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| The summer weather called for the first Barbeque of the year at Montbouy |
I’ve opened with a summery
pic as it looks nothing like that today.
We’re moored on the River Seine at Valvins, having decided to stay put
as we can hardly see the opposite bank for the rain and we’ve lit the stove!! But before summer reverted back to winter,
here’s what's happened……..
We’d told the lock-keeper at
Montbouy that we would be staying two nights there and wouldn’t go through the
next lock until Monday morning at 11am, so the next morning, Sunday, we got up,
put the bikes together and headed off down the towpath for a couple of kilometres
to the remains of a Roman Amphitheatre.
They’re fenced off as they’re on private land, but were discovered when
the canal was being dug out. It seated
3/4000 and you can still see the little doorway to where the animals were kept
before being sent out to fight. It was
really quite impressive, just sat there at the side of the road and it would’ve
been nice to get a bit closer.
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| The little doorway leads to the room the animals were kept in, so gives an idea of the scale. |
Back at the boat we decided
to shuffle on a bit with a couple of mooring options before the next lock. We weren’t that enamoured with the mooring at
Montcresson but pulled in for lunch and a walk around the town, which housed
the smallest post office we’ve seen.
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| Is this the smallest post office in France? |
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| The roof of the old Lavoir next to the canal at Montcresson |
Just before the next lock,
which was the first in a chain of four, we pulled onto a rural mooring, only spotting
the overgrown bollards due to the picnic table that was visible and in the DBA
description. As we tied up the
lock keeper appeared at the lock and walked down the towpath towards us. He asked if we spoke English………. We explained we were staying here tonight and
had booked to go down tomorrow at 11am, but would probably be ready at 9.30am
as we were closer, so he said he’d let his colleague know our change of plans. We then set off for a walk down the short
flight and to see if there was anything left of the old route which used to run
alongside.
Back at the boat we settled
down for the evening, after dinner on the front deck, and it was one of our
most peaceful moorings. The amount of
bird song going on was incredible and actually continued long after the sun
went down as the Nightingales made their presence known – beautiful. I had read a few days before a ‘Tweet’ from
Quaintrelle’s sister ‘Baleine’ saying spring must be on its way as she’d heard
a cuckoo. I remember the first time in my
life I heard a cuckoo for real. It was
in 2009 in Slovenia on a biking holiday and I remember thinking how they
actually sound exactly like the clocks! Over
the last week or so here in France, we’ve been hearing cuckoos all day/every
day, so we’re a bit blasé about them now…..
The next day we headed off
down the flight which was a chain of four and means you’re set off by a lock-keeper
at the first, but thereafter the sensors at the entrances and exits of the
locks put the next lock in motion for you coming.
We soon arrived at Montargis,
known as the Venice of France as the town has lots of waterways running through
it and the Tourist Office provides a Tour of the Town Bridges which we followed. It’s a really nice town with lots of shops as
well and a Leader Price supermarket, which is not our favourite, but provides
the supplies.
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| Much hilarity at the name of this lock, "Lock of Suffers Pain" - which we didn't! |
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| Hotel barge passing at Montargis |
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| Montargis, the Venice of France |
A lady from the local Mairie’s
office came round in the evening to collect our mooring fees and we hooked up
to the electric and filled with water.
After getting so low on water earlier on in the month, we now fill up
whenever we get the chance, even if we’ve filled up the previous day – and of
course, if we’re paying for it, we might as well use it!
Leaving Montargis the next
morning we were met at the manned lock and handed a remote control –
woooohooooo – end of the nanny state for a while. The lock-keeper put us through that and the
next lock and we were off.
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| At Montargis they have tried to retain and combine the old city walls and buildings with the new ones. |
At the next lock the lights
were out, meaning the lock is out of use…… I pressed the magic button on the
remote, but nothing, and there was a lot of activity going on around the
lock. With the binoculars, I could see
that there were guys in high-vis vests clearing around the lock, picking up rubbish, the weed/wood fished out from behind the gates, but there was also two men
working on the downstream gates. We
hovered and eventually one of them headed back towards us and we established
there was a problem with the lock but the lock-keeper was on his way.
It turned out that they are
in the process of making this lock fully automatic. It’s semi-automatique at the moment which
means that the mechanism is automated, but it needs the eclusier there to push
the buttons on his remote control. He
was a really nice guy the eclusier and chatted away as we locked down. The next lock was also semi-automated, but he
would operate that remotely for us, watching for us on the security
cameras. This was the last lock on the
Canal du Briare and as we left it and passed a trip boat, we moved onto the
Canal du Loing – our fourth canal of the season!
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| Welcome to the Canal du Loing |
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| This bar is owned by a Scot, but it was closed, so no chance for a chinwag. |
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| What has become our favourite mooring at Chateau-Landon |
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| Another easy lock - as long as you wait for the lights! We learned that earlier in the day when being blown about by wind, Mike misread the red+green light for green and went in before the gates were fully open. The lock seized and we had to call VNF to come release it and move us on our way. When the eclusier arrived he asked what had happened and I had to admit our mistake and apologised. He accepted the apology with a grunt, gallic shrug and a slight raising of his top right lip. |
The Loing is not very long at
49kms and we were still keenly watching the notifications coming in for the stoppage
at the end of it. The water levels
seemed to be coming up and the status was now amber so they seemed to be letting
some craft through if you had a shallow enough draft.
Our target for the evening was
a rural mooring at Chateau-Landon and as we pulled up in the sunshine in the
middle of bird-filled woods, despite the DBA rating of adequate, we felt we’d
struck gold. There was no one around
apart from a few cyclists and walkers and no sound of traffic or anything, it
was just gorgeous and we realised that the DBA rating isn’t necessarily the
same as our rating of places. (This was
confirmed when at Nemours later the same week; rated as ‘good’ – because it had
power and water – but we thought it wasn’t very nice at all, next to a carpark
and a building supplies yard!).
Mike had a conference call
for work to make so I busied myself with some chores and then decided as it was
a nice evening to try a short run. I did
1.09 miles, once round the port at Roanne!
And then did some leg raises in a desperate attempt to get some muscle
tone back. As I came out of my post-run
shower, Mike had finally finished his phone call and was trying to make conversation
with two little French girls who had arrived with their grandparents at one of
the picnic tables for a picnic tea. The
little girls were very curious about the boat, so I asked if they’d like to see
the inside. They didn’t understand my French,
so their grandmother, Corinne, came over and translated for them. Well, having shown India (7 yrs) and Tia (5 Yrs),
around, it was only polite to invite Grandma Corinne in for a look too. She was so amazed by it all she asked if she
could ask Grandpa, Pierre, to come on board too. So we ended up having four French visitors on
board for about an hour, telling them all about our travels and living on the
boat. They were absolutely delightful
and despite not speaking any English, we managed to have a great chat with them
and a bit of a laugh too when we got things wrong.
The next morning we
reluctantly moved off from our little haven of peace and joy knowing that
having been spoiled no other mooring would ever compare.
Bagneaux was our next stop
and it certainly didn’t compare. We were
moored next to a disused glass factory!
It was very quiet and the towpath clean and clear but the town seemed to
exist only for the current glass factory, Corning and had a real feeling of
being purpose built almost. It was quite
odd. We found a post office to post a
letter off and got a couple of the last remaining cakes of the day from the local
bakers, but it was a very average stop-over really and we were happy to get
underway to Nemours the next morning.
As I mentioned earlier, the
port at Nemours wasn’t that attractive, but it had power, water, rubbish and
recycling and was free. The town of
Nemours is nice though, and well supplied with shops and bakers. We purchased our cakes for the next couple of
days and some quiches from Maison LeBeau and the cakes were the nearest we’ve come
to as those from our beloved Maison Roye in Auxerre. The lady was really nice and said she was disappointed
I spoke French as she likes a chance to practice her English. I needed no further encouragement to revert
to English and we had a nice chat with her – her English was really
excellent. It was nice to speak to
someone French in English as my French is limited so can’t have a really good
conversation, and I’d have loved to spend some time with her and ask her what
she thinks of France, Macron, the strikes and all the other things I’m curious
about the French to know, but don’t have the language to ask.
The next day our first lock
took us for a brief soujourn on the River Loing as the canal and river merged
for a short while.
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| The pretty chateau at Nemours |
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| Looking back up the river at Nemours |
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| Leaving the lock on to the River |
2 kilometres later and we
were back on canal again as the river went off on its own course and we
followed the canal down to Moret-sur-Loing, our last stop before the
Seine. For the first time since we left
Roanne we couldn’t get moored. Mike had
researched a free mooring just above the last lock, which we were keen to get
on in case we had to wait extra days for the stoppage on the Seine to come
off. However, as we crawled past lines
of moored boats it became clear that the little quay was full, as was the
lock-landing with a liveaboard moored on it!!
We reversed back and pulled into the off-side and put pins in. Not a disaster but the side was a fairly
steep slope which made getting off and on tricky. We then walked into the town and what a
pretty town it is with the river making its way through as well.
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| The Samois Gate and at the far end the Bourgogne Gate |
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| First ice cream of the season - yummmmm!!!!! |
At the tourist information
Mike asked how far we were from Fontainbleau as we were keen to visit the
Chateau whilst in close-ish proximity.
It was a seven-minute train ride away and the trains ran fairly
regularly. It was a bit of a walk to the
station but that didn’t bother of us, however, suddenly the girl’s face fell as
she remember that the next day, Saturday, and Sunday were national strike days
so she wasn’t sure if the trains would be running. At around 12kms away, it was too far for us
to cycle, especially as we had no idea of the terrain; if it was hilly, on main
roads or side roads etc, so we decided that we would just stay the one night
here after all and head somewhere closer to Fontainbleau the next morning.
That meant and early start on
Saturday and I was kicked out of bed and we were underway just before 9am and
just beating another boat to the lock.
We handed back our remote control and were dropped down onto the River
Loing. It was a nice morning but much
chillier than it has been of late, so as Mike steered us out towards the Seine,
I got coffee and bacon and egg rolls underway in the kitchen.
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| An early start out onto the River Loing |
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| And onto the Seine |
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| They operated this huge lock just for little us! |
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| Choppy waters as we leave the lock |
The Seine was quiet and easy
and we dropped down the first lock, which had had the stoppage on it, with no
problem. However, as we left the lock,
we were buffeted about on unusual currents from the weir which still has one
half-valve not working and is letting more water through than normal. With the bit of extra water we reached our
mooring at Valvins sooner than we thought and were glad to get onto the pontoon
mooring and safe water. Safe but quite
fast flowing to the point that we are stuck on the pontoon at the moment like
glue and it’s going to be interesting trying to spring off when we come to
leave. We caught the Capitain as he was
coming and going and he said we were welcome to stay but at the moment there
was no water or electricity. We said
that was fine and paid his suggested fee of 10 euros (I think it’s normally
about 25 euros with water and power). We
asked about cycling the 4.5kms from here to Fontainbleau and he sucked air and
said it was a bit of a hill, so Mike looked up the elevation and there was a 39
meter difference, which we reckoned would be fine.
It was the longest 4.5kms I’ve
ever cycled……… I took it easy as it was
a long slow hill for about half the way there and was fairly tired when we
arrived. But we’d picked a good weekend
to come as there were enactments on for the bank holiday weekend and although
busy, it wasn’t unbearably so.
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| Which one's Napoleon? |
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| Soldiers marching off to war. |
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| Marie Antoinette's boudoir - pretty. |
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| The throne room. |
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| Napoleon's bed. |
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| The very table where Napoleon signed his abdication |
The town of Fountainbleau itself
if really nice, like a really mini version of Paris really and had a nice feel
to it too. Once we’d satisfied ourselves
that we’d thoroughly explored the palace and gardens, we set off for home,
stopping off for a bank and then Mike managed to get himself a new watch strap
in one of the jewellers. On the
outskirts of town, I started hearing a slightly flumpy sound from the bike –
yes, puncture, and I shouted to Mike to stop.
Having tried and failed instant repairs over the years, we now carry a supply
of spare inner tubes with us and just replace them if one goes, and we did so
now fairly quickly, as it was on the front, easier wheel. However, as I set off I could feel the tyre
bumping and called to Mike again, so he went behind me and we continued
on. As we pulled into the train station
to pick up some tickets for next month, there was a bang and a hiss and my tire
went flat as the inner tube exploded – it must have been caught on the rim.
Fortunately Mike had another
(last) spare tube and we switched it over, printed the rail tickets and headed
off again. We got home with no further
excitement and enjoyed coming downhill for the last couple of kilometres. Back at the port another boat had arrived on
the visitor pontoon but no one was aboard so we got settled down for the night,
had our tea, some wine and then watched some tv. The forecast for Sunday was for rain all day,
so we decided we’d probably not bother moving and here we still are. Our neighbours are back on board but we’ve
not spoken to them as our hatches are shut against the heavy rain. We’re hoping to move tomorrow, Monday 30th,
as 1 May is a big holiday in France and the locks are all closed for the day on
this stretch of the river. We also now
have another stoppage further on as there is a problem with the gate on Lock 4
Vives Eaux………….
Looking forward to getting
back on the Marne……
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