On to Meaux

After putting Steve and Alison on a train for Paris at Gare de Nancy,  we were off, also heading for Paris but in a much slower manner.  As we have said, one and a half hours in a train, who knows on Matilda?

Leaving the Moselle at Toul we were off into new country again. The next day, on the Canal de la Marne au Rhin we met another of those tunnels that the canal designers kept digging. This one at Foug was only short and apart from snapping a fender rope on the tunnel wall, it was an easy passage.  

After passing the junction of the Canal de l’Est we  were climbing continuously towards the summit. There was plenty of water in the canal, overflowing all the lock gates. They looked like vertical green carpets.

However the next day we were confronted with the longest tunnel in the French canal system, the Mauvages tunnel. It is 4.9 kilometres long and until recently barges and pleasure boats were towed through it by an electric powered tugboat. They now go through under their own power. We were given a time to enter the tunnel and because of our previous experiences we decided to dismantle Matilda’s rear awning.

She looked a little forlorn but it eased Peter’s mind negotiating the tunnel. The trip through took nearly an hour.

Those who have travelled with us have admired Marg’s garden and we were now eating the results of her efforts. These strawberries are the sweetest we have ever tasted. They went well with the breakfast cereal.

We were again in rolling agricultural country and the canal traversed some beautiful scenery.

There are no two structures the same on the canals. Here we are going down in a lock and Marg looked out over the front gates to see traffic crossing a bridge well below us.

A little further on the engineers decided to widen a road across the canal.

They just built a second bridge – like the first.

 

We are at Bar-le –Duc and the French are proud to announce that this is where the bicycle was invented and have this monument on one of the town’s main corners celebrating the efforts of father and son team – Michaux. Something stirs in Peter’s brain, he thinks someone else has also claimed to have invented the bicycle but will have to get more information. The Russians probably!

Bar-le-Duc boasts this beautiful old chateau, now a community centre – but don’t be fooled, it was built by an eccentric in the 1920’s

The geologists amongst us – as well as the wine drinkers will know that most of France is covered with very good limestone rock.  It makes a great construction material for cathedrals, castles, bridges and buildings in general as well as producing the perfect soil to grow grapes. It is also the main material used in the manufacture of cement and concrete. Crush limestone, cook the powder using a good wood fire and - Voila – cement. France has a plentiful supply of good coal as well so cement is easy and cheap to produce. Cement and concrete became the preferred building material of the 20^th century

Above shows Matilda moored at a wharf of a derelict cement factory. We stopped for lunch and Peter climbed into the old factory that was totally overgrown by the reclaiming forest.

We were getting into champagne country and the hills were alive with the sounds of growing chardonnay grapes

We had reached Epernay. At the head of the navigable Marne river, Epernay is the true centre of the champagne growing region and we spent a few days investigating the industry – as one needs to do!

We took a couple of tours through the cellars and storage tunnels of some of the major champagne houses.  The tunnels under Epernay are reputed to hold over one thousand million bottles quietly mellowing to maturity. Even though modern methods are used to bottle and disgorge it, nothing has been found to replace the effect of ageing in the cool dark tunnels under the town.

We visited the cellars of Mercier and Castellane who, together with Moet & Chandon have the largest presence in the town.

This stack of bottles is over one hundred metres long.

The town, like many in France has a very chequered history and in its history has been ruined, pillaged and burnt over 25 times including suffering damage in both world wars. Little remains of its early buildings though the opulence of the area shows through with the older buildings still today.

The houses in the avenue de Champagne are all magnificent.

Another item that makes this ideal wine country is the plentiful supply of irrigation water if needed for the grapes. This bank of over 20 large electric pumps lifts the river water high up the hills was only one of many we passed.

Epernay is a lovely town and the champagne industry brings lots to it. We could have stayed longer and enjoyed more of it but we have to move on. We are due in Meaux to meet some friends from Victoria who would join us for a few days.

There will be more stories to tell then so – stay in touch.

A little post script:

Some of our followers have asked for more specific information on our adventures and the places we visit. We mention town names so you can follow us on google earth. When we can we will give links to items of interest so that you can plan them into your next trip. You can always email us at pandmosment@yahoo.com

Epernay: www.ot-epernay.fr

Back to Nancy

The weather was good for our last days in Remich and a street market along the river foreshore had some wonderful items for sale.

This fellow thought it was all good fun too!

Alison and Steve have joined us and we are off upstream on the Moselle. The river is partly canalised and our passage was sometimes on the river and sometimes in the canal built alongside it.

Peter has always kept an eye on various civil structural items, his liking for bridges is probably as well known as his passion for railways. Needless to say he was aghast when he saw traffic traveling over this bridge.

The trip back to Nancy was quite eventful and Alison and Steve will have some good memories of Peter trying to take Matilda up a closed canal and being unsure which way we should have been going up the Moselle River. Also the quite evening enjoying the ambience of a pleasant meal and a few drinks and having a passing barge cause a cupboard topple over with the loss of much crockery and glassware.

We moored for one evening in the diversion canal on a sound wall with bollards. (Those who have travelled with us know of our affinity for these and the safe and easy mooring they give us.) Lo and behold there was a discarded barbecue which Peter tidied up and lit. We had some great saucisse du Toulouse for dinner.

It was entertaining to watch the skipper of the barge moored in front of us as he returned from his shopping and put his car back on his boat.

Back in Nancy Ali and Steve caught the atmosphere of the town, visiting the city markets and enjoying the other sights.

 

 

Peter is trying to spread a rumour that a giant ball bearing company in town, blew up!

Steve and Alison left by train for Paris and home via Spain and we planned our next move. We were off to Paris too, but where they would take an hour and a half, we intend taking about a month.

There will be more stories to tell so – keep in touch.

The pathway to Luxembourg

The few days before our departure on our next adventure were quite busy. Rhos and Bill arrived and overlapped with Pam and Geoff for one night. They slept in the fo’c’sle cabin which met with their approval. Next evening we also had a visit from Bob and his partner Nye. Bob has a boat at Lakes Entrance, Victoria and when the time is right, intends to make a change and join the European barging community. Our friendly Frenchman Thomas, also joined us for a meal the evening before our departure, concluding quite a busy few days.

Our plan was to go east up the Marne au Rhin canal to Gondrexange, turn north into the Houilleres de la Sarre canal to Sarreguemines. Then into the Sarre River to the Moselle River at Konz, turn left and follow the Moselle back to Nancy. Simple!

We had already followed the Marne au Rhin to Gondrexange with Pam and Geoff so it was exiting to change direction and head to Sarreguemines.

We are getting close to Germany and even the eclusier’s cottages have a slightly different look.

A little further on and we came across a modern (less than 100 years old) reminder of France’s need to protect itself from invaders. We believe this pillbox protecting the canal was part of the Maginot line, built after the first world war.

We spent two nights at Saareguemines as the town has a big history in mining and the production of crockery. After a heavy day of sightseeing we relaxed with another of Marg’s wonderful meals.

Next morning, before departure, Marg set off on her bike for some last minute purchases at the local supermarket. We met her at the next ecluse which was where the canal joined the Sarre River. The Sarre changes to the Saar now we are heading for Germany. We have France on the left bank and Germany on the right.

On the Saar and Moselle Rivers we were in waters along with some very big freight barges. The ecluses are equally large and we shared one with a relatively small barge - it was only 110 meters long and 12 wide. The Saar is a beautiful river and winds its way through some very attractive country.

The hills everywhere were covered with large areas of vines as the region produces some of the world’s best white wines.

And the large freight barges seemed to get bigger.

We stopped at Saarburg and found some interesting historic detail in the watercourse that runs through the centre of the old town. The photo above reminds us about the real size of Matilda.

The stream here is diverted around the side of the old mill, driving four water wheels.

Bill is a good photographer who is keen on photographing birdlife. He has cameras and lenses that are way beyond Peter’s ability to use. He tried to explain how easy it is, but as Dave and Rob know, photography is not Peter’s strongest point! Maybe it was too late this evening, or maybe something else! It is all Peter can do to press the auto button on our point-and-shoot job. 

The Saar joins the Moselle at Konz and we turned upstream on the Moselle headed back towards France. We stopped at Remich where we had Germany on the east bank and Luxembourg on the west. We moored and decided to take in the sites of Luxembourg.

The tourists in William’s Square with William II, King of the Netherlands and the Grand Duke of Luxembourg.

The tunnel network under the old fortifications were vast considering about 90% were destroyed to comply with the Treaty of London of 1867.

How is this for a bendy bus! 3 bodies and 4 sets of wheels.

We spent a couple of days exploring the city of Luxembourg as it was only a 40 minute bus ride from our mooring at Remich. The city is remarkably clean and very go-ahead. There are many new buildings and the feeling that the City was very alive.  Bill and Rhos left us here taking a train to Paris, then London where they spent time with relatives and then back to Melbourne.

They met our next visitors in London. They had dinner with Steve and Allison who, next morning followed the reverse route and joined us that afternoon in Remich.

There will be more to talk of, so till then – keep in touch.

Off cruising again

Well, we picked some good weather to paint the decks on Matilda. A few days after we finished the rains started and for a few weeks things were quite wet. The whole of Europe seemed to be in the grip of Atlantic low pressure cells. Good for the garden, I suppose. All the better for French food.

There were jobs to be done on Matilda to get her up to the standards required for these vessels these days. We had to fit some additional instrumentation and get our Blue Board operational. All this meant more “spaghetti” under the control panel.

Pam and Geoff were joining us in late April for a few weeks so we had to be ready to go.  When they arrived we showed them the high points of Nancy which is becoming one of our favourite French towns.

They settled in quickly and we headed east on the Canal de la Marne au Rhin in the direction of Strasbourg.

This canal has a number of interesting structures. The first we encountered was Ecluse #2 – Rechicourt at the beginning of the summit pound. It is 15.7 metres deep and needs 3,800 cubic metres of water to fill it. Any Australian farmer would like a dam with this much water in the corner of each paddock. It only works once an hour for this reason as the authorities are always conscious of water usage. It was built to replace 5 locks in the 1950’s

A little further on and we arrived at two tunnels. Really one tunnel but with a gap in the middle. This gap is shared with a railway line which dives into a tunnel alongside us. The combined length of the canal tunnels is nearly 2.8 kilometres

Shortly after leaving the second tunnel we arrived at the greatest structure on the French canals, - The Arzviller inclined plane caisson. This device can take a Freycinet sized barge in what could be described as an extended bathtub which slides sideways down an inclined ramp for a vertical distance of about 40 metres – replacing 17 old locks. AND – Uses virtually no water as the same amount goes up and down with the tub. Counterbalances mean that very little power is needed to run it. A much more successful design than Ecluse #2 Rechicourt.

There was a Freighter waiting to use the lift as we departed.

We continued on to Lutzelbourg where we stopped for a day and toured the town before turning around and heading back to Nancy. One interesting stop was the town of Hesse. Told by a fellow barger that there was nothing worth stopping for but we found on the way out that the whole town was involved in a flea market. Marg purchased a shade that now adorns one of our oil lamps. On our return trip we stopped to see if we could replenish some supplies. We could only find a boulangerie/patisserie that was full of beautiful things. Marg purchased some bread and asked the baker where in the town we could buy some wine. He disappeared out the back and returned with a half a dozen good reds. We were happy! The shop was doing great business. We found that Hesse has some character.

We wandered in the town and found an old church that has had a remake or two in its life. Now very worse for wear.  Then back to Nancy for a few more days sightseeing before Pam and Geoff left us. They were off to England for a few days then a cruise on a liner into the fjords of Norway. The day before they left Bill and Rhos arrived to join us in our next adventure.

There will be more to tell then, so.

Keep in touch.