Helen & Iain arrived in Briare on Sunday by car and we met up for dinner onboard that night. On Monday morning we headed back down the canal and over the pont-canal again. Having reached the end of our outward leg for this year, we are now on the return voyage to St. Symphorien-sur-Saone.
Note: We had originally planned to go further up the canal, all the way to the Seine, however due to our tardy progress, mostly as a result of too many (enjoyable) stop-overs, the trip has been curtailled a little. Apologies for any confusion caused to our future visitors. I've updated the schedule and pick-up & drop-off points.
We arrived in Menetreol and found a good mooring (not always easy in this port as it's quite popular). The following day we walked up the hill into Sancerre for lunch and a visit.
The last time we were here, in July, there was a Jazz Festival on; this visit we found a choir from England singing in the square. Apparently there is a lot of singing in Sancerre in the summer - must be the wine.
The following day we moved on to Pouilly - the other famous wine town in the region. We again walked into town and paid it a visit, again organising a tasting. In addition to the AOC's of "Sancerre" & "Pouilly Fume" (both well known), we also discovered a couple of less well known appellations. The first was "AOC Pouilly-sur-Loire", made in very small volumes from Chasselas table grapes. We think we know why no-one has ever heard of it - @#$%^& - in my humble opinion - forget it! The second AOC discovery for us was "Menetou-sur-Loire" (a gem! ... and not too expensive).
One point of interest about Pouilly that we didn't know until this year - it is situated on the right bank of the Loire River exactly mid-way between its source and its mouth. Don't ask me how they actually determine the exact point of the source, or even the mouth, but it must be correct because its written in stone!
From Marseille-les-Aubigny we travelled further south to Nevers; about 25 kms. From Nevers we took the train back to Briare to pick-up Iain & Helen's car. I should note that, since Briare is only a few kilometres from Gien, we apparently simply had to make another visit to the pottery factory located there (Pete's third this year...).
Once we picked up the car we spent the weekend on the boat in the port in Nevers and did some driving in the environs. Great to have the car for a big shop! Also for the odd lunch out.
Unfortunately Helen & Iain had to leave us after the weekend. Another good holiday with them.
We have a couple of weeks before our friend Peter arrives, which is good since according to Pete we have done none of the painting we desperately need to do (it looks OK to me ... but, there you go!). Fortunately the weather has been a little too inclement to paint the whole time, and we have been able to hire a cheap rental car for a day or two and continue with some touring.
A small aside: ...
I have just finished reading a book called "The Man Who Outshone the Sun King". It is about the rise of Nicholas Foucquet, who was Louis XIV's Treasurer. Through his financial work for the government he amassed great personal wealth and determined to build himself a splendid chateau, worthy of his lofty position, which he named Vaux-le-Vicomt. He built it just outside of Paris, near Fountainebleau (which was in those days a residence for the royal court), and he invited around 500 or more of his very closest friends for dinner. The guest of honour was the king and they ate from silver plates, were treated to a brand new play written and directed by Moliere, and finished off the evening with a spectacular fire-works display.
Louis felt just a tad eclipsed by Foucquet's grandeur and style, and asking the question "where did this guy get so much money?", he promptly had Foucquet arrested for embezzling the King's finances. The luckless Foucquet subsequently lost the two year court case (which is not surprising as Louis had appointed all the judges), and he spent the next 19 years in jail - where he died.
Louis confiscated the chateau and all Foucquet's wealth. More importantly Louis co-opted the services of Foucquet's architect (Louis Le Vau), his interior decorator (the artist Charles Le Brun) and his gardener (Andre Le Notre), and then set them to work on a little place of his own - which he called Versailles. The rest, as they say, is history.
Why am I boring you with all this? Well it's relevance is that, since I just finished the book and since we have a car and we are only about two hours from Melun, we decided to visit Vaux-le-Vicomt. It's a grand place but not as large or (relatively) as ostentatious as Versailles. It has an elegance that I think Louis lost when he created it's more pretentious and grandiose facsimile.
The pictures tell the story better than I can.
While in the port this weekend we have inadvertently placed ourselves right in the middle of a triathlon.They started setting up on Friday and it has turned out to be a big event. We've had a great seat from which to watch the competition.
We have spent some time productively engaged in painting. We have also enjoyed some great weather in the course of painting and have completed some essential scheduled maintenance tasks (greasing, changing water filters, etc). We are now feeling reasonably satisfied that our time has been spent profitably. The old girl is starting to look like a "10 metre boat' again.
(We rate the boat with regard to its paintwork by way of our patented "Paint Appearance" scale. That is, when the boat needs painting badly, but still looks good at say 30 metres; we say it's a "30 metre boat". When we have done some painting, but perhaps not enough to stand close inspection, then she looks good at 20 metres and so is a "20 metre boat". One day she'll be a "1 metre boat" - but in the meantime we are having too much fun to spend all our time painting.)
The weather has been very hot over the last week in particular and this has slowed our progress slightly as the steelwork has become too hot to paint in the afternoon. A late lunch and then some reading time.
After we'd finished our painting we picked up our friend Peter (arrived at Nevers station on the Monday) and headed off for some much anticipated cruising. 'Nevers' is a great port but we have been here for almost 3 weeks ... long by our normal standards. ("Port Fever" usually sets in in the second week!)
We had a good cruise with Peter down to Decize and also did a little bit of bike riding. Peter set himself the task of finding the perfect pastry for breakfast (and morning tea, and lunch, and afternoon tea, and dinner). His Holy Grail was the "Tart Tartin". Unfortunately, as with earlier attempts with the original Grail, it eluded him. However in his quest he bicycled through quite a bit of the French countryside, often going 'off-canal' to find his Patisseries, and as he did he managed to find some wonderful breads, pastries, and tarts; for which we are truly grateful.
(I think we all have put on a kilo or two!)
This is a very pleasant stretch of the canal and we were lucky to cruise it in very good weather (if anything it was too hot in Diou).
While Peter was on one of his pastry forays, we did have the good luck to see a deer, albeit in the canal. They sometimes jump or fall into the canal and we have seen situations where they were unable to get out of the water and have drowned.
Fortunately on this occasion, this lucky deer managed to find a place where it could clamber out. The VNF often construct a few 'animal exit points' along the canal for just such situations.
(These 'animal exit points' are either, one to two metre stretches on the side of the canal with low sides, or little ramps for the animals to climb up.)
At Paray we met up with Peter's daughter Emma, who arrived by train from Madrid (via Lyon). We shared a good weekend on board where Peter & Emma taught us some new card games.
(Never play cards with a man in dark-glasses).
While in the port one of the other boats, on trying to leave, discovered that his propellor was jammed. He could start the engine but it made a terrible noise when he put it in gear. After trying to remove whatever was causing the malfunction he eventually called a diver.
In turned out that the obstruction around the prop was a sun-umbrella from a 'Canalous' company hire-boat (the name was still discernible from the crumpled mess that emerged with the diver). It must have been left out on deck when the guys from the hire-boat went into town, and blown into the water where it promptly sank in wait of an unsuspecting propellor.
I think the original quote given to do this job, supplied by a professional diver, was between €200 & €700. Eventually the boat owner arranged for a local guy, who was not a professional diver, to do the work and was given the option to pay 'whatever he felt was fair' - I think he paid about €100 in the end.
Peter and Emma left us on Monday to continue their holiday in Turkey, and we were joined
You can click here to go directly to the September 2010 web page ... click here for September 2010
Pouilly-sur-Loire to Marseille-les-Aubigny:
Wednesday 04/08/2010 to Thursday 05/08/2010:
Nevers:
Friday 06/08/2010 to Monday 16/08/2010:
Nevers:
Tuesday 17/08/2010 to Monday 23/08/2010:
Decize:
Tuesday 24/08/2010:
Decize to Diou to Digoin:
Wednesday 25/08/2010 to Friday 27/08/2010:
Paray-le-Monial:
Saturday 28/08/2010 to Monday 30/08/2010:
by our friends Peter & Sharon (from Melbourne), who are cruising with us for the first week of September.... click here
or here to go back to the July 2010 web page ... click here for July 2010.
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