August 2014

1st Aug. Went into Corbigny which turned out to be a rather nice solid market town with a river running through it. Bought wonderful olives on the market and did the dreaded Supermarket thing before moving on. The afternoons cruise was a bit hairy and we did not cover much ground. The lockkeepers were trying to conserve water and put three of us in the same lock, us at the back, inches away from the cill and the overflow of water coming over the back gate! We moored up at PK86 in a delightful wild mooring where we shared our pound with an otter, the third that we have spotted so far! 2nd August. A good day’s cruising covering 19k, 11 locks and 6 lift bridges. We stopped at the village of Villiers-sur-Yonne which has an interesting history involving the Protestant/Catholic struggles. Today it is very quiet with no shops, not even a patiserie. However the bakers van arrives in the square at 8am each morning. The view of the village is the banner for this month. On the other side of the Canal is the hamlet called just “Sur Yonne” which has a gaurd tower and interesting pumps placed regularly throughout the village. 3rd August A short cruise into Clamency where we caught up with Phil and Bogusia again and had a good mooring in the pleasant port with all facilities. We will spend two night here, draw cash, collect Di’s train ticket, catch up on laundry etc and see the medieval city which is reputed to be a gem. There was certainly plenty of money in this town historically due to its having been a centre for the floating of logs down the rivers to Paris. This photo shows a typical log raft.

The money is envidenced by the scale and grandure of the Cathedral with it’s elaborate masonry and colourful stained glass windows.

Clamency as the centre of the timber floating trade taking logs to Paris was a city of substantial wealth. This is much in evidence in the Cathedral with its magnifscent masonry and glorious stained glass windows.

The winding and cobbled streets of the city with their timbered buildings are entrancing.

There are also many canals, rivers and tributaries running through the town with mills everywhere and the sound of running water.

6th Aug. Following a lovely two days in Clamency we moved on to Châtel-Censoir which proved to be a charming surprise with a walled castle and church on the hill and planty of shops and activity in the town. If anything the already beautiful Nivernais has just got more so. We teamed up with Phil & Bogusia to lock share for the next couple of days and thereby avoid unnecessary long waits as the requirement is for lock sharing along this stretch.

Medieval farm dwellings, castles and canal side Lavoirs were a feature of the journey to Châtel.

I treated myself to a magnum and a coffee in the town square.

The cruise today took us past the impressive Rochers du Saussois as the route dipped in and out of the canal and the River Yonne.

In the afternoon Di and I cycled to Prègilbert where our canal guide book told us that we would find a trout and salmon hatchery at which we could buy fresh and smoked fish, terrines and other fishy delicacies. We were disappointed to find that it was in liquidation and had closed down. The return cycle took us into the other half of the village of Mailles via Trucey-sur-Yonne, two nice Lavoirs and a good view of the church.

7th August. Made the short move into the Acconay in the Vermenton arm today and moored up right outside a very attractive Lavoir! We turned our boats round to face where we had come from as we are not going to the end of the arm. After lunch Phil went off for a ride and Di, Bogusia and I set off on our bikes to explore as well. There was another delightful little lavoir in the village but not a lot else so we headed for Vermenton at the end of the arm where we found a big Lavoir and a big church, two Pizza places, a bakery and a public toilet. I am sure there was more to the town than that but we headed home for tea with loot from the bakery!

One strange thing though was the defacing of the statues around the church door. Most of them had their heads missing. We are in an area where the protestants were very active in the religeous wars and we wondered if that had anything to do with it. The church door was open but the entrance was closed by a metal grid so we couldn’t go inside and there were no “story boards” outside to explain what had taken place.

There was a wonderful sunset with reflections in the water. We turned in my ten but were woken up at midnight by noisy screaming teenagers and I was kept awake till 2am, Di managed to get back to sleep. I will have to learn how to say “Shut-up and Fuck off home” in Frenchm and I know that my friends who are reading this will understand that there are times when nothing is as effective as a good, old-fashioned, Anglo-Saxon expletive!!

8th Aug. Short ride to Vincelles today but the locks were busy so it took a while and we had to have lunch in the last lock, just before the town.

Coming out of the lock straight onto the mooring was a rude awakening as the river is flowing so much faster than it was when we left it a couple of days ago. Had to turn up stream in order to get anywhere close. Later in the afternoon the American woman left from just in front of me and was slammed quite hard into the boat behind her.

9th Aug. Di, Bogusia and I went for a cycle through the winelands above the river. We started by going back the way we had come to the pretty town of Cravant that we had missed on our way through. There were a number of interesting old buildings including a DonJonm an attractive timbered building and a pretty square. The church was undergoing renovations, swathed in scaffolding and plastic sheeting and closed. There were a few caves selling Chablis.

From there we climbed the hill to the village if Irancy which had a very interesting church showing evidence from the outside of many additions. Unfortunately it was also closed and covered in plastic. The rest of the town was devoted to caves to the exclusion of everything else outside the hospitality businessm not even a boulangerie!

The surrounding hills offered great views as we continued to Bailly via St Bris. At Bailly we visited the famous cave that is literally in a huge underground cavern, These caverns were initially excavated to provide sandstone for the building of Paris. Later they were used to grow mushrooms, also for Paris and today they are used to mature and store the Cremant, or fizz made predominantly from the Chardonay grapes grown in the area.

The caverns were also decorated by a local schulpter with large depictions of the local history and industry.

11th Aug. Phil found a good mooring spot at Champs. A pontoon, just big enough for our two boats, on a quiet stretch of river away from habitation with electricity at one euro for 12 hours and water at one euro for 20mins. 6k easy cycle into Auxerre and a good bakery and Atac in the village. Today is Di’s last day and we went into the railway station and sorted out her ticket before exploring the town and having lunch at a pavement cafe. The city is stunning and has three really handsome churches. We started off at the Cathedral which features a classic naive, a St Jean d’Arc window, a grand organ, some of the original wall paintings and a magnificent screen.

From there we moved to the Abbey of St Germaine which is now more of less a museum piece housing permanent and temporary exhibitions. There was for example a photographic exhibition in the chapter house. The building was classic medieval and features in it reminded me of those mentioned in Ken Follet’s excellent book ” Pillars of the Earth”.

The number and variety of timbered houses in the town was amazing. different colours have been employed in the plaster and woodwork which makes for a colourful and who is to say unauthentic picture.

The detail on the roof supports were interesting as were one or two of the shop signs.

All in all it was a lovely city with stunning views.

12th Aug Took Di to the local station this morning, did shopping and laundry then set off to take a more in depth look at this village and to go to a Gallo-Roman archeological site not far away. The village improves as you get to the church which is a listed building with a couple of interesting sculptures above the door. The doors were locked so it was not possible to see inside which was a shame.

The Gallo-Roman site was in the village of Escolives St Camille. The earliest part of the church (C10 ) was built using stones canibalised from the site. This is nothing unusual but is doubly interesting in this case because the 4th century AD Villa in question had as its foundation stones beautifully carved stone cut up to suit which had itself been taken from a 2nd century Roman temple, the site of which has yet to be discovered. These stones have been removed from the excavation and housed in a hanger on site that is the site museum, they have been replaced with other stone using the original building methods and type of motor. I was enjoying my one on one guided tour so much I neglected to take photos until I got to the museum which contained relics from all the periods from neolithic times during which it has been inhabited.

14th August. Moved on along the river to Gurcy. The mooring was pleasant and the space was shared with an “Air” for camper vans. The mooring itself was free but the electricity and water were very expensive. A cabin on the quai-side was open for wine tasting and purchase and I got a nice bottle of Chablis and one on Pinon Noir. The trip today was quite hairy with the river running really fast and the turbulence from the wears on exiting the locks. This village’s main claim to fame is the escargorie and an attractive and simple C11 church.

15th August. Arrived in Migenne in the rain at lunch time. Good to be back on a canal! However I will have to go back out onto the river on Monday as I have arranged to have an oil change at Evan’s the Boat’s atilier on Monday.

16th August. Migenne doesn’t have a lot to commend it. There are some traditionally tiled Burgundion roofs and the otherwise uninspiring church (no pun intended) has an elegant spire. There is a suspiciously modern looking lavour adjacent to the quai which they have done their best to enliven with flower beds, trees and green space but being opposite the railway station and shunting yards doesn’t help!

The Canal de Borgoyne leave Migenne in the same sort of arrow straight line as it leave St Jean de Losne but I am assurred that it does get more winding and interesting after a while. The highlight of the last few days in the boat yard has been watching a boat being lifted by crane and popped back into the water!

24th Aug. I have now scraped back to the bare wood and treated with sealer all the window frames (7 of them) in the wheelhouse so I decided to take a day off today and cycle into the next town along the Canal where I wont be stopping with the boat. You may have noticed that I am quite an interest (not to say a fetish!) in Lavoirs, the communal wash houses that are a feature of most towns and villages in the area. The architecture changes from region to region and the one at Brienon-sur-Armaçon is the first in a series of circular ones. The Town was quite lively for France on a Sunday! and had a delightful patiserie.

26th Aug. The pressure plate has still not arrived, phone calls indicate that it had not yet been sent. Ho Hum. Let’s hope this doesn’t develop into another “Hotel California”! Yesterday I put some air vents into the counter top above the fridge and it is working a lot better. Today I went to look for blackberries and broke my rule about “never go anywhere without your camera” and came across a baby hedgehog. Couldn’t resist popping it into the collandar and taking it back to the boat to photograph before returning to where I had found it. It is the first Hedgehog I have ever seen that wasn’t road kill.

Hedgehogs do not favour blackberries

but they do like full fat Greek Yogurt!

30th August. On the move again at last. Simon fitted the new fan belt and we took her out on a river test. All was well. I cruised down to Brienon-sur-Armançon, she of the eliptical Lavoir and took a cycle ride down the canal for a couple of locks. There were a couple of felled trees in the canal that I will have to watch out for tomorrow.

31st Aug. After a walk to the Boulangerie for the Sunday croisant, breakfast and an attempt at vacuming the boat that was interrupted by the Post Captain turning off my electricity, I set off. I met an Austrian family on a hire boat just before the first lock. They told me that there was no one there and they couldn’t get any answer from the number they were given to call. We talked about them going into the lock first as I can only attach one rope and tent therefore to dance about a bit. The Father said that he would prefer to go in first as it was their first lock and he wanted to watch and see what I did but he had two teanaged daughters on board and proposed lending me one of them! Thus commenced my four lock relationship with the charming 16 year old Cathy who proved good company and surprisingly adept at the ropes for a first effort. I moored up at St Florentin

The town is attractive. Hilly with a lot of narrow winding allyways, timbered houses and some grand buildings not least of which is the 13th century church. The most remarkable things about the church are the very old stained glass windows of the troy school and a lot of detailed statues and carvings.