GOING DOWN

This canal just gets better and better.

Heavy rain for 3 days meant we put off leaving Langres. Frank from River Holme very kindly (again) took us to refuel at the big Intermarche up the hill. And although the weather was awful, the company was good - lunch with Frank and Malcolm and Janet from Anthonia was the very best way to wait for the weather to improve. At 8€ for the plat du jour it was also easy on the purse.

Thursday - a break in the weather meant we could tackle the almost 5k Balesmes Tunnel - the one we had the instructions for in Dutch - but hey ho - a tunnel is a tunnel isn't it; just a big black hole you drive into.

 Err not quite. It is one way traffic and takes over an hour to transit. It had also been made very clear to us that we had to use the inter phone at the lock no:1 to clear our passage through. We failed miserably at this - due to a very bad connection on the phone to the control centre and our lack of linguistic skills. So in company with Frank, we decided to go for it and keep our fingers crossed we did not meet a loaded commercial coming the other way.

The tunnel was dark and poorly lit so steering was tense with  both of us on full lookout and Pete trying to find a reference point to steer to.

 We emerged safely into a fierce rainstorm and were then confronted by a staircase of 8 automatic locks - each about 5m deep and very close together - then the wind blew up. But we were 'Going Down' but no time to make a sandwich or a cup of tea. At 4 o'clock we spotted an isolated, overgrown mooring place under some trees, which looked like paradise to us. Drove in some pins and called it a day. We were in bed by 8pm!

Friday morning and thick fog - so no rush then. It soon cleared and we were on our way again. 

This canal is stunning.

 Sun shining - beautiful trees and so many herons, we christened it Heronville.  At lunchtime the landscape had opened out with fabulous vistas and newly harvested fields. We were amazed at the number of herons stalking in the fields and big birds of prey swooping repeatedly. We think the newly harvested fields are leaving no cover for the small mammals and insects and there's a feeding frenzy going on.

Killing Fields

The canal is following the course of the River Vingeanne - and the villages alongside it look beautiful. 

The guide shows various stopping places and we have learnt not to believe until we see it with our own eyes. A number of villages have obviously thought it would be a good idea to create an 'halte nautique' to attract visitors and we're sure they had every intention of providing water, electricity and showers and a visiting boulangerie. Their good intentions went so far as to have really nice signs made telling you about all the facilities and the chateaux to visit in the vicinity. However, more often than not the facilities have not materialised. Up to now we've made good use of picnic tables and small quays to tie up to but today we struck gold! Notre-Dame-des-Lourdes has a long quay with usefully spaced rings; water taps and 40amp electricity supply - yippee! and it's free. Ok, so the showers are locked but there is a very clean toilet open. We're not holding our breath that the boulangerie van is going to turn up between 8.30 and 9.00am tomorrow…  but we may be pleasantly surprised...

Saturday 29 September

Yes! she did come - just before 9 we heard a horn and there she was! Pete has bread for the next couple of days…

Fabulous trip today, lots of locks, lots of kilometres - slight hiccup when the gates at lock 32 didn't open to let us out. 

And the inter phone didn't work - but a phone call and the VNF guy arrived in his van, gave a Gallic shrug of the shoulders and released us.

There are very few stopping places on this stretch of the canal but we struck lucky with a little halte (and picnic table, of course) just after the Oisilly lock. No facilities but a reasonable quay and absolute silence in the middle of the countryside and the sun is shining! 

LANGRES

Well we meant to stay here just two or three days to do some provisioning, look at the town and catch up with one or two jobs on the boat. But some places feel just 'right' and this is one of them. Even though the electric at the halte nautique only comes on for an hour three times a day (not a lot of good for topping up the batteries), and there's an long, uphill walk to the nearest shop, we're planning on staying for a few more days - it feels good.

Lady eclusier operating turning bridge on the way to Langres

Our trip from Rolampont was lovely and we had the help of a charming, young lady eclusier - (needless to say, Pete was very quick to help her with opening the lock gates).
We arrived at Longres Wednesday lunchtime in the sunshine - tied up alongside a pleasant, long quay and set off to the supermarket which was supposed to be 800m away. 
Hmm, the notice didn't say it was up a 1 in 10 hill and we're pretty sure it was more like 1.5 kms. So after this experience we studied the bus timetable carefully as we planned to visit Langres itself on Friday. 

Langres is one of the 50 most beautiful towns in France (well that's what it says in the brochure and who are we to argue?). It stands on a rocky hill some 130m above the Marne river and has been a fortified town since the time of the Gauls and the Romans. It's surrounded by tall walls, gateways and countless towers and looks really impressive from down by the river. As the parapet walk around the town is 3.5km long, you can understand why we decided to take the bus up the town and start the walk from there.

The walk around the town was magic. There are amazing views in all directions and the weather on Friday was perfect with clear views  to the Vosges mountains and even the Alps. The town itself is fascinating with a maze of narrow streets and, of course, a cathedral. At lunchtime, we were enticed to venture up a covered alleyway beside a boulangerie where we found a walled garden area that had been turned into an outdoor restaurant, complete with fountain, shady trees and an aviary. So a very pleasant lunch in the sunshine and our first taste of the special Langres cheese - very good.

Friday was market day, and this time when we boarded the bus we found the journey was free because it was market day - how good is that! There's plenty of towns in the UK that could learn from this.

REACHING FOR THE SKY

As we rise out of the lock......

Since we left Vitry le François, we've been steadily climbing, forty five locks so far and twenty three to go to the summit. We're heading up to the Langres Plateau where we will encounter our first real tunnel, 5 k's underneath the ridge.

We never know what will greet us in the eclusier's garden !!

The landscape is changing as we ascend, we've lost the gentle, sunny slopes of the vineyards and now have steep sided hills covered in mostly deciduous forest, with the occasional plantation of firs, it's almost alpine and very beautiful.

From Chamouilley we were accompanied by our team of two VNF eclusiers, buzzing ahead of us from each lock, on their mopeds, just checking that everything worked at each lock and lifting bridge.

We spent two nights at Joinville where Neil and Angela joined us. They are touring the area in their motorhome and we have been meeting up at small Haltes for the last few evenings and enjoying some good meals together. 

Since Joinville the locks seem to be in better condition and we do not have the VNF eclusiers with us all the time. The canal is really beautiful and the we're spotting many birds of prey sweeping amongst the wooded hills.

The first mists of Autumn shroud the canal when we wake now and we are debating digging out the winter duvet, but the days are still fine and warm with clear skies and lots of sunshine and forecast to be the same until next Thursday, when it will rain. We shall see.

We're at Chaumont, on a quiet quayside with electric and water, N & A will leave us tomorrow to continue their route homeward and we shall walk into town for supplies and probably a coffee or two.

Canals with Character

We were given a 'zapper' at the Lock called Desert just outside of Vitry-le-François - this apparently operates most of the locks on our route but not all. Others, are worked by radar, twisting pole or travelling eclusier. We were also given a very detailed instruction leaflet for the 5km tunnel which lies ahead of us. Unfortunately it was in Dutch. We are none the wiser. But no doubt all will become clear when we arrive there (or not). 

The journey yesterday to Orconte was pretty uneventful.  The pilot book warns that the locks fill right to the top in this stretch of the canal which makes life interesting when you're locking up as we are.

Orconte was a very pleasant halte which we shared with a Dutch camper-van (we should have asked them to translate our tunnel leaflet!). Apparently it costs 8€ for water and electric and showers. Unfortunately nobody turned up to collect the money and open the showers - but we did have electric for the night.

Today more overflowing locks - we thought we may well float off into the chicken run alongside this one.

We were accompanied for the day by various members of the VNF (the French equivalent of British Waterways).  All the guys were really helpful and seemed to take great delight in speaking rapid French to us because we had greeted them in their own language. With a a bit of effort and a lot of sign language we managed to communicate our plans for the day - they need to know what time we start and where we plan to moor up at the end of each day. We think they actually accompany us because many of the locks don't seem to quite operate as they should…. their remedy is to go into a shed, pull out a control unit and plug it into a lock gate to release us from the lock. Many of the traffic lights are broken and when you use your zapper to start the lock operating, nothing happens for 3 minutes, then you're startled by very loud bells ringing and eventually the gates begin to close. 

Today we had our first lifting bridge....

This one had to be operated by the travelling VNF guy who had earlier kindly taken our lines in St Dizier, where we stopped for lunch. We had thought that we might stay overnight at St. Dizier but the mooring was a bit industrial and even the sight of the famous Miko ice cream factory nearby could not tempt us - it was overcast and drizzling - if the sun had been shining it might have been a different matter. Instead we pushed on to Chamouilley - no facilities but a really nice village with grassy banks and picnic tables (we think picnic tables usually indicate an 'all right' place to stop). 

Our VNF guy turned up on his scooter and told us exactly where the nearest shop, bar and restaurant could be found and arranged to meet us tomorrow at 9 o'clock

Another nice place...

Arrived at Vitry-le-François Friday evening and managed to tuck ourselves onto the end of the alongside pontoon at the little Halte. Only room for three longer boats and quite shallow but good for us. Moored under the plane trees which are providing us with some very welcome shade as the temperatures have been well into the 30's this weekend. 10€ a night including electric and water - 25€ if you stay 3 nights - so of course we are…

Sunday lunch on Ozzee Crawl

Frank from 'River Holme' (also moored here) is leapfrogging his car and very kindly took us and Peter and Mitch off "Ozzee Crawl" to the big Leclerc hypermarket to stock up on essentials such as beer, wine… oh yes - and water. We were also able to fill our fuel cans which means we can now not worry about the latter end of the Canal entre Champagne et Borgogne where apparently there is neither fuel nor shops. 
Much as we like it here and the company is certainly very convivial, we will crack on tomorrow but probably not at the crack of dawn.

Champagne Country

Dormans WW1 monument

Farewell to Dormans

Monday - a very nice halte at Cumières complete with free water and electricity plus geraniums adorning the tops of the pontoon piles - very welcoming....

No shops at all, not even a boulangerie but every other building in the village, a champagne house. 

Champagne Country

The sculptures along the river bank tell the story of the making of champagne from the vines to the bottle.

Tuesday we left the lovely River Marne and entered the Canal Lateral - returned our lock zapper and then had to get used to twisting the pole to activate the locks. We've been on rivers for all but a few days since our arrival in France and it was quite a change to enter the canal system. Quickly sighted a beautiful red squirrel- a real chestnut brown colour; otherwise an uneventful trip to Châlons-en-Champagne.

There's a really modern, new halte here with great showers, new pontoons and in a good position just under the cathedral and looking towards the town gardens. 10€ a night including water and electric. 

We really like Châlons - a good mix of old and new and great walks. Yesterday we discovered one of only seven remaining indoor circus buildings in France. It's wonderfully restored and is used both for performances and as a circus school. We missed a performance on Tuesday evening - rats!!!

Circus School

This morning autumn had definitely arrived - cold when we got up and the horse chestnut trees are turning copper before our eyes. But the afternoons are still warm and sunny - hope it will last.

Autumn

Tomorrow we leave for Vitry-le-François.

UP THE ORINOCO

We left Paris a week ago and have been making slow but steady progress along the beautiful River Marne.

This river just gets better and better

Ze's week with us in Paris was great fun. We walked miles of course, but really enjoyed feeling almost like natives and appreciated exploring some of the "off the beaten track" districts as well as some must see attractions.

Fashionable district

Lunch at Musee d'Orsay

We hope you enjoyed it Ze and that you will visit us again soon.

Les joined us for our third week and we all enjoyed being in the heart of the city. It was a very hot week, but in the cool of the evenings we would stroll down to the Ile St Louis for a cool drink and some serious people watching. 

A keyboard of cakes

Market shopping was a treat as always and we all agreed that having, in effect, an apartment in the centre of Paris, gave us the time to just wander and really enjoy just what makes Paris Paris.

Maritime Museum

Luxembourg Gardens

and of course.......

Someone's got to do it!

Jude arrived last Friday and with two good friends aboard, the passage Eastward was bound to be good fun. 

On our way

The Marne is really beautiful there's an amazing number of herons and kingfishers. The landscape changes subtly as we move East; the green wooded slopes open out to reveal hillsides covered with vines, richly fruited and promising great things to come.

Great shot Jude

Natives

We stopped for the night at Lagny and met the Two Terrys and Gladys and John from Puddle Stone, both great blog writers who have inspired and helped us in making our own plans.

Skutsje

The moorings at Meaux were full, but we were invited to lie alongside some neighbours from Paris in their beautiful Dutch Skutsje. The cathedral here was magnificent, but the big treasure was the cathedral garden, beautifully laid out and planted with herbs, vegetables and exotic foodstuffs, a culinary and visual delight.

Meaux

Next night we found a perfect pontoon at Mary sur Marne, unfortunately no water or electric and the two restaurants by the halte were shut, but really beautiful location. 

Peace and quiet

The next night was truly in the wild, on a crumbly concrete pontoon, with nothing but owls and horses for company; then on to Chateau Thierry, a great town where we spent three nights. Big supermarket and fuel on our doorstep, ancient chateau to explore and the best Friday market ever. A direct rail link to Paris meant that Les and Jude could make a relatively easy journey home on Friday.

Champagne country

We're now at Dormans. On a small pontoon just alongside the campsite, mini golf and children's play area. We have water and electric and a chateau and WW1 monument to explore today.