The Champagne Canal

We settled into St Jean de Losne and those who know the moorings here will realise that we had moored on the steps outside the Café du National in an area that specifies mooring for boats up to fifteen metres long and for a maximum of three days. Everyone knows Matilda is 25 metres in length and we were there for about 21 nights. In France there are some rules that are just made to be broken!

The above picture of Matilda shows her new coach house cover replacing the old blue tarp of the past few years.

While we were moored here we saw some interesting sights. We were surprised by the strange array of floating things that people go on the water with.

Who would call this comfortable boating.

These two lads are canoeing through Europe to Turkey. Check out their exploits on:

www.canoeingthecontinent.com

This fellow moored his boat behind us.

Locals and those musically knowledgeable might say “That is Johnny Halliday the French rock star from the ‘60s". They would nearly be right, He is an impersonator and does quite well with his talent.

Mid August we departed and set out for Paris. We were taking a route we have not traveled before, we were taking the Canal de la Marne a la Saone (now known as The Champagne to Burgundy canal) north west to the Marne river and then into Paris. It connects the Saone River at Heuilley sur Saone to the Canal Lateral a la Marne at Vitry le Francois.

This canal is 224 km long with 114 ecluses as well as several swing and lift bridges. Construction was started in 1862  from Vitry le Francois and construction slowly progressed to Condes and Chaumont. The decision to extend was made about 1890 and it reached the Saone in 1907. It provides a third route from Paris to the Saone River and the Mediterranean but has never been a real commercial success. The southern section traverses some very attractive country but does not pass through any large towns. It is difficult to find supply points for food and fuel but we traveled its length (and the 4.8 km tunnel at its summit) without any problems.

Rolling farmland is very productive along the canal.

At one point we passed this large netted area ( about 1 km in length) – much like a chook run, and found it to be full of what we believed to be pheasants. There were hundreds of them.

This beautiful viaduct, built when the railway crossed the canal in 1886 has seven arches and is 295 metres long. The railway of course spelt the reduction of commercial traffic on the canal.

Commercials still use the canal though, and this one went past us on a narrow bend. It was fully loaded and we had to squeeze past.  At this point we struck the soft muddy bottom. The color of the water indicates the depth of the canal.

We were reaching the summit of the canal and with it the Balesmes tunnel. At 4820 metres long it takes about 2 hours to traverse at a crawl. We don’t like tunnels!

  

We were finally out and moored below the town of Langres. Below, because Langres is on the crest of a hill and the canal is about 100 metres below it. Matilda can just be seen amongst the trees.

We were going to stop here for a few days and explore the town so, stay in touch as there will be more to tell.