Saône and the River Seille

Cuisery - the village of books.

August 23 Friday – Back to the Saône for another 9km to the La Seille River and another right turn to explore 39km of river and a couple of towns that look interesting. Our first town was Cuisery, built high above the flood plain. After a toast to Poseidon we walked down the river to an old mill (wasn’t photogenic) then up a trail to town. It’s getting late so we take a few photos of l’Eglise Notre Dame dating from the 16^th century. Back aboard it was time to break out the barbeque for dinner on the sun deck.

The next morning we walked back into town and after wandering around town picked up info (in Anglais) for the town tour from the tourist information office. We began with a treat from the boulangerie and a nice sit in the shade. Cuisery is known as a book town. There is an entire street of almost nothing but book stores AND the Gutenberg center, where we watched and learned about the early days of printing. The gentleman that talked with us had four of us come in about the same time. He was very fluent in French and German but had to work a bit on describing things in English. Between the four of us in our group (two young women that spoke French plus Joan and me, we were able to all communicate with plenty of laughter and smiles at all of our attempts.

Our printing lesson - from hand setting type to inking (using the leather "inkers" in his hands.
All shown on a Gutenburg era press

Sunday – We knew that Louhans (our next destination and a major market town) would be crowded as there is a weekly market each Monday. We decided to leave Cuisery early in the morning to beat the crowd. The early morning cruise was peaceful and the morning light amazing (we will repeat this early morning stuff again). Our route passed châteaux, open agricultural land and even a Bressen chicken farm, where the chickens ran wild in the fields. Arriving at Louhans the dock was nearly empty (by dark that night, it was completely full) our plan worked.

The main street of Louhans - Arcades run the full length of the street, on both sides.

St. Pierre - with its varnished tile roof.

We wandered Louhans a city known for its arcaded main street, forgetting Sunday in France means almost nothing is open. Being unable to shop for groceries meant we were forced to go out for dinner (gee bummer – no cooking and no dishes)

Market day. We arose early, hit the boulangerie for our morning croissants then off to see what this was all about. The market stretched the entire length of the arcaded main street, then filled the side streets and spilled over the main road for the livestock section. There was everything from household goods to clothing, produce, cheeses, butchers and fresh fruit to live chickens, turkeys, rabbits and even pet birds, cats and dogs. With such a big layout you’d think there might be room to wander – nope, the whole town was packed shoulder to shoulder with people shopping. Spent the afternoon aboard Juniper relaxing and reading.

Shopping for anything you might need

Mirabelles - mini plums. We bought a kilogram and feasted on them for days.

Chickens - buy them for pets, laying eggs, or dinner tonight. Your choice.

The early start was pretty going up – let’s try it going down. Another beautiful morning of cruising back to Cuisery where we got on our bikes to search for the elusive château we had seen the towers of going upstream. A fair amount of riding got us right next to the château, but unable to through the wall and vegetation that surrounded it – still nothing but the six towers we were able to see.

Joan closing the écluse door as we start our decent of the Seille River

Our trip up and back on the Seille was an area with no éclusiers – we had to do all the work in the écluse. We would stop at the pontoon (floating dock) before the écluse and Joan would hike up to the écluse. If the last boat through was going the same direction as us she would have to close the doors, close the valves, open the valves on the other end to bring the water to the level we needed, then open the gates again by hand to let Juniper and I in. Then close the gates, open the valves to take us up or down and finally open the gates again to let us out.

Mill next to the écluse gate Joan was closing

Château de Loisy, Just below the écluse. Beautiful early mornings

The next morning - you guessed it, another early departure (we’d heard Chalon-sur-Saône was always overcrowded and we wanted a spot for sure. We arrived to a nearly empty dock yet again – and again that didn’t last long.

August 2019 Mâcon to Pont-de-Vaux

August 12  We get a ride to SeaTac for our Aer Lingus flight to Dublin. Quick trip through security and it was time to find a hearty lunch to get ready for our cheap flight. While Aer Lingus was low on food and no free booze, we did have more legroom than with any other airline we’ve flown to France.With an overnight flight we arrived in Dublin for a Quick plane transfer, then on to Paris for dinner and a good night's sleep at the airport

Wednesday morning we picked up our car and began drove to Mâcon to meet up with Bill and Christina aboard Juniper. We only made a few wrong turns, that could thankfully be corrected at the next roundabout. Drove right to the boat located at the Mâcon Port de Plaisance. Went over the boat with Bill then drove to our AirBnB in town.  That evening we picked Bill and Christina up and drove into town to walk the quay in search of a nice dinner. Found a place with good food and a fun staff to interact with despite the language differences.

The next morning we woke to find we had hit another of the many French holidays. All of the places our host had recommended for breakfast were closed. There was a paella truck just opening for business in a parking lot across from our AirBnB so we decided to buy some for dinner. With all the samples we were given we ended up having mussels and sangria for breakfast, along with all of his regular customers. Spent the day provisioning and moving aboard.

Friday we spent the day settling in and looking to see if we could possibly replace the blinds that had been bothering all of us for a few seasons. Found out the length we needed was a standard size – just gotta check whether we can customize to fit our needs

Joan in the courtyard of the Hotel Deiu, Beaune, France

Saturday was a tourist day, we still had the car. We drove to Beaune, in the heart of wine country. Perhaps the most impressive sight is the Hotel Deiu (hospital for the poor) that as built in the 1400’s and used into the very late 1900s then restored to what it would have looked like inside in its earlier days. After the hospital we walked town and enjoyed the last of the morning market by having a fromage et jambon crepe for lunch. Then on to the wine museum. Coming out of the wine museum we discovered there was also an evening market. Couldn’t find anything we needed, but did enjoy escargot and wine for our dinner entrée.

11th Century Pont Saint-Laurent. So beloved that a diversion was dug to allow larger commercial craft a route up the Saône, without having to remove, or "modernize" this historic bridge. As the Germans retreated at the end of the war they respected this piece of history and only destroyed one arch to protect their rear.

Sunday we decided it was time to see Mâcon. We rode our bikes into town then did the tourist walk seeing all the sights. It was weird walking the completely empty retail part of town. Everything was closed for Sunday.

Blinds kind of sagging - time to spruce them up

Monday we awoke to a downpour, that went on and on, not a good day for our first on the water, so we decided to buy new blinds. While Joan was off the boat I decided to try taking our existing blinds apart to see if we they could be repaired, nothing to loose, they were on their way to the dump anyway. Joan came back to a pile of blind parts scattered over the salon. Turned out there were enough good blades to replace all the bent and broken ones. We still went to the store for new ones, but found they could not be modified. Spent the rest of the day and all the next rebuilding the rest of the blinds as well as moving Juniper to the repair dock for her 6000 hour oil change.

Blinds after replacing a few (most) of the slats

A pile of bent slats removed

August 21 Wednesday – still stalling, we spent the day scrubbing and using rubbing compound to remove marks on the hull and house. Met a couple that had sailed the world before retiring to a canal boat. Turns out they had lived in the NW and we had several common sailing friends. We got together for drinks at 17h30, and the next thing we knew it was 01h30 and apparently we were talking a little loud and were still outside for a warm evening. Fortunately one of the boats on the dock gave a friendly toot on their horn that made us check the time.

August 22 Thursday – Underway at last. Beginning our cruise up the Saône. Beautiful weather and next to no other boats on the water. After 14km on the Saône we took a right turn up the canal de Pont-de-Vaux to the lovely town of Pont-deVaux. Turns out they were having a major Quad (4-wheel motorized bike) competition, with over 600 riders representing 17 nations, including the US. The highlight of the first day was a parade through town of all the competitors. It started at 22h30. We stayed up. The town was packed and like the tour-de-France spectators were within touching range of their favorite competitors.

The view from our salon, looking upstream to the old mill. This was the end of navigation for la Reyssouze