Major Engineering Works

We are actually in Greffern, Germany as I write this, we arrived today, so I thought a round up of the last bit of France would be a good plan.

We are on the Rhine at present, which forms the border between France and Germany at this point, so it's partly by chance that we are actually in Germany - the first marina was on the German side of the river.

Anyway, back to France. We were on the Canal de la Marne et Rhin heading towards Strasbourg, and that canal has some major engineering, hence the blog title.

First, across an aquaduct:

Then into an enormous lock at Rechicourt. You sail toward this great wall of concrete ........

And into the gate at the bottom of the wall.

This is the view from inside the lock

And looking forward. We have to rise right to the top. Thankfully, this lock has floating bollards, so we don't have to shin up a ladder to get a rope around a bollard at the top, the bollard floats up with us.

This is the top, no clue of the immense distance we have risen

Except our depth-ometer, which shows we have 17.1 metres of water beneath the bottom of our keel. Our keel is about 1.3 metres, so we've actually got 18.4 metres of water beneath us. This is not the time to be dropping anything overboard.

Next, we are onto the Niederviller and Arzviller tunnels. The Niederviller tunnel is 475 metres long and the Arzviller 2,306 metres long, with just a short gap in between the two

Now, two tunnels, of this length, one straight after another would be dramatic enough, as the tunnels are pretty dark and low. But we actually had to do them three times, as we lost a big fender coming through the first time. Stopping, reversing and generally fiddling about inside the tunnels is not permitted, so we had to finish the journey, turn round, do it again (collecting the missing fender) then finish the return trip, turn around again and come back.

 

I am officially done with tunnels for the foreseeable future.

 

Next day, the inclined plane, also at Arzvillier.

 

Basically, an inclined plan is a large bath into which you sail your boat, that bath is sealed at each end and you slide down a slope.

 

It's a very slow and controlled slide, but it's still a slide dropping you 44.55 metres.

 

This is the view from the top: 

And this is the view from the bottom:

And this is a nice side view:

 

 

Pretty impressive, huh?

Deux Detour - Dole & Soing

I think that just about every boater we have met in France has told us how wonderful Dole is and that we Must Visit. Without Fail!
 
We had been in Verdun-sur-le-Doub; however, with the huge amount of flooding in Germany and the Czech Republic, some of the flood water from Besancon, upriver was being release along the Doub, meaning there was a very fierce current and the water level was rising very quickly - over a metre in eight hours. More like Verdun-sous-le-Doub (not my joke, sadly - thank you, Tracey Morgan, our most remote reader, in East Timor)
 
The force of the current meant I had a very unrestful night as the boat was swung about on the pontoon, so I was very glad to move on the next day to St Jean-de-Losne, where, at last, the sun came out!
 
St-Jean-de-Losne is a nice town with two large marinas a good chandlery plus commercial boats on the river itself.
 

The Saone at St-Jean-de-Losne

 
Also, according to my Dad (the fount of all knowledge, do not take on his team in a pub quiz) it was, when the canals were busy with commercial traffic, a major town for the peniches (commercial boats) to take on contracts for the forthcoming year.
 
However, we aren't hanging around, having had to wait around for a month due to the canal bursting its bank, so we took the advice of other boaters and detoured to to Dole.
 
It's a beautiful trip along the Canal du Rhone au Rhin, except for one bit. All of a sudden we can to a lot of signs warning us not to stop or moor in the "area of technological risk" informing us that we where "under CCTV surveillance". Eh? We count ourselves lucky when we can get WiFi on the canal; generally it's not a highly technological area. Anyway, on we went and this is what we saw:
 

 



Only it was HUGE! About a mile long, we think. No signs, no business names, no hoardings and no people (but there were cars and trains, so I guess they were in there somewhere). We think it was a chemical/petrochemical plant. But oddly, we've sailed by at least two nuclear power plants, and they didn't have any of the same warnings. Weird.
 
Anyway. Dole. Wow! Stephen has admitted that he was a bit reluctant to go as everyone said how wonderful it was and therefore it might turn out to be a bit "meh". But it's not, it's great. In the same way that in Brugge there is a photograph to be taken at every step, that's how it is in Dole, but it has the French shabby-chic thing going on.
 

 

 
 

Stephen was able to add to his photographic collection of wonderfully aged and textured doors

 

 

 

 
 And Emma got an ice-cream (handmade, vanilla - wonderful, I had to have one too) which made her day - it we moor somewhere with ice-cream, a playground and a café, then she's happy - Dole has all of these thing.
 

 
 
Do go if you get a chance, it's a beautiful town. Also, as you cannot fail to notice from all the road names/statues/museums/etc, it was the birthplace of Louis Pasteur. Now, being a lover of milk in my tea, I am appreciative of his discovery as the next woman, but the sheer amount of road names/statues/museums/etc in his honour does make me think that maybe they are milking it a bit (yes, that one is my own joke - Stephen groaned, but admitted he wished he'd thought of it first).

Next detour: Soing.

Not a huge detour, just 15 minutes along the "proper" course of the River Saone, as opposed to taking the "derivation", which is what it is called when a canalised bit is added to bypass a particularly twisty bit of river.

Soing (I don't know how to pronounce it, I am saying it to rhyme with boing, as in a bouncy ball) is a delight. A great mooring (water, electricity, next to a playground, honesty box with a suggested minimum donation of just 2 Euro) in a lovely village.

It's a proper working village; Stephen described it as "honest" and I think that's right. Great buildings, not chocolate box-y, some renovated, lots not renovated, chickens, ducks, sheep and friendly people.

And, for some reason we couldn't fathom, a giant public bath (didn't seem to be in regular use any longer, at least, not on Sundays) and miniature, yellow, Eiffel Tower.



 

It was a totally delight. I'd happily have stayed a few days, but we have places to be (Nancy, maybe Strasbourg)

Moving On, At Last!

Thankfully the canal re-opened last Monday and we were able to move on. I was really surprised that once the breach was fixed it only took about 2 days to re-fill the empty pound (which was 4km long) with water.

 

This is the newly fixed sluice which had caused all the problems

 

 

And this is boatyard in my previous post, with, it appears, all the boats safely re-floated. 

  

 

We even had a day of sunshine, before the heavens opened again. We've had about a week of non-stop rain, but today (fingers crossed), the weather seems to have changed. It's cloudy, we still need a sweater on but, IT'S NOT ACTUALLY RAINING AT THE MOMENT!!

 
We are currently moored at Franges, a wonderful village just outside Chalon-sur-Soane. The port is really well equipped and has a wonderful Port Captain, Celine.

Last night there was a Fete de Plaisanciers (Boater's Celebration); we all had to bring a dish and it was all shared, picnic style. The theme was "Spanish Auberge" so I made Garlic Shrimps, Roast Olives and Spanish Omelettes. They went down very well, so will try and post the recipes later on.

 

 
 Plenty of food and wine for all!

 

This morning we explored Franges a bit more, saw the impressive Cycle Statue and went up the village farm shop for cheese, eggs and veg.

 

 

The shop was wonderfully rustic, it just sells what the farmer has a surplus of and what they've made (jams etc.), but you can see the hens look pretty happy, so I am sure the eggs will be tasty.

 

 

The current plan is to head towards Nancy, so hopefully the weather Gods will stop the rain and open the canals!

A Big Hole in the Canal

No posts for a while, as we've been a bit stuck for a while.

We left Roanne in the pouring rain, and from there the weather went downhill; seriously downhill. A couple of nights later we had a huge thunderstorm, sheet lightening, forked lightning - the full works. Thankfully Emma slept right through it and Stephen slept through most of it, thinking it lasted about 10 minutes (it actually went on for about 2 hours).

We've had some good weather, but not much. So much rain in fact, that the canal we are on (Canal du Centre) has burst at Montchanin, at the summit of this canal, so we are stuck until it is repaired.

We are at Genelard, which is about 18-20 miles from the burst point, but there is no other way to go round it, so we we're just waiting.

Stephen went for a look at the site and the progress with our neighbours Andrew and Laurel yesterday morning, so if you've ever wondered what an empty canal looked like, here's your chance to find out:

 
The breach occurred when a sluice gate gave way where the worker in the orange jacket is standing. To give you an idea of depth/scale, the distance between the bottom of the canal and the worker is about two metres.
 

 

 

The empty bit of the canal measures about 4km, so you can imagine that is a huge amount of water to lose and to then refill, once the repairs are completed. The picture above shows the last lock on the empty section.

 

 
The above picture shows the boatyard at Montchanin. You can see the boats have been left resting on the side and bottom of the canal; no way of telling how many have been damaged or holed by the rocks on the canal bed.

We are hopeful that the work and refilling will be finished at the end of the week, but whenever we ask the VNF workers (the organisation that runs the inland waterways) we get a lot of Gallic shrugs.

 

But, we have had some fun whilst being stuck; we met two Dutch families who were holidaying at the watermill in the next village, Palinges. They stopped to watch us pass through a lock and we all got chatting. A few days later we cycled to Palinges to visit a vide grenier (French car boot sale) and have a cup of tea with them and arranged for them to come on a trip with us from Genelard back to Paray Le Monial.

 

The weather was pretty good that particular day and we all had a great time. I really enjoyed having Rik to handle all the ropes for me

He did really well; our boat weighs over 12 tonnes, plus fuel and water, so that's a lot of weight to control through just one rope.

Paul, Yaltah and Juul acting as lookouts

Stephen got plenty of help with the steering

 

 

Every car, fisherman, cyclist etc we passed got a big wave

 

 

And Mannon and Roland just went with the flow.............................

 

Our original plan for this summer was to go down the Rhone to the Med, then come back and go north towards Strasburg. However, so many rivers and canals are closed or restricted due to the flooding caused by the enormous amount of rain we've had, so we, and every other boater, are doing a lot of re-planning.

 

Roadtrip!

Well, our time in Spain is now over and we are back in France (Roanne) and will set off on the boat again in a few weeks. don't know where we are going yet, maybe down the Rhone to the Med, maybe back up to the Netherlands. Time to get the map out and do some planning, I think.

Spain was lovely; it was great to have some warm weather and a washing machine (no machine on the boat, we are always on the look out for launderettes), but it was really quiet and we have got used to the social life in the port here in Roanne and also the constant meeting of new people that we have on the move.

Also, we are not missing Spanish drivers. There seem to be special rules for driving in Spain that we don't have in the UK:

1. If at all possible, park on a corner. You should do this even if a space on a nice straight piece of road is available
2. Use of indicators is entirely optional
3. If someone lets you put of a side road, or similar, you should under no circumstances acknowledge this small act of kindness
4. If you are on a dual carriageway and someone is coming down a slip road make sure you speed up to pull alongside them as they try and join the road. Do not allow a gap to exist that they could pull into either in front or behind you
5. Speed limits - These are to be considered a minimum speed, not a maximum

We made the trip back over four days, making stops in Granada, Toledo, Zaragoza and Perpignon.

The Alhambra at Granada is amazing. I took so many photos, as I just love the carvings and the tile patterns. I spent the whole day looking at the tiles and thinking "I could make that pattern into a lovely tapestry cushion.



See what I mean?

The buildings are stunning. The carving is so intricate and in places you can still see the way it was originally painted. I was really luck that the weather was bright and clear for most of the day, so I also got to see the great views from the palace.

And here is an example of the carving:

 
Next stop was Toledo and a Fawlty Towers style hotel. It took about 10 minutes to find a staff member who could check us in (staff members kept arriving, looking at my booking confirmation, shrugging and wandering off), had a tiny rainwater filled swimming pool (so, think pond water) in the car park - which made reversing out fun, as there where no barriers around it! - but funniest of all was definitely the shower.

It was brand new and very clean and shiny, which is great. But soooo tiny! Stephen had to bend down to use it - and he's 5'4". Good job we are a family of midgets!

Toledo Cathedral

That apart, Toledo is a lovely city, we spent ages walking around, so much time in fact that we never actually made it to Madrid - something for another day.

 

On again, this time to Zaragoza. Sunday morning was bright and warm, so off for a walk where we encountered this colourful character at the local junk market.

 
Approaching Zaragoza's second best cathedral (their own description, not mine!) we realised it was Palm Sunday. I have to say their Palm Sunday services are like none I ever went to as a child.

Everyone packs into the Cathedral, chatting and laughing, with the children holding their intricately woven palm fronds, which are hung with sweets (like corn dollies on acid). Then the Bishop charges around splashing water on everyone whilst his assistants run around after him trying to keep up.

 
It all got a little bit more stately later on, as they all paraded up the road.

 
Last stop was Perpignon, but no pictures from there as we arrived in the dark, stayed on the outskirts and left first thing in the morning.

Our final drive was carefully timed so we could be sure of crossing the Millau Viaduct in daylight. It really is an astonishing piece of engineering; taller than the Eiffel Tower and finished in just three years.