Happy Happy Days
We spent a very pleasant three days (you’re not allowed to stay longer), in almost perfect weather, on the free Halte Fluvial pontoon in Mâcon with good friends Willem and Renate on Acquarel. Ren is a gifted artist. She has a book of their travels which she illustrates with her wonderful drawings. She very kindly drew a sketch of Mike and me to put into our scrapbook. We are very honoured.
On Saturday the 2nd of July we browsed round the most wonderful market we’ve yet seen, bought a local cheese and saucisson sec (both delicious), as well as vegetables and fresh bread. Our journey to Tournus was uneventful and happily without a lock. We arrived at lunch time with Acquarel right behind us and once again tied to a town pontoon, free with water and electricity. We are very impressed with the facilities that are available on the Saône for boats – there are plenty of them and usually free, though one can only stop for two or three days.
Our 13th wedding anniversary is today 4th July, but since it is a Monday and many French restaurants are closed on Mondays, we decided to have our dinner out on Sunday night in Tournus. Our dear friends Ren and Willem came by with a bunch of flowers for our anniversary and to say goodbye as they were leaving that day and taking a different path to us.
We took a long walk later in the day and found what looked like a small restaurant in the town called Le Bourgogne, made a reservation for later and went back to the boat for a couple of aperitifs. Returning at 8pm, we found the restaurant packed (thank goodness we’d booked) and were placed in a large room at the back. We chose a three course menu for €15 which was the cheapest we’d seen. Mike had herrings with potato and olive oil and I had a salad with poultry livers – things I would never think of preparing and neither of us would have chosen except for the limitations of the menu but both were delicious. We both had a Jaret de porc (slow cooked pigs knuckle, same sort of thing as braised oxtail) with potatoes, I took the cheese board (Madame was exceedingly generous and gave me four large slices which Mike helped me with) and Mike had two scoops of chocolate ice cream. The usual baskets of fresh bread and carafes of water and we had a pichet (50cl) of good Beaujolais wine all for €39! We ate so much we thought we’d pop and everything was utterly, utterly divine. Excellent choice of restaurant.
We have looked at property magazines and found a few likely looking farm houses to restore with land in our price range and got quite excited ... but have been warned that it gets VERY cold here so we will forget that. Pity.
Chatting with neighbours on a sailing boat, we discussed the problem of our boat swinging. They pointed to their large globe-like fenders, one each hanging at the front and back of the boat with numerous smaller tubular fenders in between and said that’s what we needed. “The fat ones at the front and back make a straight line and stop the boat swinging.” Elemental physics, really, and we should have thought of it as most of the yachts we’ve seen have these fat round fenders front and back. So, we bought two – expensive, but worth it. We left Tournus this morning for the marina at Chalon-sur-Saone and had to pass through one lock. Admittedly, it was a small lock (2.6 metres) but Forever sat snug and firm against the wall - what a difference those two fenders made. We are very pleased with ourselves.
Here we are in Chalon – one big fender at the back
The really unfortunate news though is that Harry has phoned us to say that a boat (1.8m depth) he knows who has already passed through the Canal du Centre and is half way up the Canal Lateral de la Loire has been turned back due to lack of water in the canals. We feel so sorry for them to have travelled so far and now be turned back. He says anything over 1.6 m is being turned back and we are 1.67m so that’s us scuppered. It is not a disaster, it just means that we have to take another route – for us this will be the Saone and Marne which so far are OK, and thank goodness we found out now and not after starting along the Canal du Centre. We can;t get offic ial confirmation from themarina here which |I think is very bad. The VNF should advise all marinas who should advise all sailing boats. Anyway. All our charts are for the three central canals and we have nothing for the Saone and Marne. Now we are madly chatting up everyone trying to swap charts.
I'm sitting with a coffee in MacDonalds, using their free wifi. Off to Verdun sur Doubs now.
Hey guys. Sounds like 'good times' again. Look forward to meeting up, sharing a few chaboolies and looking at your pics.
ReplyDeleteTake care.
G