Ménetréol-sous-Sancerre and Sancerre

Hello again,

After Beffes our next decent mooring was at Ménetréol-sous-Sancerre. Free mooring but quite expensive for water and electric so it was a good job that we didn't need either 😀

It's a medieval village with lots of decrepit buildings, some of which are being renovated like this one but you'd need a bottomless wallet to take on something like this surely?

There's a signposted walk around the village with information boards at all the places of interest like this old tobacco drying shed. Tobacco was grown from 1945 to supplement the income of the vine growers after the war. The shed was built in a sunny but windy spot so that the tobacco could be hung on racks inside and dried by the warm breeze coming in through the slats. They stopped growing it in 1985 but the shed has been kept in good condition .

We had another superb lunch at the Hotel Florione which is just beside the mooring. 4 course set menu with no choice but possibly the best steak we've had so far, and including a litre bottle of red wine which was plonked on the table, all for the bargain price of 13.80 euros

Next day the lock keepers were on strike so the canal was closed. We got the bikes out and rode up the hill to Sancerre.

Roger had googled the cycle route to Sancerre but it had shown him the mountain bike route through the vineyards!  It was too difficult for us and we ended up pushing the bikes

It was hard work but gave us some spectacular views and let us get close up the the vines

We eventually found our way up the the town at the top of the hill, recovered our breath and took shelter in the Hotel de Rampart where we enjoyed another great menu du jour. We were eating on the terrace and could hear the rumble of thunder getting closer and closer. Half way through our meal we had to up sticks and carry our food indoors as the heavens opened and the storm broke overhead. By the time we'd had coffee it had passed and we free-wheeled all the way back down to the moorings. Another very pleasant day to add to the memories 😀

After the strike there was a back-log of hire boats so we had our first ever queues at the locks. We pulled into the first decent mooring which was at  Léré and I caught up with the laundry.

Every day the temperature rose another degree and by Friday it was up to 30'C 😎. We stopped at Bellville-sur-Loire for the weekend and Roger watched the Grand Prix. In between programmes we got the bikes out and went exploring.

One of the lock-keepers was a stone carver and was selling these little statues

One of the most famous places on the French canal system is the town of Briare, also known as "Little Britain". People rave about it and it's a very popular place to moor for the winter.  We found it to be very expensive and totally underwhelming when we cycled in for a look around. The only remarkable thing was the Pont Canal, aqueduct, which is having  major face-lift at the moment.

We decided to stay on a rough mooring just outside the town and had a flock? herd? of gorgeous Alpacas in the field beside us. The baby was so cute!

We arrived at the first lock after Briare at 11.00 but there were no lights on and we thought that it was possibly another strike. I phoned the control office and was told that it was a power cut. A car had crashed into a local substation and all power had gone off in the neighbourhood. They anticipated that it wouldn't be repaired until that evening so we roped up to the fence and settled in as best we could.  At 12 o'clock the huge hotel boat Horizon 2 arrived. They hadn't been notified of the stoppage so we moved out of the way to let them moor up and we fastened alongside them.

Because they cruise to a schedule the captain decided he couldn't wait and phoned the boss of the whole canal who sent a team of men out to manually work the lock to let them continue on their way. They managed to get into and up the lock but the top gates wouldn't open and they were stuck there for almost 2 hours while the VNF men worked out how to by-pass the electrically controlled hydraulic gate rams. Us being mere pleasure boaters, we had to wait until the power was restored but that suited us just fine. It was a beautiful day in a beautiful spot and I got talking to  couple of old guys who were fishing in the stream just across the towpath from us. They really wanted to chat, but unfortunately for me the chattiest one was over 80, continuously puffing on a fat cigar and dressed only in a pair of black "budgie smugglers" and as his "budgies" were just at my eye level that rather put me off practicing my French 😞 The electrics were finally repaired at about 9pm and we continued on our travels as soon as the lock re-opened the next morning.

Time for another coffee.......back soon X