12 to 19 June
2017.
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| 118.5 kilometers, 18 locks, 2 tunnels. |
Monday 12
June – Corre to Port-sur-Saône. 41 kilometers, 4 locks, 4 hours 45 minutes.
This is
relaxing cruising at its best! Beautiful weather, tranquil countryside with
small villages, most with a welcoming jetty for visitors, and hardly any locks.
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| A 'comtois steeple', recognizable by its often rounded shape and glazed tile roof. |
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| A small town mooring - most adequate. |
The marina at Port-sur-Saône is fairly large and well equipped
but it is almost all reverse-in mooring and this makes taking the bikes off the
deck somewhat of a mission. Luckily a boat left the end pontoon with its double
finger shortly after we arrived so we moved and were much happier.
Port-sur-Saône is a strange town; not much to see or do
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| A mural depicting inter alia Ghandi, Anne Frank, Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King |
(there is however
a Colruyt in the main road) but it is a busy thoroughfare for all kinds of
heavy vehicles – apparently they are building a big interchange, including two
massive viaducts over the Saône, which will divert the heavies
around the town. Scheduled for completion in 2020 but we did not see any signs
of the impending works.
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| 7am traffic through town. |
The staff at
the marina were not the friendliest so after filling up with water (At 08h25,
in French: “Pardon madame but is there a problem with the water? It does not
come on when the taps are opened”. “Huite trante!” [“Eight thirty!”] and that
was the reply - sweet person), the next day we opted to move closer to town to
the one hundred and fifty meter long wall decked with bollards about fifteen
meters apart, and do some sanding and painting. A very suitable and pleasant
place to spend our last day in Port-sur-Saône.
Wednesday 14
June. Port-sur- Saône to
Scey-sur- Saône – 11 kilometres,
2 locks.
The next
morning, as soon as the big marina office opened, we crossed to their diesel
pump and topped up with 200 litres at €1.45 per litre and then set off through
the nearby lock and on to the prettiest piece of waterway imaginable.
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| Activating the lock. |
After the
hectic, lock-intensive Canal des Voges, in Lynn’s words, “It’s like being in a
different country!” Gently putting along at ten kph past green trees lining the
wide ribbon of water is an absolute pleasure. We took the small detour to the
town of Chemilly to have a look at the castle but the very limited moorings
were full and the boat at the one small jetty who probably left ten minutes we
cruised past him looking for a place did not bother to indicate that we should
wait as he was leaving. Anyway, on we went to the small wooden municipal jetty
at Scey-sur-Saône (not the big Locaboat marina down the main branch of the
river) where a hire-boat was just leaving and where we joined two others in the
most perfect surroundings; a grassy park, water and old buildings hiding the
most scenic little town anyone could wish for! And €4 per day for mooring and €2 for unlimited water is a gift and shortly after we tied up the other two boats left leaving us in blissful serenity.
Bikes off
and around the gorgeous village we rode, eventually happening on the tourist
office where we collected a map with a suggested walk/ride which we duly did
and thoroughly enjoyed.
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| This eventually became a full blown, all night rainstorm! |
Friday 16
June. Scey-sur- Saône to
Traves. 12.5 kilometers, 2 locks, 1 x 680 meter tunnel.
An
uneventful but pretty cruise took us through the 19thC Saint-Albin
tunnel,
past the ruined castle at Rupr-sur-Saône
before we turned off the canal
‘deviation, upstream
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| A minor blockage. |
to Traves which is basically a riverside resort below the
town of the same name.
Not needing water or electricity, we paid (an arbitrary
it seemed) eight Euros for one nights mooring and then took a cycle tour of the
area as proposed by a map on a notice board, one which we did not fully complete
as the battery on the GPS went dead and we got a bit lost.
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| On the way to Getting Lost. |
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| Just a village |
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| Monolith |
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| Repunzel's address. |
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| A most beautiful 18thC partially restored church interior in Traves. |
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| Lots of these - great camaraderie. |
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| Guillotine or old well mechanism? |
We did however find
a tiny charcuterie where we bought some farm chicken and two specialty-of-the-region
sausages which looked like the dreaded andoilettes but turned out to be coarsely
ground pork bangers – absolutely delicious!
A nice
enough marina if not a bit sterile and we were a bit sinus-challenged by the
snowfalls of plane-tree ‘fluff’ which swirled around us, something which has
been a bit of a feature this trip so far.
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| Snow in mid summer. |
Saturday 17
June. Traves to Soing-Cubry-Charentenay. 20 kilometers, 3 locks, 3 hours 10
minutes.
More of the
same idyllic cruising over wide riverway
interrupted now and then by dead straight
‘derivations’ or cuttings which by-pass shallow or impassable stretches of river
and which are home to the locks, flood gates and flood locks, the latter only
being operational during times that the river is in flood.
Soing-Cubry-Charentenay
is actually three villages combined and the mooring was on the skirts of Soing-Cubry
(most people we have spoken to refer to the place as Soing, pronounced almost
like ‘swung’) and borders a large park and camping area – tranquil during the
week but thronged over the weekend and we were lucky enough to be entertained
the whole of Saturday afternoon by the non-stop tantrum of a particularly
miserable child – how the parents and their friends put up with the racket is
beyond belief. And the bikers came for lunch!
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| Jana departing |
With
provisions running low and the shop not opening for another five days, it was back
downstream
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| A travelling companion. |
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| A (Ummm) private boat - but a lovely Luxemotor. |
past the detour to Ray-sur- Saône with its magnificent hilltop castle, past the cluttered
marina at Savoyeaux and the Savoyeaux tunnel
where we were joined by a British
couple who locked through with us at the next lock but whom we soon left behind (but who tied up behind us in Gray).
Two locks later we were fortunate to have the lock kept open for us by a German
sailor travelling solo south with his dog and we locked through with him to
Gray,
passing the big Le Boat marina where we departed on our first hire-boat
trip in 2012. The long quay below the weir was pretty full and we were
fortunate to find a place near an electricity bourn albeit we were aground in
less than one meter of water. By evening there were fourteen boats lined up on
the quay!
We feel that we have come full circle.
Epic! Great photos. Ferocious looking siren; regional Eiffel Tower; at least eight people on that boat - chummy! "Ruined cattle" ? 8-)
ReplyDelete:-) Thanks Ian, the cattle have been turned to stone! We heard that siren go off once and it made quite a racket but minutes later there were emergency vehicles flying over the bridge.
DeleteSince I received a second email, a further comment and some news.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to make the Church of St Martin so bendy?
At the moment, it looks slightly possible that we may spend the entire season in Diksmuide. They are closing off the waterways in Flanders and you can only move today to your home port and tomorrow not at all. Until it rains.
I'm just adding these blogs to my waterwaystourist website (I want to catch up to your Nivernais blogs). What happened to the blog from Fontenoy-le-chateau to Port-sur-Saone. Just curious - no big deal!
ReplyDeleteSomehow I failed to post it in order but I added it to the start of the following year's blog here https://eucruiserelle.blogspot.com/2018/02/a-post-went-missing-goodbye-canal-des.html
Delete