10 August to 13 August 2018. 66 kilometers, 2 locks (bliss!).
Friday
10 August – Lyon to PK35 (near Anse/St Bernard). 34 kilometers, 1 lock, 4 hours
(cruising time).
Cruising ‘back’ along previously traveled waters has
some ambivalence; on the one hand one has seen all the sights and on the other,
one can spend more time examining places which might have been bypassed too
quickly.
An eight thirty departure saw us closely followed by a
Danish flagged cruiser and then overtaken by an Australian flagged one, both of
which had been opposite us in the Lyon port.
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| Beautiful Lyon. |
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| The Courts of Appeal. |
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| Paddle driven! |
Our
plan had been to spend a night at Fontaines-sur-Saône, a night at Neuville-sur-Saone,
and then two nights at Trévaux. Arriving at Fontaines we notice that the
mooring is at a busy bridge and that the town seems relatively ‘sixties’ with lots
of small blocks of flats. And then reference to the DBA guide for Neuville gives us “This is also a hang out at night for various
youths, while we had no trouble with them, it was not pleasant. I would avoid
this place unless really stuck.” so we move on to Trévaux
where we plan to spend at least one night.
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| Trevaux |
On arrival we notice a sign on the
gate giving mooring costs – this sign was most definitely not there on our last
visit and, at a cost of €15 for our sized boat which includes electricity and
water which we do not need, we have lunch and move on a couple of kilometres
upstream,
Saturday
11 August - PK35 to Montmerele-sur-Saône. 17 kilometers, 0 locks, 2 hours 20
minutes.
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| Leaving PK35 in the distance. |
Another very relaxing cruise,
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| Interesting roof. |
on the way passing the very
pleasant looking Jassans-Riottier port where long time blogger Aurigny is spotted,
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| Barge Aurigny on right. |
sees us arrive at
the choc-a-block pontoon as the Aussie cruiser from Lyon is departing its very
cramped berth; as they were one meter shorter than us we had doubts that we
could squeeze in but we also had a backstop – another Australian yacht at the
downstream end of the pontoon had said that they would be leaving shortly albeit
their space was hardly bigger than the recently vacated one. But we just
squeezed in with less than thirty centimeters space fore and aft.
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| Pic taken after the boat behind had moved back a meter - after we had tied up. |
Montmerle is an energetic and organised little town
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| Town Hall on right. |
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| Tourist office. |
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| The main road. |
with a free sundowner music show every Saturday evening in July and August
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| One Chris Evans doing a two hour Johnny Hallyday routine. The crowd were bopping away! |
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| Some of the crowd. |
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| Even the Harley mob were there. |
and a small market every Friday and Sunday morning – arriving on a Saturday morning and leaving on a Monday gave us the best of both worlds.
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| Lynn in the charcuterie. |
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| The endless queue at the boulangerie. |
The small 11th century church, Notre Dame de Montmerle (called The Chapel of Minimes) and adjacent tower are open on Sundays between 16h00 and 19h00 so we offed the bikes, rode/pushed them up the hill, walked the last two hundred meters to the church which was a welcome relief from the heat, then proceeded further up the hill to the door into the tower – locked! So it was back down the incline and, passing through the church, we noticed an ill-lit passage and steps ascending. That’s how you get to the top of the tower but by now we had had enough so it was downhill to the bikes and downhill to the quayside where thankfully a small ice-cream stand had appeared; both the cactus and lemon sorbets were delicious!
Monday
13 August – Montmerle-sur-Saône to St-Romain-des-Iles. 15 kilometers, 1 lock, 1
hour 45 minutes.
We have been troubled with a leaking rubber boot on the
cooling system; this goes back to last year but it had become bad and despite
my sweatiest efforts the problem would not resolve itself. In Lyon I again
stripped all the component parts apart, showered myself in coolant and blood, adjusted
both caps at each end of the cooling core, put the whole lot back together
again and now, after sixty six kilometres of cruising, we have not had a drop
in the bilges! Hallelujah!
The weather report for today was for a storm to hit soon
after midnight and then to blow and rain hard until eleven when it would start
abating, so we decided that we would leave at eleven. And blow it did, raising
me in the middle of the night to check that all was in order – half meter high
waves with white-horses! At sunrise there was barely a ripple on the river and
although it had rained during the night the decks were almost dry so, with
glowering clouds and humid air we set off upstream,
tying up on a small pontoon
at St-Romain-des-Iles, right outside the Restaurant du Pont – free mooring if
you eat there, ten Euros if you don’t (this includes water and electricity).
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| Restaurant behind miniature Lynn. |
So we had lunch there. Grenouilles Fraiche de Crème pour madame, de Persillee pour moi (fresh frogs [not frogs legs, whole frogs] –
absolutely superb! The gentleman and lady at the table next to us are from Lyon
and they drive the fifty or so kilometres to the restaurant once a week to
enjoy its offerings and Monsieur is adamant that the frogs here are the best in
the region if not in the whole of France). And, most unusually for a Monday,
the large restaurant was packed – we had booked on arrival at the port – and most patrons
were enjoying either fresh frog or fresh whitebait, another house specialty.
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| Pretty garden outside the restaurant. |
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| There are some who say that this looks disgusting but we don't comment on their preference for guinea pig, bat, dog, snake or scorpion fish, do we? These other options worldwide might be yummy too! |
PS: Can anyone give us a compelling reason to stop off
and visit Mâcon – all research says that there is just about nothing of much
interest there?
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