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.