Tranquillity and a Force 8 Gale

The Canal linking Digoin and Roanne is known as “The Tranquil Canal” and is certainly lives up to its name. The majority of the canal passes through countryside and farm land taking in a few small towns and villages along the way.

There were very few other boats, which we put down to it being towards the end of the season, but have since discovered is due to various French governmental departments ignoring each other.

The lack of boats, particularly hire boats, is apparently due to the large amount of weed in the canal. In France the navigable rivers and canals are managed by VNF – they operate the locks, maintain the canals and keep everyone moving, and the non-navigable rivers are the responsibility of the state.

At Roanne the Loire (non-navigable, therefore a state responsibility) is linked to the end of the canal (navigable, therefore a VNF responsibility). The Loire is full of weed and some of this passes into the canal. Well, quite a lot of it. So much so that the hire boat operators have all told their clients that if they want to go to Roanne and their propeller gets full of weed, the boater must pay for the repair.

So, they don’t come. VNF seem to spend a lot of time pulling weed out, but every day more comes in and the state apparently is unwilling to spend any money on a barrier which would allow water through but stop the weed.

And due to this a really nice marina is nearly empty in the summer, small towns and villages along the way have no tourist traffic and it contributes to the shops and cafes closing, which is very sad.

Roanne marina is full all winter; it’s a very popular winter mooring place and we are really enjoying being here. Some residents are year-round on big converted peniches and some, like us, just moor up in the winter.

The view from our boat looking back towards the canal

The weather has mainly been very good, still in the mid-20’s until the middle of last week, but we did have two nights with force 8 gales, which were less fun. We are tightly tied up, but the boat still moves around a bit, plus you have the sound of the water slapping again the steel hull, which didn’t make for a very restful night. Emma didn’t notice a thing and slept right through!

The view from our boat looking towards the end of the marina

There is a lot to do and see in Roanne, plus the marina social life, so there is no time to be bored, despite being in the same place for longer than at any time since we left home in the late spring. So far we have been to two parties, had guests from other boats visit us, visited the annual food festival, the Charolais Cow Fair and been to the circus, amongst other things.

The circus set up at the end of the marina last weekend and we decided to go, hoping that Emma would be able to sit still all the way through (which she pretty much did; only getting fidgety towards the end of the second half). I’m not a big fan of circuses myself; I don’t like clowns and don’t enjoy performing animals, which they still have here.

However, I did enjoy quite a lot of this show, particularly the acrobatic displays. Some of the animal performances made me uncomfortable, particularly the elephants, but the animals did appear to be in good health and well cared for. Oddly, the animals which didn’t worry me were the tigers, I just found myself thinking “Oh well, if they get fed up they can always eat their keeper”. Probably not the response the ring-master was hoping for.

Amar's Circus, picture taken from our boat

The Charolais Cow Fair was a very big hit with Emma, partly because going there meant a trip on the bus each way, and she loves buses.

A prize winning Charolais

As you’d expect, there were lots of cows (the clue is in the name) but also local food stalls an excellent mini-farm for children and some very, very placid miniature ponies taking children for rides in a pony-cart.



Emma on a pony cart

When not pulling children around the ponies stood patiently whilst hoards of very inexpert children attempted to groom them. From Emma’s point of view it was a top day out – two bus rides, lots of cows, ponies to play with and funny geese in the mini-farm. A pretty good day from my point of view too – E2.50 for the buses and E3.00 for the fair

Emma making a goose chase her hand through the glass

The weather is now getting much colder, so we will start looking for somewhere in Spain for a few months very soon. It will be a shame to leave Roanne and all our new neighbours, but some winter sun will be welcome.
 
 
 
 

 

 

Canal Du Centre & a Potty Full of Rain!

French canals have very matter-of-fact names. The Canal Du Centre is indeed in the centre of France. The Canal Lateral a Loire translates as "The Canal alongside the Loire". Which it is. And you can probably guess which two towns the Canal de Roanne a Digion runs between.

Anyway, we have been on the Canal Du Centre, and boy, have we seen some weather!

Being a luxurious type of boat, we have an outdoor potty, for when Emma can't quite get indoors quickly enough. It's about 12cm deep and after one 24 hours+ of non-stop rain, it overflowed. That's how much weather we've seen!

Stephen, between rain storms

But, it wasn't all like that and we have seen some fabulous countryside too (and some sunshine). It is all very rural here and most houses we pass have chickens, a veg patch and maybe some ducks too. The gardens remind my of the sort of garden my maternal grandparents and great-grandmother had, in Yaxley, Suffolk.

Dodging the rain, we stopped off at the Canal Museum in Ecuisses. There also used to be a tile factory in the village, making polychromatic tiles, so the museum covered that too.

The main part of the museum is housed in an old peniche, and once inside it is truly amazing how much space there is. Of course, it would have nearly all been used for cargo - the cabins and galley were also re-created and were tiny; much smaller than on our own boat.

Emma playing in the museum garden

 

The Musee in a Peniche.

All the locks on the first half of the Canal du Centre are called "Ocean 1" "Ocean 2" etc (Why didn't I take a picture of the sign for Ocean 11?) as the water drains into the Atlantic Ocean. Once you reach the highest point, the naming system changes and all the locks are "Mediterranean 1" "Mediterranean 2" as that's were the water drains to. All of a sudden and in a torrential downpour, we were officially heading towards the Med!

Countryside along the Canal du Centre

Actually, we only went a couple of locks further, as we have revised our original plan and decided to winter the boat in Roanne, rather than taking it down the Rhone to the Med. Various reasons for the decision - cost of mooring on the Med, the fact that with the high rainfall the Rhone would be very fast running, so risk of damage to the boat and (worse case scenario) maybe us too.

However, going to Spain for the winter is still on the agenda, but not by boat, and not just yet.

 
Next stop was Paray Le Monial, a place of religious pilgrimage for many. It has 34 convents, apparently, although we only saw one nun. It is a very beautiful town with an amazingly light and airy Church, dating from the 11th/12th century.


Church at Paray Le Monial



We were back into good weather again, which meant we had a lovely time strolling around the town and were able to sit outside at a cafe, watch the world go by and get an ice-cream for Emma.

Next stop - the aforementioned Canal de Roanne a Digion; our winter base.

Sancerre & Nevers

 So, was the bike ride up to Sancerre worth it? Yes and no. Yes, it’s a beautiful town with fabulous buildings and a great walking-trail. And No, because, whatever Stephen said, there is no way that was only a kilometre. Plus, I discovered a bus went up to the town and back to where we were moored, but only after we’d cycled up there.
 
Actually, we didn’t cycle the whole way there – we got off and pushed at the really hard bits.

There are some really well signposted cycle routes in this region, under the “Velo Loire” scheme. Trouble is, they do attract a lot of MAMIL’s (Middle Aged Men In Lycra). I know it’s great to have a hobby that get you out in the fresh air and keeps you fit. But really, is skin-tight, fluorescent lycra really the only way to go?

Anyway, back to Sancerre and a very important discovery we made there. Everyone knows about Sancerre wine, right? But, what about Sancerre beer?

On your behalf, we sampled some with lunch and I can honestly say it is some of the best beer we have ever tasted (and we’ve tasted a few). Stephen had the Blond and I had the Rose, which was flavoured with plant extracts. I really hope we see it again, but have a horrible feeling we won’t.

Stephen, modelling the latest in great beer

I would recommend a visit to the amazing little hill town, it's small enough to explore on foot and there is much more to it than just wine (although, there is a lot of that too).

On to Nevers, via another aqueduct. I had never been over an aqueduct in my life before last week, now I’ve done two! Truly, there is no end to the excitement on this trip!

Stephen at the start of the aqueduct

Nevers is another beautifully photographic town. Stephen described it as being a bit like Bruges – every way you turn, there is something to photograph. Except it’s all a bit charmingly shabby (which Bruges is not), but as you’ll know from my previous post, we are a bit partial to “charmingly shabby”.

Side street in Nevers - charmingly shabby

 

The Ducal Palace - not shabby at all

In a town we don’t know, we generally head for the cathedral/big church first, as they tend to be in the centre of things. This is half true with Nevers, as it has two halves (High and Low Town) and two cathedrals. We visited the High Town Cathedral, which is magnificent and has some beautiful modern stained glass. The cathedral was largely destroyed in WWII by the RAF, who were trying to bomb some nearby foundries, but other than the stained glass, you wouldn’t be able to tell.

Emma’s highlight of Nevers has got to be the “Rolling Ball Fountain”. This consists of a really big, solid ball of marble which is pushed round and round by water coming up from underneath. It took us several minutes to decide that, yes, it really was just the power of water moving it.

Emma & friends at the Rolling Ball Fountain

We are off the Decizes next, where my parents are joining us for a couple of days. We plan to travel down the canal to Digoin. At the moment it is still shorts and t-shirt weather here by mid-morning, so I am hoping it lasts at least for the next week!

Elegantly Wasted...

Is it just me, or do slightly (and sometimes more than slightly) dilapidated buildings look interesting and charming when you abroad, whereas at home, they would just look tatty? 

 

 

Is it the light? The "holiday" frame of mind? Maybe if I had to live next door to them, I'd revise my opinion and think them tatty after all. But at the moment, they are still seem charming.

We travelled with some new Finnish friends, Johanna, Joseph & Eevin for a week or so, but they have now gone on ahead of us, as they need to move faster than we do. So - Happy 40th Birthday Joseph! It was great travelling in convoy with them - and not just because there was one stretch of canal where they had a map and we didn't.

We are out in the sticks a bit, travelling on the Canal Lateral a la Loire. Beautiful countryside and some lovely little towns and villages en route.

We particularly enjoyed Chatillion-Coligny, a medieval walled town which had a wonderful (and free!) marina.

Inside the walled town of Chatillion-Colligny

 

Emma, doing her best "I am really cute" impression

We've also seen a number of great trompe d'oeil over the past week or so. This is my current favourite - painted on a garage door just by a lock entrance.

We also crossed the Loire at Briare a few days ago, via a magnificent aqueduct. It's over half a kilometre long and has walkways on both side. It was designed by Gustave Eiffel and is absolutely amazing.

Just entering the aqueduct

 

About halfway across

 

At the end, looking back

Tonight we are at Saint Satur and Stephen tells me we have now travelled 1,270 miles. Tomorrow (if the rain stops for long enough) we are planning to cycle up to Sancerre, which is the home of one of Stephen's favourite wines. It's a long, steep hill (especially with Emma on the back of my bike, plus she require a running commentary of what's going on around us), so wish me luck!

On to Paris

More beautiful countryside on our way to Paris. We passed right through the centre of the Champagne region. The bottle bank at the marina in Mareuil-sur-Ay made us laugh, being about two-thirds full of champagne bottles, rather than the usual "Vin du Pays". It's a lovely little town (one baker, one butcher, 14 champagne houses), but does seem to have some rather unusual residents.....

The vineyards are quite amazing to see; mile after mile of carefully ordered rows of vines.

 
And I loved this wild flower garden planted at one of the locks we passed through. It was full of insects and butterflies.

Arrived in Paris in rain and high winds - not very August-y. We stayed at Paris Arsenal which is right next to the Place Bastille, in fact the Bastille Metro Station forms one of the boundary walls, so very central.

My sister, Helen, and her daughter, Lily came to visit for the weekend, much to Emma's excitement. Lily is now five and had two "must do" items on her list for Paris:

1. Go and see the Eiffel Tower (or the "Eif Tower" as Emma calls it)
2. Go and see Quasimodo's House (better known as Notre Dame - she's been watching the Disney film)

Both pretty easy to accomplish!

In the event, I think both Emma and Lily were more excited by the other events of the day - a ride on the Metro, lunch in a cafe, a ride on a carousel and a big bag of popcorn!

Next day we met up with an old friend of mine and her daughter. We worked together at Royal Trust Bank many years ago. She moved to Paris 20 years ago and this was the first time I had met her daughter.

We all had lunch then took the boat out for a trip up and down the Seine. The sun shone and the children had a whale of a time doing a little bit of sightseeing and a lot of pulling out all the toys and squealing at each other.

 

The Eiffel Tower and Paris's Statute of Liberty from the Seine

 



Before signing off, I must post a picture of the boat we were moored next to in Paris. When we booked in the Harbourmaster said "you are in slot 130, next to the colourful boat; you won't miss it". He was right! 

A Great Big Catch-Up!

After ages without Wi-Fi today should have been a Wi-Fi-ful day. Although I’m writing about Maastricht (Netherlands) and various places in Belgium, we are actually in France and today we are just outside Reims (great Cathedral, entirely average Tourist Information Office), in a marina which boasts free Wi-Fi for boaters. Except that it’s just switched itself off.

No problem – whilst in Reims, we visited the Orange shop and a nice young man sold me a card for my dongle. And that won’t work either. So I’m writing this, not knowing if/when I’ll ever be able to actually publish it. Aggghhh!

Whilst I’m typing away, Stephen is servicing the aft head (rear loo, for non-boaty types). Yes, Life Aboard Pershilla truly is a life of non-stop glamour.

Back to Maastricht. What a lovely place! I’d been there before, about 10 years ago, on a wet Sunday and it was shut. Not this time; the sun shone, the cafes and shops were open. Wonderful. Except the Swiss couple we had to moor up against. Mrs Swiss-Lady got hugely upset because our boat was blocking her view of the city. Given that we were all on a free mooring which works on a first-come-first-served basis, we weren’t hugely sympathetic, but to try and be helpful we offered to swap places with them, so she could have her view, despite the fact that Emma was already asleep and the swapping places scheme would me starting the engines, which might wake her.

Mr Swiss-Man was all in favour of this and we agreed to move once we’d finished eating. Thirty seconds later, another tap on the window and Mrs Swiss-Lady was back “My husband has drunk too much to move our boat and you shouldn’t have moored here (we were perfectly within our rights to moor there and, in fact, had been directed to do so). Also, your boat has a funny smell, close all the windows”. That would be the delicious steak and chips rapidly cooling on my plate.

Yes, but I can switch the extractor fan on and in 5 minutes, the smell will be gone. But you, Mrs Swiss-Lady, will still be rude and unpleasant in 5 minutes.

I was tempted to start boiling cabbage and Brussel sprouts with all the windows open at that point, but thought better of it (also, I had no cabbage on aboard).

Next morning, we headed into town to the market. As you’ll have seen from previous posts, I love markets and Maastricht’s market does not disappoint. Huge and marvellous. Selling everything from fish (we had some wonderful tuna steaks, soft as butter) to clothes, to fabric, to bike paraphernalia, to plants and ironmongery.

I couldn't resist a picture of this wonderfully colourful stall in the market

After Maastricht it was back into Belgium, to Liege. We moored alongside some friends we’d made in Venlo, Sue and Mushy, and Sue very kindly offered to babysit for Emma, so we could go out. What a treat! So, all dressed up in our (only set of) smart clothes we set off into town and had a great meal at an outdoor restaurant in the Cathedral square.

Next morning – another market. Liege’s Sunday market is 2km long and alongside all the usual stuff it also had lots of livestock stalls – chickens, quails, rabbits etc. At first we thought “Sunday Lunch” but on closer inspection these were actually fancy varieties, so either to show or as pets, I think.

Not lunch, apparently.

The scenery radically changed in this area and especially as we moved on to Namur. We were now in the Ardennes and the size of the hills and the scale of the rock cliffs were a real change from The Netherlands. It is so beautiful; I really can’t imagine why the area isn’t better known as a holiday destination.

Namur was a big hit with Emma. We went up to the Citadel which involved a boat (ours) a water-taxi, a bus and a little road-train. Plus, when we got up there, there was a children’s play area. She wasn’t so fussed about the tour of the underground passages (in three languages with a rather grumpy tour guide) but has been asking about water-taxis ever since.

View of The Citadel from our boat

 

View of our boat from The Citadel

We did have one funny moment on the taxi when a couple got on with their two grandchildren and the grandparents said “Two adults, two children – eight and five”. Now, under six’s travel free, but the small boy immediately shouted out “No! I’m six! I’m six”. His poor grandmother looked terminally embarrassed.

Next stop – Dinant. What we hadn’t realised until the last minute was that the day we arrived was a public holiday in France – Assumption Day. This, for reasons unknown to us, is celebrated with a Bathtub Race. Which we sailed right into! The bridges and river banks where packed with people watching the races, so obviously all the mooring points were already full. However on the outskirts of the town, beside the very impressive Bayard Rocher, was a great mooring place which was just a stone’s throw from a mini-supermarket and a fabulous butcher, who took a shine to Emma and added some slices of sausage to my order for her lunch – the advantages to being blonde, blue-eyed and cute, I guess.

Dinant's BathTub Race

Sadly for Emma, no water-taxis at our next mooring point – right outside the Chateau Freyr. It was, without doubt, the most beautiful mooring place we have stayed at, and made even better by the fact we had it all to ourselves and it was free!

We visited the Chateau as soon as it opened the next morning and had the house to ourselves for a while. If you are in the area, it is well worth a visit as the house is very interesting and each room has descriptions in English as well as Dutch, German and French. The gardens were less interesting to us, but still worth walking around.

Chateau Freyr

Our beautiful mooring - this photo doesn't really do it justice

On again, and the next part of the journey involved going through the infamous Ham Tunnel. It’s just over half a kilometre long and pretty low. We weren’t certain we would fit, but thought we should. However, the roof is very rough rock, so the height does vary in places. Stephen did a great job of protecting all the high protruding bits of the boat with fenders and rubber pipe and we’d been told that the lock-keeper just before the tunnel would be able to tell if you would fit or not.

Arriving at the lock he waived us through without comment, so we went for it and, thank goodness, it was fine – it would have been a long slow trip re-tracing our steps back to Namur to take an alternative route.

Ham Tunnel

So, we are now back into France proper and heading toward Paris, where we hope to be at the end of the month. We are passing through some wonderful countryside and I saw my first live, wild red squirrel a couple of days ago (my great-grandmother had a stuffed one, hence my adding “live”, as I don’t think that really counts) and we’ve also seen kingfishers, sand martins and marsh harriers – a bit different from the wildlife I see in the garden in Godalming!
 

The Floriade & Big German Women

One of the main "things we must do on this trip" was visit Floriade 2012 so this week it was off to Venlo, the nearest town, to do just that.

We'd had a couple of really nice quiet days in Leukermeer, one in a marina and one anchored out on a lake. Both were good, in different ways. The marina was well equipped and next door was a static caravan site with a pool and a great play area. Emma and I had an afternoon there which she really enjoyed.

I enjoyed it for entirely different reasons. The site is very close to the German border and the vast majority of the other women in the pool (no men - no idea why) were German. And very "well covered" they were too. For the first (and possibly last) time in my life, I was the thinnest woman in the pool.

I think I will holiday exclusively in Germany from now on.

Anyway, on to Venlo. Brand new city-centre harbour, which, like the rest of Venlo, will be lovely when it's finished. But, at E10 per night and a big screen showing the Olympics at the end of the harbour, I really can't complain.

I'm still feeling a bit "hmmmmm" about Floriade. I have been once before and loved it, but this time - not so much.

Some bits were great; we loved the Chinese and Indonesian Pavilions and Emma loved the Tunisian Pavilion as she was entranced by the on-site potter, who made her a pot with her name on (can't believe I managed to get a wet-clay pot all the way back to the boat in one piece) but a lot of the national pavilions were just "have a holiday brochure" or "our apple industry is second to none!", which isn't that exciting.





The Chinese Pavilion

Emma's Tunisian Potter


The site is very good. Flat, obviously (this is The Netherlands) but quite varied in that you walk along woodland paths to get between the various areas. Spotlessly clean and with plenty of loos (and no queues - important when you have a three year old who goes from "Do you need a wee?" "No" to "I need a wee! Nooooowwwwww!" in about 10 seconds. Still, it was a garden exhibition - plenty of bushes to hide her behind).

We loved:

The really deep, dense planting

The very comfortable astroturfed recliners

The tractor with video screen field to drive it in

Feeding the fish (the best 20 cents we spent all day!)

The Living Wall

The Glass Stream - this is something I'd like to recreate at home

Next stop - Maastricht. We've been there once before, years ago, but it was closed (honestly - everything was closed). Am hoping it will be a little more lively this time!