Bonjour Paris!

Welcome back,

Moorings are few and far between here in the River Seine and we thought it was too good to be true the other night when we found a good quay just above one of the locks. A French boat was already moored there and he came out to help take our ropes. It was a beautiful afternoon so I hung the laundry out to dry and we sat on the poop deck and chilled out in the sunshine. An elderly man cycled past and stopped for a chat and between his English and our French we passed a pleasant half our. Turns out he used to be a writer for Fluvial magazine - the French equivalent of Waterways World back in UK. In the meantime a German cruiser had turned up and the elderly couple decided to strip off and hang off the boat ladder with a bar of soap and bathe. She wasn't too bad as at least she stripped to a bikini, he was less inhibited and went au natural........not a pretty sight 😕

The locks close at 8pm and we were just finishing dinner when a commercial boat arrived and started shouting that we had to move! No problem, the French boat moved back to the end of the mooring and we doubled up. The Germans refused but soon had a change of heart when the next commercial arrived and was heading directly at them. In the end 14 BIG commercial barges arrived and moored up 3 and 4 abreast to wait for the first lock in the morning.

By the time I got up at 6.45 next morning they'd all gone.

Our last day's cruise before Paris was quite eventful too. Commercial traffic was the heaviest we've seen so far but we had no problems sharing locks with them. On one stretch of the river we came across the French river police practising anti-terror tactics. There were a couple of high speed ribs going up to the commercial barges when they were at full spreed simulating boarding from the sides and the stern.

It was a bit more sedate when they came alongside us and they rode our propwash for a while to give us a good view inn the rear camera

All the heavy commercial traffic plus high winds churned the river up and there were white horses on the surface. We struggled to find a mooring but once again a lovely Frenchman gave us a hand and one bollard and a tree made for a safe but VERY bumpy night.

Friday morning saw us both up at 5.30 and after a quick coffee and emptying Chico we joined a medium sized commercial in the first lock of the day. I don't remember that last time we were up so early!  It was a beautiful morning with no wind and an almost flat river.

Because it was so early there was no other traffic on the river and once the barge pulled away from us we were all alone. 

We passed the floating swimming pool

and the bateau phare du pont de Toliac

and caught up with them 8 km later when they were waiting for the traffic lights to turn green at the Pont de Sully. There's an alternating traffic system around the Isle de la Cité and we could only go through between 25mins to and 10 minutes to the hour. Typically, a 100m fully laden gravel barge arrived at 26 minutes to and as he was at full speed we both had to wait for him to go first.  The lights turned to green and we were off. The two commercials soon left us behind and we didn't see another moving boat until we were well through the main tourist section. It was wonderful!  Crystal blue sky, calm water...couldn't have been better if we'd booked it 😀

Our first tourist sight was Notre Dame

and the Palais de Justice

our first glimpse of "The Tower" and the Palais Burbon 

You get a much better view of the bridges from a boat. The gilding on Pont Alexandre III was glittering in the early sunshine.

and the statue of Liberty beside the Pont de Grennelle

But let's face it....this is what we'd come to see

This has always been on my bucket list. Ever since we got our first boat I've wanted to cruise past the Eiffel Tower.  There were still no other moving boats so we had it all to ourselves and enjoyed it to the full.

 Although the tourist boats hadn't started work yet the commercial boats were being loaded/unloaded and the riverside building sites were hard at it.

Each commercial barge carries enough gravel or sand to keep 2400 wagons off the roads of Paris each year

The restaurants were also coming to life and this window cleaner was standing on a tiny ledge without a harness or life jacket......crazy!!!

There were some huge hotel boats moored up, like this 135m long river cruiser. Prices start at 1000 euros a week

The floating dry dock had 3 boats inside and was just starting to pump the water out

The Seine is a really busy river and we enjoyed it all, the touristy bits, the docks and the general riverside life. We shared the lock at Suresnes with yet another commercial barge and finally moored at Rueil-sur-Seine 57 kms and 6.5 hours later

It's the longest we've cruised in one day on this boat and with all the concentration etc. we were both knackered. There was a posh restaurant close by and we just managed to blag the last table as they were full and had had a no-show. Fabulous food and wine made a great end to a great day.

Now to plan the next thing I need to tick off my bucket list

Bye for now X