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| Vines and Grain galore at Dormant |
Our original plan back in
April, for this section of our travels, was to leave Paris, head back up the
Yonne and then turn down the Loing, Canal du Briare and Lateral de la Loire,
then back along the Centre, out onto the Saone and retrace our steps up to St
Jean de Losne but rather then turn onto the Bourgogne, keep going and take the
Champagne Bourgogne canal onto the Marne, and back to Paris before heading back
down the Loing or Nivernais to our winter mooring off the Centre at
Roanne. However, we realised that this
was incredibly ambitious for the time left of the season and didn’t leave any
wiggle room should we want to stop off anywhere, or take some time off the boat
for a road trip or trip back to the UK.
So we came out of Paris and straight onto the Marne to go the other way
than initially planned and keep the Loing, Briare and Lateral de la Loire for
next year. It’s been the right decision
as we have been able to pootle along, spend a couple of nights at nice places
and are just chilling out and taking our time – which is what it’s all about
after all. And there is so much to see
and do!!! I had no idea the the Marne
was one of the main battle sites of WWI and there are many memorials and cemeteries
to visit, and of course, we’ve reached the champagne region so we’re doing
tastings as we go – well, would be rude not to!!
Anyway, enough of my
blethers, here’s a glimpse of what we’ve been up to!
Friday 29th was
another short hop to our next mooring at Mary sur Marne, where we had tried to
eat at Le Quai de Brunes restaurant when moored on the Ourcq. We knew there was just the one 15 metre
pontoon so we set off early hoping to get there before anyone else and
hopefully secure a table for lunch at the restaurant. The gods were with us and we smugly tied up,
booked a table and then set about washing our rather dirty girl before having a
lovely lunch with a couple of small glasses of rose wine to wash it down. The restaurant is very popular with locals
and we very quickly realised that they didn’t need and weren’t that bothered
with tourists as we were left for ages before they brought menus and again
before they took our orders. Every other
table was given tap water, and offered an aperitif – not us, but the food was
really good when it came, so we let them off with their poor service to us.
The next morning was sunny
and we set off for St Jean les Deux Jumeaux, seeing very few other boats on the
move despite it being the weekend. At
lock 10 we were given a remote control and instruction sheet for the next 7
seven locks, which are automatic, but unmanned, so you operate them yourselves
remotely from the boat – exciting! The
mooring at St Jean was empty and was a pontoon behind a little island, so
really quiet and very cute. We liked it
so much we stayed two nights there, enjoying sitting in the sun reading our
books and only saw two or three boats on the move. There wasn’t much to the town; a baker which provided
pudding for Saturday night and an large empty car park which we noted as a good
surface to get the Ninebot out…….
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| There are still one or two working barges on the Marne |
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| My first realisation of the Marne's importance during both World Wars; there was a plaque on this bridge that said it was destroyed on 12 June 1940 and recontructed 13 November 1940. It's the main line into Paris. |
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| Lovely quiet mooring at St Jean Les Deux Jumeaux |
Monday took us another 10kms
and 0 locks to La Ferte sous Jouarre where again the pontoon moorings were
behind a little island, sheltering you from the traffic. It was a longer pontoon with a few boats
moored, including Luv from Northern Ireland, with Paul and Elaine on
board. The moorings were free as was the
water and electricity so we plugged in and got the washing machine going before
heading to the LeaderPrice supermarket, which was a bit of a disappointment. The town itself was very nice though and we
were next to another empty car park for more Ninebotting. We were getting so close to going solo on it……
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| Pretty Mayor's Office in the square at La Ferte sous Jouarre |
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| Deep concentration...... |
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| Bit of a wobble....... |
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| And she's off!! |
The overnight rain hung
around on Tuesday morning but the afternoon was hot and humid and got hotter as
the day went on. We took a walk to the
WWI memorial which was very impressive, not least because it was to commemorate 3888 UK soldiers whose graves are unknown. They landed in August 1914 and between then and October 2014 fought at Mons, Le Cateaut and on the Marne and the Aisne. It was
really odd to see local regiments and their men from Scotland and York listed
on this huge monument in this little French town – quite moving.
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| Each of the four outer pillars are carved with the crests for England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. |
When we got back we had another
go on the Ninebot and I managed this:
On Wednesday we started to
spot vines as we headed into Champagne territory. Again, there were few boats around and the
Marne simply seems to ooze the chill factor, inviting you to take your time on
the tranquil waters and enjoy the views.
We finally had the chance to
use our remote control on the locks and all thankfully went smoothly. In fact, it was much easier and much less
stress as you can take your time roping up, not having to rush as the lock
keepers champ at the bit to get you in and up and out as quickly as
possible. It was a longer day for us
covering 24kms and 3 locks and we reached Charly mid-afternoon. We walked into town and managed to sniff our
way straight to the first champagne house to see what was on offer.
The owner, Denis Roberts, was in the middle
of packing for a trip to Belgium the next day, to have a stand at a
conference/food and drink festival there, but shifted his boxes out of the way
and introduced us to three of his champagnes.
His family have been making champagne since 1755, so they know their
stuff and he is now passing on his knowledge to his sons and daughters with
their own brand of the family champagne.
We bought a couple of bottles and headed back to the boat via the big,
new Super U to top up on groceries and where we noticed their diesel was only 1
euro 16. So a trip back with the jerry
cans and the boat was fuelled up too. As
we were unpacking the shopping, another boat came up the lock behind us and
Paul and Carol on Triona, whom we’d met in Paris, appeared. Paul was busy studying his canal book and
Carol was sorting their ropes so they almost went past, but Mike honked our
horn and when they saw us they decided to reverse and moor up behind us for the
night, having done over 70kms already that day!!
The sun was still out and we
had a lovely big grass bank to sit on, so we took along a bottle of champagne
and joined them for a drink, then we had some wine, then some more wine, then
the brandy and port came out…… We ended
up doing a pot luck dinner as we’d both made dinner but put everything on the
table and had a taste of each others’.
It was good to catch up with them but we were pretty rough the next
morning, and whilst they set off just after 9am, we battened down the hatches,
watching the day get windier and windier and realising the gusts were 61km per
hour, decided we probably shouldn’t move anyway……
Thankfully the wind had
dropped the next morning, Friday 4 August, and we set off for the town of
Chateau Thierry, arriving just before lunch mooring on the stone quayside which
annoyingly had a sloping wall just under the water, so we had to sit out a bit
and jump off the roof onto the side. We
popped into the Tourist Information, then did the French thing and had a nice
lunch at Le Saint Jean restaurant. We
then had a look around the town, got some bits and pieces from the supermarket
and then had drinks with Paul and Elaine on Luv, back at the mooring, as they’d
leap-frogged us the previous day.
The next morning, we headed
off out of the town on foot to visit the WWI memorial overlooking the town, a
gift from the USA to commemorate the US soldiers who were key to the liberation
of the town on 18 July 1918. You can see
the monument from miles around, surrounded by the woods that gave the soldiers
cover coming into the town. It was
fenced off for renovation, but as it was the weekend, no one was around, so we
squeezed through a wee gap in the fence to get a closer look (and better
photo!).
We then sat and chilled in the
sunlit silence for an hour and then continued our walk back down to the edge of
town and the house of Champagne Pannier.
There, there was a tour of the caves in English at 2pm, so we joined
another family to learn the history of the caves and the champagne and do a
tasting at the end. The caves were
fascinating, carved out back in the day to build the Chateau in the town and
then used as shelter by the soldiers during the war and now full of champagne!
The tastings were generous
and we duly bought a couple of bottles of pink for the cellar. After a wee rest back at the boat, we headed
out early evening to walk to the Chateau, now ruins, but impressive nonetheless
and then picked up a kebab for tea on the way home
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| Lovely views of Chateau Thierry and the Marne valley from the old castle ruins. |
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| One of the castle gates, not quite so ruined! |
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| Mike getting a handful in the castle's herb garden.... |
We left Chateau Thierry in
hot sunshine and had a lovely cruise for a couple of hours to our next mooring
at Joulgone – we really are enjoying the Marne very much, the countryside is
just beautiful and there are vines for miles.
There we practised the Ninebot again a couple of times, both now
managing to ride it without holding on to each other for support, but still
with quite a bit of wobbling.
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| Not a bad spot for a glass of wine and a good book |
Monday 7th saw us
on another short pootle to Dormant where our, leave early, arrive first policy
worked again and the pontoon was empty when we got there at lunchtime. The mooring was on a campsite, with open
parkland next to the moorings and the caravans and tents further along hidden
behind hedges. It was well kept, had
good facilities, so not surprising that there was a charge, but 9euros a night
including water and electricity seemed reasonable. We went for a walk around the town, much of
which was shut as it was Monday, but the kebab shop was open, so Mike had a kebab
for lunch and I ordered a salad. The
town has a chateau and impressive War memorial, so we headed towards that to
enjoy our lunch in the chateau gardens in the shade. The chateau itself is not open to the public,
but houses the Tourist Information, so you got to see the entrance and one
room! But the gardens are free and just
lovely and the war memorial and exhibitions within are all free too. It was so impressive and their little ‘Marne
Visages’ exhibition brought a tear to my eye reading the accounts of some of
the French soldiers who died.
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| Nice approach to Dormant |
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| Mooring with a view |
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| The Chateau at Dormant within its beautiful gardens |
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| The war memorial overlooks the town and was built after the First World War but now commemorates all the wars. |
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| Beautiful interior which also houses a wee museum off to the side, where you can see items they've dug up and are still finding today. |
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| View from the top of the tower. |
We had spotted a L’Eclerc
supermarket from the chateau gardens so topped up on supplies on the way back
to the boat and as we crossed the bridge back to our mooring saw a dutch barge
approaching. They slowed up as if to
moor, but by now Paul and Elaine had arrived and there was no room on the
pontoon. There was another barge moored
on a stone quay next to the pontoon, but someone else was already alongside
them as well, so I shouted over that they were welcome to come alongside
us. And so we met Trevor and Alison and
Levi and Sacha the staffies on board Denieel (I think, I can’t remember exactly
the name of their boat). In this massive
country, with hundreds and hundreds of miles of rivers and canals, we manage to
bump into someone who moored their boat at Weedon!!! What was funnier was that it was a white
cruiser and whenever we were at Weedon I would comment that “That poor cruiser’s
still sitting there – do you think anyone ever takes it out??” Apart from the one time I realised with great
excitement that it was facing the other way so must have been out…….. They have shares in Denieel so only travel on
her six weeks a year and they still have the white cruiser, Swallow, in the UK,
but have now moved her from Weedon so they can explore a different area.
They invited us over for a
drink in the evening, after we’d done some more Ninebot practice on the tarmacked
cycle route alongside our mooring and during which I did a good two or three
minutes on my own and feel I’ve now mastered “the straight line”, which duly
turned into several drinks and them sharing the curries that Mike had made that
afternoon, which would have lasted us a week had they not shared them. It was a lovely evening and nice to also share
stories of Weedon and Daventry as they still live in the area. We were amused to find that the pub in Badby
that we’d stayed at whilst waiting on Quaintrelle being finished has just been
taken over by Merlin, the bar man from tv's First Dates, who has renovated it and has
trained all the staff in cocktail making!!!
Despite a late night and the promise of rain, we will be continuing our
cruise though champagne country in the morning.
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| Family of swans visiting for a late evening snack. |
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