A long weekend at Moret-sur-Loing and Saint Mammès

Bonjour, nice to see you here again.

We arrived at Moret-sur-Loing last Wednesday and moored just above the last lock which drops you down onto the rivers. There were two reasons why we decided to stop there, the first being that it was half the price of the river moorings as it had no facilities and the second and more important being that all the recent storms had brought flood waters down the river Loing and the current below the lock where the canal and river met was quite strong. The lovely Capitaine came to collect her mooring fees and recommended that we wait a couple of days for the levels and current to drop back down to normal and then when we found out that there was to be a free rock concert on in the next town we decided to extend our stay till after the weekend.

Moret-sur-Loing is a very pretty little town that grew up around the river which was used to power the mills that were used in the leather processing industry. The town was famous for producing very soft chamois type leathers used for making gloves.

Later on, it also became famous for making barley sugar and for 2 euros you can go in the museum on the island.

Notre-Dame de la Nativité is a very beautiful Catholic church dating back to the 15th century. It's been extensively cleaned and restored outside but the interior is very different.

Despite the glorious stained glass windows, the interior is quite basic

This is the right side wall of the choristry

and this is the left. In 1697 the 15th century bell tower was about to collapse so instead of rebuilding it to match the opposite side they just bricked it up and left it. The church has another interesting bit of history in that it was used as a gunpowder factory during the French Revolution and an explosion blew part of the roof off.

Enough history......

On Saturday and Sunday there was a free rock concert held on the quay-side at Saint Mammès, the riverside town at the confluence of the Loing and the Seine.

It's been a long time since we've been to a music (or beer) festival and this one was excellent.

In typical French style the catering wasn't done by a smelly burger van but by the local traiteur who mass produced meatballs and dauphinoise potatoes for 5 euros a portion. If you wanted something a little more down-market you could get a sausage baguette and frites, but even these were "artisanal" sausages. You've just got to love the French.....if it's food then standards must be maintained 😀

Apart from the concert there were the usual stalls selling jewellery, CD's etc.....

AND a traditional cut-throat barber!    It could only happen in France 😍

Before we went to the concert on Saturday evening we spent the day at the Chateau of Fontainbleu but I'll need to post a separate blog about that as I have so many amazing photos to share with you.  See you soon X

Sancerre to Souppes-sur-Loing

Bonjour et bienvenue 😀

We seemed to keep leap-frogging the hotel boat Horizon 2 for the next few days and every time we passed it was like meeting old friends. The American passengers were particularly friendly and said what a good time they were having, although one of the men did tell Roger that if he had to go and see another "bloody chateau" he'd scream!

The last time we met them was at Rogny-les-Sept Ecluses. A now disused staircase of 7 locks that reminded me of Foxton Locks back in the UK

Our next major stop was at Chatillon-Coligny where we spent the weekend while we celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary. We don't normally go out for evening meals but as it was a special occasion we booked and went to Le Coligny for their gourmet special.

5 courses each with matched wines and including a champagne cocktail, champagne with dessert and coffee was only 65 euros each. I really don't know how they manage it as back in UK it would have been at least twice the price. Roger was very happy as every time he emptied his glass they came back with re-fills. Needless to say we waddled home 😄

The next day we used the bikes to do 2 trips to the supermarket to re-stock the cupboards and freezer and then in the afternoon we visited the local car museum. Bizarrely the main exhibit was a whole room full of British cars.

Internet reception has continued to be very poor (Free mobile) but seems to be improving again as we get further North. The weather is HOT and we've had several storms. Last night's was really spectacular with simultaneous thunder and lightning and an absolute deluge that flooded the Camping Car park beside our mooring.  It's still 29'C at 6pm and it's so heavy I'm pretty sure we'll have another storm later.  The storms don't bother us and luckily now that Chico is going deaf they don't seem to bother him either. The only "downside" is that the torrential rain blocks the satellite TV signal and it's Grand Prix weekend again. 

That's all for now, see you soon 😀

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

Three weeks is a long time without decent internet!

Hi, nice to see you here again.

As you will have gathered by now we travel slowly, cruising only a couple of hours a day and stopping off at every nice place we find. Well that's great BUT when you cruise into a bad area for phone and internet signals it means that you're out of contact for a while. It's been like that for the past 3 weeks so I've now got plenty to catch up with.

We found a pretty little mooring in the village of Beffes that wasn't shown in any of our guides. The mooring was free (water and electric extra) and there was a little grocers in the village. Buying the e-bikes was the best thing we've done as they've opened up the French countryside for us. We got them out and rode to the fabulous medieval town of Charité-sur-Loire which was just over 12km away. It was an easy ride due to the brilliant velo route.

The velo routes tend to follow either the canal or the river which means you get to see views like this that you wouldn't get if you went by car or bus.

The river Loire was still running very fast and canoe trips were cancelled until it had subsided a bit.

The town was full of narrow, steep cobbled streets. The steeple on this building was gleeming in the sun

but was a bit wonky

Swallows (or Swifts, I can never remember the difference) were nesting in every available spot

and were continually darting in and out carrying food for their chicks

The town was built on a hill and, thanks to the turbo charged e-bikes, we easily managed to get to the top for the magnificent views of the anciant cathedral

and the panoramic view back down to the river

It was a hot and sunny day and temptation won out on the way back. The beer at the lock-side bar was wonderful 😀

Part 2 of the catch up coming later (I need a coffee)  See you soon 😀

Le Bec d'Allier and Apremont

Hello again,

We haven't gone very far since leaving Nevers as the weather has been dreadful. It's been 12'C and very wet, quite a shock to the system after the glorious sunshine of the past few weeks.

Yesterday (Wednesday) we arrived at Le Guétin just before noon and had to wait an hour while the eclusier had his lunch before we could cross the Pont du Canal (aqueduct) which is controlled by traffic lights

and descend the double staircase locks, which we shared with a hire boat. It's 2 locks each 5m deep one straight after the other......it's a long way down!

After mooring up and having our lunch we walked back for a better look. The eclusier must have the patience of a saint, as these 2 huge hire boats didn't have a clue what to do and it took him well over 10 minutes to get them roped up and safe. The crews were much more interested in taking selfies and videos than in passing him their ropes.

We unpacked the new bikes and went exploring. This is the now disused unusual round lock (Ecluse des Lorrains) which used to link the canal to the River Loire and is at the end of a disused branch of the canal

A couple of kilometers further on we came to the very picturesque village of Apremont.

It's famous for it's floral gardens and although the wisteria has now finished blooming there were plenty of other trees in full flower, like this chestnut tree

I thought someone was having a laugh with this sign hanging outside their shop

until we turned the corner of the building and met the said ninjas "guarding" the public toilets 😀 

Today we rode to Bec d'Allier which is a small village famous for it's views of the confluence of the rivers Loire and Allier.  This is what it's supposed to look like

but with all the rain we've had recently both rivers are in flood so the view was a bit different!

We'll carry on cruising again tomorrow and I hope to see you again soon.

Bye for now 😀

Nevers

Hi, welcome back

We arrived at the port of Nevers last Tuesday, only intending on staying a couple of nights as it's expensive to moor here : 11 euros a night not includig water or electric. We knew Tuesday was a public holiday but didn't realise Thursday was as well and that really skuppered our plans. We wanted to buy new bikes so went to check out a couple of stores on Wednesday, returned to the boat to do some research on Google etc. but then couldn't actually buy anything till Saturday due to staff holidays???  Only in France could this happen, Bank Holidays in UK every shop is open as they really want to take your money. Here?  No chance.

Anyway, we finally managed to buy ourselves a couple of folding electric bikes on Saturday but had to stay till today (Monday) as the bike accessory shop is closed on Sunday.

So this is what we finally decided on......turbo charged for getting up hills and big paniers for stocking up on essentials like beer & wine 😀

Nevers is a very old city and many of the buidings are 11th or 13th centuary

The Cathedral of Saint Cyr and Saint Julitte is undergoing a thorough restoration, but while the exterior is architectually stunning

they seem to have ruined the interior for me. The stained glass windows have all been replace by extremely modern glass, which does cast great colours and shadows around, but doesn't suit the building at all.......just my opinion

There was a "vintage" festival on over the weekend at the local exhibition centre and we saw lots of these imacculate old cars knocking about in the few days running up to it.

As with most of the French towns we've visited, Nevers is immaculately clean. There were street cleaners everywhere using these "noo noos" (if you've got grandkids you'll understand) 

The weather has taken a dive for the worse and we've gone from 27'C down to 12'C and constant drizzle/torrential rain in a couple of days. I'm sure it won't last and I'll soon be complaining about the heat again soon 😀

Bye for now, see you soon X