Peter Margaret and Matilda: Epinal and beyond

Sunday 23^rd October at 0830hrs we left our mooring on the Canal des Vosges downstream of Ecluse 8 where we had to stop the day before. We were on the way up from the Saone, headed for Epinal and about to have the hardest day working Matilda to date. Eight ecluses to the summit pound which is 10 kilometres long, then fourteen down (including one “en panne” (broken)) to the embranchment d'Epinal and then 3.3 kilometres to the port of Epinal, a shallow winding canal. Taking Matilda through 22 ecluses was a huge day and at the end of it both Marg and I were absolutely bushed.

The port has recently been completely rejuvenated. Old warehouses and hard-stand areas have been removed and wonderful facilities and parkland established in their place. A number of boats were moored here and shut down for winter and we were fortunate to moor along the main town wharf, easy walking to the centre of town.

Epinal is a good mixture of the old and new. The cathedral has the evidence of about three rebuilds and in some places the old walls and battlements are very obvious.

And just across the road, an ancient stream through the centre of the town has been turned into a white water course for modern canoeists.

All these modern sporting activities proved rather boring for this old fellow guarding the historic library.

An interesting little sidelight to our visit, we were approached by two media studies students from a local college who wanted to include our home – Matilda, in one of their projects. We were interviewed and photographed as part of their paper on the different living environments of various people. We hope they did well!

Wednesday 26^th, off again. The canal des Vosges is now following the Moselle river through a wide and open country of rich pastoral soils. The plains are a result of ice age glacial activity and the soil is under laid with massive deposits of rocky gravel. This is quarried and used for many building products and industrial purposes. Barges on the canals are used for it's transport in many places but this is the first time we saw some purpose-built ones specifically for a particular run. Looking as though they were designed by a committee they looked strange but did their job very successfully.

That afternoon we moored at Nomexy, for a late lunch. A good mooring so we stayed the night. In the afternoon we wandered to the other side of the river to Chatel sur Saone, a village built on a high vantage point. There has been a castle and citadel here for over 1000 years. Finally derelict, it was all covered with a car park for a nearby government building in the 50's. It is now being excavated and it's history unfolds.

We stopped at Charmes for lunch and in the afternoon we explored the town. This poor town has had a tragic history through the centuries with war and famine right up to its near destruction (again) in the 2nd WW. The church showed signs of damage from the second world war. The steeple had been rebuilt with a modern concrete structure that was already showing the ravages of time. A sorry sight. However other parts of the town were very pretty especially with the autumn colors.