We like this town
so decide to spend three nights here rather than the two originally planned;
one day to visit the Fontenay Abbey and to do some shopping at the Intermarche and
Bricomarche about two and a half kilometers from the port, and one day to visit
the Forge and the Buffon park and museum which are perched behind the old town
walls high on the hill overlooking Montbard.
Shopping is
shopping so nothing to report there (the Brico was closed because it was Ascension
Day) but the seven-kilometer ride to the 12th Century Cistercian Abbey
brought us to a most fabulous place; Lynn took over seventy photos but the ones
on the Abbey’s website are far better so here are just a few.
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| An old stone structure on our way to the Abbey |
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| Front entrance |
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| Kennels and dovecote! |
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| The abbey church. |
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| The dormitory. All the monks slept in one room on pallets on the floor. |
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| The gardens. |
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| The cloister passage. |
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| The monks' room where, inter alia, they copied manuscripts. |
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| The cloister. |
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| The forge. |
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| The hydraulic hammer, invented by the monks. |
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Through the window can be seen the paddle wheel, driven by the Fontanay river,
which turns the gearing for the hammer. |
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| A working scale model. |
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| The trout dam. |
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| Lodgings of the Commendatory Abbots. |
Back aboard Elle
the Weber was whipped out, a late lunch was consumed and the day ended with the
arrival, to a jazz quartet, of La Belle Epoque which moored up just meters
from us. The band climbed aboard and we were entertained to Dixieland Jazz for
the remainder of the evening. Great fun!
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| Tight squeeze. |
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| Washing the side - never stops. |
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| Serenading the clients who had been sightseeing in a mini-bus. |
[From the time the lock doors are open, these
hotel barges take ten minutes to fully exit; assuming the same for entry and
about the same to close the gates and fill the lock, they take at least half an
hour to complete the cycle, something we do in half the time which is why we
dread being caught behind one of them, especially when we have a lot of locks
to do in one day.]
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| Evening. |
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| Morning. |
The next morning
it was up the steep hill to the lovely Buffon Parc but unfortunately the museum
was still closed,
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| Town defenses. |
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| View down to the canal - spot La Belle Epoque? |
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The remains of Comte de Buffon are interred in the church on the left.
His only son was guillotined during the Revolution. |
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| Roofs of Montbard. |
back to the Brico for a 5-micron water filter and a set of
bicycle pedals, and then seven kilometers down the cycle path to the Buffon
Forge – interesting but not mindblowing.
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| Forge area on left, accommodation on right. |
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| Stairs down to the forge |
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| Looking the other way. |
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| The waterwheel driving the bellows. |
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| The hydraulic hammer. |
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| The waterwheel driving the hammer. |
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| Accommodation left, stables and storage right. |
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| A diamond in the rough (What say ye James la G?). |
Lunch was back in
Montbard at a Vietnamese/Chinese/Thai restaurant, ‘Kim Thanh’ for a €12.90
eat-as-much-as-you-like buffet – starters, mains and desserts.
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| Not our usual sort of eatery but packed half an hour later. |
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| Entree |
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| Mains. |
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| Dessert. |
The selection was vast!
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| Hot starters. |
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| Shushi counter. |
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| Hot mains. |
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| Raw mains. |
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| Desserts. |
The bike tyres
protested all the way back home…
