresh strawberries and a slice of Gateau Chocolate

 Back on our bikes, we headed down to the village of Sampigny les Maranges, to the pottery studio and home of Sylvie and Francois Fresnais.  We had seen their work last year at a big pottery show in the Abbey in Charlieu, and Sudi has collected several of their pieces.  So here's the "six degrees of separation" - Sylvie and Francois travel to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and exhibit their work at the big summer Folk Art Festival in July.  We had seen them, and their work before, not just in Charlieu, but in Santa Fe!  As a wanna-be-artist, I feel in love with their artist compound, complete with a water mill, as well as their work.  I'm attaching a link to their website, and a few pictures below. Small world . . . and we hope our Sante Fe friends will stop in to see them in July!

Au Revoir Montargis

Au Revoir Montargis!
Today, as if to say no,
you cannot go,
you sent a swan.

But how can I leave this place
with its canals
and flowers
and people who adore their dogs?

Dachsund next to the bowl on top!

All along the canal
they promenade.

Bayeau, Rezzy and his shar pei.

Rezzy, an Iwok in a dog suit

Beloved, beloved French dogs!

We hope to return next year
with biscuits for you.

Le Guetin

After a few days of really hot weather, the heat wave broke with some wonderful rain.  We settled back into moderate temperatures, so we shoved off from Decize.  Getting out of Decize takes a bit of time, one lock to get out the Nivernais canal where we had moored, a bit of cruising on the Loire River, and then two locks to get back onto the Canal Lateral a la Loire.  The water is low right now, and boats are being convoyed through, so we had a few holds, and then the locks are closed for lunch from noon until 1:00 pm.  We made it onto the Lateral a la Loire at 11:45 am and stopped along the shore for lunch.  We moved on intending to spend a day or two at the anchorage in Fleury-sur-Loire, but were advised by the lock keeper that it was a bit shallow and boats had been grounding in the port, so we stopped short of Fleury near the village of Avril and spent a lovely evening staked out - just tied off to the shore using big mooring pins pounded into the ground.
We pushed off the next morning for a long day of cruising.  This year we've been traveling about 4-5 hours or so a day when we move, but we wanted to get to through the stretch of canal near Le Guetin, where the canal becomes a viaduct over the Allier River, at the end of which is a double lock.  That meant an 8 hour day at the helm for Randy, with a lot of activity, crossing the viaduct into the big canal, all at the end of the day.  Added to that, it was windy, and the wind would be coming from our starboard side as we threaded the needle of the viaduct and then the locks with our 70 ton barge.

Approaching the viaduct

As we approached Le Guetin, the canal took a sharp turn to the right under a bridge.  Access to the viaduct is controlled by a traffic light, and we had the green so we were good to go.  The canal narrows to a one lane viaduct, at the end of which are the locks.
I went forward to get ready for our approach - Randy does a great job of maneuvering the boat but it helps to have another pair of eyes on the bow.  I pulled out the binocs and saw the lock, and the crowd of spectators waiting to see us cross the viaduct in the wind and maneuver into the lock, hopefully without bouncing off the sides in front of an audience!

On the viaduct

Looking down over the River Allier

Into the first lock

 

The crowd!

Randy kept the power up just the right amount to get us across in the wind, slipped us into the lock and I tied us off to a round of applause from the bystanders.  Lots of pictures were taken as Alouette is looking quite pretty with our overflowing pots of flowers and herbs.
The first lock actually empties into the second lock as we dropped down a total of 9.2 meters - over 30 feet - to return to the canal on the other side of the Allier.  Another round of applause, we took a bow and eased the boat out of the lock and onto the quai at Le Guetin!

Gates opening into 2nd lock

Descending the 2nd lock

A quiet evening moored at Le Guetin

On the way to somewhere

We did finally set sail on Friday June 3rd.  The first day we made it to the village of Melay, which has a small but nice quai and a few campsights for the caravans (motor coaches) so popular here in Europe.

We're slowing down this year and spending at least a few nights in each spot, and its wonderful to be on slow time on the canals.

My back deck garden

After a hot, dry April, the weather has turned cooler and wetter, much more average for this time of year.  We spent 3 nights in Melay, then headed north up and out of the Canal de Roanne a Digoin.  We spent two nights on bollards off the grid outside of Digoin and turned onto the Canal Lateral a la Loire, where we are cruising our way northwest, perhaps to Paris this summer.  There is a drought in northern France now, and its possible that some of the canals will close to traffic in order to provide more irrigation water if necessary.  Here along the Lateral Loire, we may be asked to move through the locks in convoys.  So we'll see how far we go, but its been raining in this part of the country off and on for over 2 weeks now, so we're hoping that's a good sign.
Our first stop along the Lateral Loire was in the tiny town of Diou.  There is a nicely maintained bike path along the canal between Digoin and Diou, so we rode our bikes up and back the day before we moved the boat.  It was my first day out for a long bike ride - not long by our old century ride standards, but long enough for me to have sore buns and knees.  It was great to finally get on the bikes in the countryside and enjoy the scenery.  There are cherry trees all along the bike path, and some of those cherries made it home to the boat with us for dessert that night.
Diou is a pretty, small town typical of rural France.  The town provides a small quai, this one with water but no electricity, just off the main square, with a few shops within walking distance, including one of the best boulangeries we've found so far.  Diou is also near the spa town of Bourbon-Lancy, and our friends Andrew and Laurel on Affleur D'O picked us up in their car for a night out in Bourbon-Lancy.  I'll post some pictures of that beautiful spot separately.
We're now tied up along the quai near the village of Beaulon.  Just so you realize its not all fun and games on a barge, here are some pictures of Randy chipping paint.  There's always lots of maintenance work on a big steel barge, and we're taking advantage of a nice spot along the canal to both relax, and get some work done. 

Just in case you're concerned I'm a lounge lizard while Randy's working away, I spent the day yesterday sewing tiebacks for the draperies we had made for the boat in Tucson.  We're very disappointed with the workmanship of the draperies, which arrived late, hours before we left, and if we had the time to thoroughly inspect them before we left, we would never have accepted them.  But, here we are and we're making the best of it though they are so poorly sewn we will more than likely replace them this winter.  So I bought a second hand sewing machine and am dressing them up a bit.

Just a quick note

We're in our home port of Roanne, busy getting the boat ready for this year's cruising season.  We do have our internet service set up now, and I'll start posting soon.  For now, I'm trying to add a geo tag to each post, so lets see how well this works - click on the location below and it should direct you to a map.  More later!

Parey-le-Monial

On our way to dry dock in August, Parey-le-Monial was our first multiple night stop at a full service quay with water and electricity.  The quay is in the heart of the town known for its Romanesque basilica dating back to the 11th and 12th centuries.  In the summer, the town is filled with pilgrims as this is the site where Catholics believe that the sacred heart of Jesus was revealed to a local nun, Marquerite Alacoque, in the 17th century.  The quay is adjacent to the area where the pilgrimages are held on a weekly basis, in big tents, with as many as 5,000 pilgrims a week.

It was a hot day so I had the curtains closed, but I heard a man walking around outside explaining things about the boat to a child.  Daniel and his son were taking a break from the events, and I invited them on board to have a look down below.  Danial it turned out does research in fluid mechanics at a university in Lyon, and he spent a week at the University of Colorado, my alma mater, working on a joint university research project.  Later that day, a lovely nun from Guatemala came on board, and we talked in both Spanish and French.  Somehow we understood each other.  We eventually were joined by a woman and her young son, pilgrims from Paris.  We've really enjoyed giving tours of the boat, especially to kids.  The boys always like touring the wheelhouse and standing behind the big steering wheel pretending to drive.

The night before we planned to leave Parey, we invited Daniel to come back with his children to watch us take the boat through a lock.  He brought his children, and a few of their friends, so we had an entire entourage sending us off down the Canal du Centre.  

We decided to spend more time in Parey on our return trip.  We had a chance to visit the basilica, which recently went through a renovation.  The interior stone walls were cleaned and restored to their original color, a beautiful, warm, honey, and in an unusually bold move, the lighting in the church is now a contemporary design in metal sculpture in the form of doves in flight.

Parey-le-Monial is a beautiful city to explore on foot, with winding streets, a medieval section, large pedestrian malls, lively weekly street market and beautiful gardens.  Next to the town hall, we even found a Sotheby's office for our friend and Sotheby's realtor in Denver, Catherine Carpenter!

Returning to port