Port-sur-Saône to Traves

Saturday – September 28
Slow start in the morning, having a couple of days off gets us out of the routine of getting underway, without relaxing over a couple of cups of coffee and catching up on the news. Today’s run was only 11km and two écluse. As we approached our second écluse we noticed a tower from a château sticking up through the trees, we’d missed it going upstream because of strong wind gusts that were keeping our attention on the water in front of us. Once out of the écluse we made a u-turn to go back up the Saône towards the weir that created the need for the écluse we had just completed. There were a couple of docks available so we did a quick tie-up and walked down to Chemilly a town of a dozen houses and a once fortified château, now house. Pretty little residential town that took about ten minutes to walk, then back to the boat.

Juniper at the dock near Chemilly Château - just a short walk along the river to the town.

Château Chemilly, still a private residence, so this was as close as we could get

Our ideal overnight spot for tonight was Scey-sur-Saône a town, with some interesting architecture and a small quay with room for about four boats, that we had bicycled through on our way upstream. We were lucky enough to find only one boat at the quay. We walked the town, had lunch then got back on our bikes to ride back to du Château de Rupt-sur-Saône, it should be open today. The weather forecast was great 0% chance of rain. We got almost all the way out of town before the rain started, but fortunately never strong enough to have us get out our rain-gear, or call it quits.

Juniper at the Quay in Scey-sur-Saône. On the Saône just above the weir to continue we had to go back up the river and take the diversion around, using an écluse to make up the difference caused by the weir.

The château was indeed open and we were able to walk the grounds and see into many of the buildings within its walls. The château was built on the site of a 12^th century castle, some of the buildings made use of sections of the old curtain wall and le donjon, or keep, was still intact and open to climb. The stairs were between the inner and outer walls and spiraled up. The treads were anywhere from 4 to 6 inches deep and each step was quite high, to make it more interesting it was quite dark. The view from the top was great and the trip back down the steps wasn’t quite as bad as we thought it might be. Well worth the bike ride and a little rain.

The Petite Château, made from part of the old castle curtain wall and one of the towers
Looks impressive, but really is very tiny.

The Pavillon de Chasse 1860-1870. Where the hunters gathered before the hunt. The château grounds also included a large kennel for the dogs and their caretakers

Le Donjon or tower part of the original defensive castle

Joan coming down the stairs from the tower.
It was much darker without the flash

View from the top - well worth the climb

Sunday – September 29
Woke to a beautiful sunny morning, great reflections on the water and just a hint of fog remaining. Took our time over coffee and croissants. First I received a phone call, but didn’t hear it but for some strange reason actually checked the voicemail (I almost never do that over here). At the same time I’m listening Joan gets a call, but misses it. Turns out there was a problem at our house and it was one of our neighbors calling to let us know at 1:00am their time. He kept us up to date as the police arrived and we talked with them. All seems to have worked out fine and several of our neighbors have made contact with us today to offer any help we might need. It’s sure nice to live in such a supportive environment.

Made it to our evening stop a bit later than we’d hoped as we were a wee bit late getting underway. Heading up another unused section of the Saône we were getting some pretty strong gusts (weather had them clocked at up to 55mph, though I don’t think ours were quite that strong). Arriving at our destination, Traves, we were able to get a place at the dock. Did a walk around town then the rain hit, so we Face Timed with the boys and Joan is now reading, while I’m writing. Crème Fraische Chicken on the menu for dinner, with wine of course.

For boaters coming into Traves - All the VNF markings that show on the chart have been removed, except the channel under the bridge. There is now a dark blue "arrow" pointing toward the harbor and a line of floats and fenders defining the very shallow portion of the entrance. There are 3 pontoons, each with room for two 15 meter boats (one on each side). When we were there, only three of the six spots were open for transient moorage, the rest were being used by the resort.