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

May Day a National Holiday

The écluses are all closed for May Day. While they are rioting in Paris Julie and I decide to bicycle to Semur-en-Auxois to see if anything is open. This trip we are leaving from Marigny-le-Cahouët and using the bicycle route. Wonderful road that is nearly flat and the last few kilometers into town are on a dedicated bicycle trail that parallels the road, just as it get busy.

Why I never get tired of cycling in France. This is the road we took to and from Semur and this is about how many cars you'd ever see at a time. No pot-holes, no chipseal, just smooth riding.

Semur-en-Auxois had many businesses open so we were able to window shop and then use the map we had received when Joan and I toured the town to show Julie the sights. Semur became the stronghold of the duchy in the 14C when the citadel was reinforced by ramparts and 18 towers. Today there are still four towers and much of the old ramparts left to explore. While the towers are closed the town is still like stepping back in time.

Collégiale Notre-Dame

The show piece of the town is the Collégiale Notre-Dame a church that was started in the 11C and rebuilt and remodeled and added to throughout the years. There are still parts that go back to the 13C. Like so many places in France there is a chapel in the Notre-Dame dedicated to the US soldiers of the 310^th infantry that gave their lives to help preserve the freedom of France in the Great War. We often forget how much we are appreciated for what we have contributed to the world. It’s always a touching reminder to see how much our sacrifices continue to mean to others.

Semur-en-Auxois from the river - tower and some of town ramparts visible

Chapel dedicated In Memory of US troops of the 310 Infantry in WWI that died protecting France

Our ride back took a little detour to explore Lac Pont which turned out to be one of the feeder reservoirs for the canal de Bourgogne, as well as a lake for general recreation.

A copy of our chart showing just how close the locks are together for this stretch

Wednesday we continued our climb with 13 more écluse to the port of Pont Royal. Good fortune was with us when our eclusier chose to keep working when 12:00 came around to allow us to complete our day before he took lunch.

Entrance to Saint Thibault - doors and entrance from 14C

13C St. Thibault

We’d seen the town of of Thibault in our chart book but then checked our Michelin guide and found the church there had quite a history. Jumped on our bikes for a quick 5Km to see this 12C church that has been the resting place for Saint Thibault’s relics since the 1200s and rebuilt and reconditioned many times over the centuries.

The canal as it looks from this part of our voyage.

On Our Way Back – As Slow as Possible

Having decided to return Juniper to her home port of Saint Jean de Losne to have her winter repairs, repaired. Since we are no longer behind schedule we are now taking the time to fully smell the roses, even if they are soaking wet.

Our first day we returned to Venarey les Laumes, a nice port with power and water. The power is really important since the temperatures have dropped back into the 30s at night and only making the high 40s to low 50s during the day. With power, we can run our heater.

14th Century - Château Bussy-Rabutin. From medieval residence to Renaissance château

Antechamber - walls covered  with damask (the red & gold fabric covering the walls) and decorated with furniture from the Régence Period

The Hall of the Great Warriors - featuring 65 portraits of French and foreign military figures. Many of the rooms were similarly covered with paintings, just different topics.

Julie in the garden maze

With rain scheduled for the afternoon we set off on our bikes by 9:00 to bicycle to Château Bussy-Rabutin a beautiful building started in the 1300s. The Château as it looks today is probably representative of how it looked in the 1800s. After touring the Château we set out to explore the gardens and maze. While outside the predicted rain began and we decided a nice warm cup of coffee or food sounded better than getting soaked. As the ride was primarily uphill going to, it was a much faster ride back to town.

In town we had, of all things, a hamburger with of course pom frits. Then it was off to the MuséoParc  Alésia. The museum was inside, warm, dry and a perfect place to learn about the battle between Julius Caeser and the tribal Gauls united by the leader Vercingétorix. Even with the arrival of a rescue army of over 250,000 the Roman defeat of the Gauls in this important battle allowed the Romans to include Gaul in the Roman Empire. The museum covered the story as well the archeological work that has been done to verify what really happened.

Recreations of the Roman battlements built to siege the Gaul's fortified hilltop

Very wet bikers

Even after stalling all day, the rain outlasted us and we ended up riding back to the boat, including a super marché stop, in very wet weather.

Sunday was a short day, only ten écluse and a distance of about 5km. Once again it was time to get the bikes down for a ride to a nearby medieval city, this time Flavigny-sur-Ozerain home of les Anis de Flavigny the aniseed sweets that have been made at the old abbey for over 100 years. The building itself many years older yet. The ride to  Flavigny had a 3km long climb to the ridge and we were bucking a strong headwind to help us burn a few more calories.

Fields line the road to Flavigny-sur-Ozerain

The medieval walled town to Flavigny-sur-Ozerain.

You might recognize this logo
for the anis flavored candy.

Monday was our work day – the beginning of our staircase. Today was 17 écluse in 6km. We showed up at our appointed 9am time only to find an empty écluse. 9:15, still empty, finally about 9:30 our first èclusier arrived and we got underway. A couple of locks later our second èclusier arrived and it was game on. We were averaging about 10 minutes per écluse, including the time to move from one to another. The two young keepers were opening the valves to the locks all the way, right from the start, giving us quite a ride and filling the chamber in record time. We’d no sooner leave a lock and they would be zooming past us and have the next one ready. Before our lines were on the lower doors were shut and sometimes the water would be entering. To go along with this hurried pace we had a 20mph wind blowing – this meant coming into each écluse fairly fast to maintain steerage and at quite an angle, straightening out and slowing down once you were partially in the chamber and somewhat protected from the wind. Julie got real good at snagging the first bollard as we motored  past it, still slowing down.

Arriving back in Marigny-le-Cahouët (the town we found the lovely château on our way out) we spent the afternoon again walking to the château then walked through the outskirts of this very old village.

Crew Change in Montbard

Crew Change in Montbard.

Joan and I arrived in Montbard in time to visit L’Abbaye de Fontenay, clean the boat and re-provision before her sister arrived. Luckily there was a super marche, boulangerie and on Friday a market all within a couple of blocks of our moorage.

With the work out of the way we bicycled to L’ Abbaye de Fontenay, one of the oldest Cistercian abbeys in the world (built between 1139 and 1147) and now a World Heritage Site. At its height over 200 monks lived and worked on this beautiful campus.

Abbaye church and dormitory

Dormitory where up to 200 monks slept on their pallets with only a screen between each of them.

Cloisters - The current owners have done an amazing job restoring this piece of history. After the revolution it had been converted to a paper factory for a number of years.

Trip hammer, powered by a water wheel and developed at Abbaye de Fontenay

We knew that Julie had left Seattle, and had all of her flight and hotel info but as time passed we heard nothing from her and began to worry. We finally called her hotel in Basel (train strike required her to spend a near the airport before she could continue). Julie had checked in but we had no luck connecting with her. A few hours later in the afternoon, still no call. We called again and our call to her room was disconnected. We called again and finally got a very sleepy Julie. She had heard the phone ring and assumed it was her wake up call for the next morning, it took a while to convince her that it was still the day she arrived.

 

Julie and Joan biking back to Juniper after visiting Abbaye de Fontenay

Julie arrived the next day, as planned. In the meantime, we were still struggling with boat issues. A letter was sent to the partners with a few options, one of which was we would cut our trip short and return Juniper to St. Jean de Losne to have this year’s repair work completed. In the end that was the group decision, so we got 14 days of cruising in, out of this year’s 54 and are now headed back early. At least the area we traveled through was beautiful and will be, even a second time.

Since we are turning around I won’t bother to write about Joan’s and my trip through the last few days but will cover it both directions as Julie and I head back. The Abbaye was the first thing we saw a second time biking back out with Julie. The next morning Joan had to leave three days early for Basel (because of train strikes) where she is staying at an airbnb.

 

Seeing Joan off at Gare Montbard

After seeing Joan off, Julie and I hit the market for some shopping then started her education on line handling for our 1:00 first écluse appointment. It looks like we will have Juniper back a week or two early. Thinking we might rent a car and explore Bourgogne that way, while using Juniper as a Gite.

Julie practicing lassoing a post, in preparation for doing the same with a bollard in the écluse.

And here she is with the real thing.

Up and Over The Hill

Up and Over

We are now coming up on the hard part of the trip, five days in a row of staircase locks. These are a series of écluse that have little more than a passing basin between. Our longest stretch will be over 40 écluse and take us two days of idling between locks with line handling to be done and redone and redone. Fortunately we are one of the first boats out this season so we are usually getting two èclusiers rather than one running between locks.

Our first view of the castle and town of Châteauneuf. One of the more spectacular sites of this trip.

From Pont d’Ouche we climbed 11 écluse in 11km the day was beautiful and in the 70s. It was another 09:00 start so we would hopefully be in Vandenesse-en-Auxois before lunch to allow us plenty of time to bike to Châteauneuf a castle and town that date back to the 1200s.

This Châteauneuf house caught our attention

The castle comes into view kilometers before we arrive at our moorage and we probably took 50 pictures of it as the view continually changed. As soon as we had finished lunch we were on our bikes and ready for the climb. For such a beautiful day there was no traffic heading to this famous French landmark and once in town we realized we would have the place to ourselves. Then we got to the entrance to the castle Ferme le lundi – Closed Mondays. The ancient village was a delight to walk through and we did have it to ourselves. Before riding back to Juniper we enjoyed a beer at an outdoor table to reward us for our climb.

Joan now wants a garden shed like this  modern shed built into a medieval wall.

Stopped for a well deserved beer after our climb to Châteauneuf - Photo proof for our boys.

When we returned to the boat we searched until we found a VNF person and changed our first écluse time till 14:00 – time to make the ride, see the castle and enjoy lunch at an outdoor café.

Joan checking out one of the bedrooms - Luckily the bed was too small, we're staying with our cabin.

The castle had certainly changed with the times and the presentation let you see how and where the changes had occurred. In the earliest days it wasn’t much more than a defensive tower and wall. Later the ownership changed to a buddy of the Duke of Bourgogne with plenty of money. The castle was enlarged to its present size, although still primarily a defensive structure. By the time of the revolution the defensive part wasn’t as necessary and the inside became more elaborate plus well decorated and appointed.

We had a pair of eclusiers that claimed to be family. The younger gentleman made sure to do all the heavy work for his older female "family" member. Here getting her gate started for her, before getting his started.

Returning to Juniper we cast off our lines for an 8 lock staircase to the tunnel that goes through hilltop. Our èclusiers for the trip were a mother and son team that were wonderful to watch. She really raised him right, always polite and helpful, big smile and the consummate gentleman. He was always trying to make his mom’s side of the gate easier for her to open. Since canals are all gravity fed there has to be reservoirs higher than the highest écluse. To make that happen the top usually has a tunnel to allow more area to catch and store water. The Tunnel de Pouilly is 3.35km long and only slightly wider than Juniper the height gave us standing headroom at the upper helm station, but not much more. A number of years ago lighting was added making the passage easier and more pleasant. We did hit one fairly long stretch with no lights and it was eerie.  On top of the dark it was darned cold and we’d just taken all our warm clothes off and left them below.

Pouilly tunnel a 3.5 km Sci-Fi attraction - and it was cold. We fit with about 2 feet to spare on each side. Steering a very straight course, in the dark, for that long wasn't easy.

Arriving in the huge port of Pouilly we found it completely empty, but at least open, with a friendly staff that spent plenty of time helping us with our problems. This was to be a two-night stop to allow for shopping and sight seeing but, we had to figure out how to get Joan back to Basel to catch her plane going home with a train strike in process. So we tried:

Renting a car – we’d have to rent it for at least four days because of weekends and no transportation to the nearest rental agency with the trains not running. We are already over a week behind so this won’t work.

Catching a plane - that is not conflicted with the train strike – cost over $3,000

Blablacar – the only dependable transport in France, wasn’t quite Joan’s cup of tea going by herself.

Leaving the boat 2 days early and sitting in Basel – turned out to be the answer now we just had to figure out how to buy her train ticket in advance since trains often sell out the day before a strike, then find her a place to stay. We found her tickets with trainline.com (great to work with) and found her a room with a German Swiss woman in Basel at a great rate and close to public transportation.

In the old days barges were pulled through the tunnel with this electric chain tug. It moved along a chain that ran the length of the tunnel and was powered by overhead trolley wires.

Now we still had our boat problem – got some help from the VNF to purchase the correct coolant for our engine and we were off – only an hour late for our appointment. We didn’t even make it into the town of Pouilly, maybe next time.

Pont Royal - our moorage for the night. Very picturesque - but this was the entire town.

That afternoon was a 12 écluse staircase to Pont Royal (we set our personal record of 7 écluse in less than an hour) and today, Thursday, we started out with a couple of short trips between locks before starting the staircase that will ultimately take us 3 days to complete.

The château we found in the woods at Marigny-le-Cahouët. It's now a private residence, but they let visitors enjoy the land around the building, as long as you are courteous.

We are tied up in the town of Marigny-le-Cahouët. The chart and a sign at the Quay indicate there is a 13^th century château near here. Looking throughout the town we could find no signs to this elusive building, or ruin. Tried google maps, no luck – till we zoomed in and found a square piece of land with a body of water all the way around – zooming closer it was on rue de château. We gave it a shot and found the beautiful building you see in the pictures below. The amazing part is that it is currently being used as a residence.