France: Canal Boat Trip Ends, Chatillon-sur-Loire to Gien, Gien to Paris

12 May

From the journal:

“A quick pack, a final clean, a perfectly satisfactory handover back to the Crown Blue rep, and it was time to say goodbye to our lovely Cirrus. We enjoyed her so much, irrespective of how ill we were.



Goodbye Cirrus, et merci beaucoup!

The manager at the Connoisseur office called a taxi for us to take us to Gien, where we would get a train back to Paris. The taxi arrived really quickly and so the canal was soon left behind. The drive to Gien took about half an hour, and was a drive through beautiful countryside, so another enjoyable episode. The lady taxi driver suggested that she take us first to a shop or supermarket before going to the railway station as she said the station was really small and we wouldn’t be able to get anything to eat there. We – stupid us – declined the offer and got her to take us straight to the station.

We had about 90 minutes to wait for the train, and the taxi driver was so right – there was no café or such at the station, only a dispensing machine where you could buy crisps and soft drinks.


I have to say, I did really well buying our tickets. I had been mentally rehearsing exactly what to say, and the transaction was speedy and uneventful, and we had our tickets in our hand in a couple of minutes. It was amazing, though, to watch French people coming in to buy tickets. It was never speedy and uneventful; it was a case of lots and lots of conversation, sometimes consternation, sometimes argumentation, sometimes bordering on confrontation. We were stunned: how could I, a foreigner, find buying a ticket so quick and easy, while for the locals it was almost high drama. So fascinating!

Wandering outside, I spotted a little bar/bistro down the road and suggested we go there to have a drink and a bite to eat. HUGE MISTAKE! We lugged our luggage (like that!), walked inside, and – oooh. It was like some ghastly truckies place, and I’m talking tough truckies. The place smelled sooo bad. All conversation stopped. Everybody in there – all those leather or donkey jacketed men with shaved heads and their friends – turned and just starred at us. No welcoming “Bonjour” here. We sort of smiled, very difficult to do when you’re feeling so conspicuous and uncomfortable.  There was a sort of enclosed verandah where we could see quite a few Asian people sitting, and so we went out there, thinking that perhaps they were fellow tourists and so it may be a more comfortable option. Hm, these were not fellow tourists, these were just more of the sort of people who were inside, except maybe worse because they made me think of the North Vietnamese guys in “The Deer Hunter”, and I was waiting for them to pull out a gun for a game of Russian RouletAnd to make things even worse, if the air inside was bad, the air out here was even worse. God only knows what they were smoking out there, but it just about made my eyes water.  We tried to act really cool, pretended that nothing on the menu appealed, and exited stage left, attempting to do so in a really casual manner and not run, which is what we wanted to do. Phew, when travelling there will definitely be times that take you way outside your comfort zone, times when you really don’t feel at all at ease – I’ve felt it in a couple of country towns here in Australia – and so it had to happen at some time in beautiful France.

So, we walked back down the street to the station, and those dispenser machines looked sooo good to us now. Coke and crisps for lunch, what could be better.

The train was, of course, lovely, and the carriages super comfortable. There was only one other person in our carriage for the whole trip to Paris, so we were free to ooh and aah over the stunning scenery as much as we liked.

The train pulled into Gare de Lyon, and we felt that we had been away for far more than a week. We walked straight out of the station and got a taxi straight away to take us back to the Emeraude Louvre Montana.

Ah, during the cab ride we got to be part of a little play in itself, as at one point we were pulled up at traffic lights and the people in the car next to us wound down their window and asked our driver for directions to somwhere. Like a taxi driver in “The Amazing Race” he gave very long, very involved directions, but then ended up telling them to follow him. And so we swept through the streets of Paris – no, not with the warm wind in our hair – with our taxi driver waving his arm in the air to the vehicle behind us, beeping to say goodbye when it was their time to turn off. It was charming and another example of people going out of their way to help others.



Ah, here she is to greet us.

When we got back to the hotel, it was wonderful to find that we had been allocated the same room we had stayed in before the canal boat trip, and beautiful to have the staff say hello and welcome us back. It really felt like coming home. The Louvre Montana’s management really know how to pick great employees.




What a wave.

 

We dropped our bags in the room and then headed around the corner to rue Saint-Honoré for some lunch at one of our favourite little cafés before heading back to the hotel for a long, long, long bath. Ah, heaven!

Must find out who this guy was, because we walked past
this statue almost every day and I fell in love with it.

In the evening we walked around the corner to Cityrama and booked ourselves onto a trip to Versailles for the 13^th, and then wandered along rue de Rivoli picking up a few more souvenirs to take home.

For dinner we – of course – went back to Le Carrousel, and the meal was really fantastic. We had a wonderful, flirty waiter. I couldn’t decide what to have for dessert and so he brought me a whole plate of tiny tasters – no, not café gourmand, there were at least half a dozen delicious delights. Fabulous.
 

She is even more lovely at night.

A final walk over to gaze at the Louvre to our left and the Eiffel to our right in the moonlight, and then back to our room and into that huge, huge super comfortable bed for the best sleep we’d had for days.”

What a great outlook for a restaurant.

See you at Versailles tomorrow.

France: Canal Boat Trip, Day 5, Herry to Ménétréole-sous-Sancerre

9 May 

From the travel journal:

“After breakfast I sent off an SMS to check on how the pussycats are faring at Blue Ice. Got a reply back pretty quickly saying they are just fine and not to worry. Great to have such a top place to leave them when we’re away, but really missing those little girls. Goodness knows how people with children manage when they’re away from their kids – don’t think I could do that.

By the tie-up point in Herry

We then secured the boat and walked up into the village, which is quite a charmer with some wonderful buildings and an old, old church.

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By the tie-up point in Herry



Now, here’s the funny thing with the church – the position of the clock on one side. Wondered if it was one of those “Confuse the devil” things like that famous clock in Italy (think it is). Anyway, on the other side the clock is centred, as you expect it to be, but our first glance made us go “What the?”

See what I mean about that clock?

 Herry is a fabulous village to wander around in, and, like Nevers and Cours-les-Barres, we really wished we had more time to spend here. Got a few photographs, though, of the place, including the delightful Marie (town hall).

Lovely Marie in Herry

Before going back to the boat we sought out – of course – the patisserie and picked up a baguette, a superb quiche, and a couple of those to-die-for Paris Brest cakes. Yum!

Is this charming, or what?

 Set off from Herry up the canal on our way to Ménétréole-sous-Sancerre. Passed through some fabulous scenery on the way. We are so glad that we took the advice of French Travel Connections and did this waterway because the scenery is just exactly what we were hoping to see. 

Great scenes

Coming in to Ménétréole-sous-Sancerre is great, the town looks lovely. We planned to tie up there because it’s got really good power and water facilities, and of course there is no way you can miss out on visiting Sancerre while you’re so close – you can see it, up on top of the hill, from the canal.

Approaching Ménétréole-sous-Sancerre

However, when we got to the dock area, there was a HUGE passenger barge, the “Anna-Maria IV”, tied up and she took up most of the tie-up area. Then there was another canal boat tied up behind her.  Because of this, there was no way we could reach either the power or the water, even with the really long extension cable that the master of the barge kindly offered to lend us. 



The canal-side bars/bistros

We really wanted to see a bit of this town, though, so we tied up anyway and set off for a bit of a walk, and hopefully to find a pharmacie where we could pick up some good strong cold and flu tablets as we were both quite sick by now despite our pleasure of just being here. Strangely, for what seems like a good sized town, we couldn’t find anything at all retail-wise other than a couple of bistros or bars opposite the canal! 



A town so worth exploring

What a display!

Disappointed, we headed back to the boat. Now, to make matters worse, the water level was so high that I couldn’t get back on the vessel except by sort of pulling myself up backwards so that I parked my bum on the edge of the boat and then swung my legs on the deck. So, here we are, in a town we were so looking forward to visiting, and the reality was: (a) we couldn’t even buy milk, (b) we couldn’t get some much-needed throat lozenges and cold tablets, (c) I had a real problem getting on and off the vessel. Add that to the fact that we couldn’t get power or water because of the length of the barge plus the smaller canal boat, we realised, sadly, that we simply couldn’t stay here and had to forget our visit to Sancerre and carry on. 



Ho, ho, ho! We cruised up to St Satur, where we could see there was a large Champion supermarket, but the tie-up points here were just a repeat of Chapelle, ie anything but inviting. So, we then turned into a little side canal with the intention of tying up at St-Thibault. Now, this place looked great, and we were quite happy at the prospect of spending the night here. Fate was against us today: the marina at St-Thibault was absolutely chockers and there was no way we could get in there.  This was getting to be one very frustrating day. 



We think it's inhabited. How ancient is this building.
Wow, we are definitely not in Kansas now, Toto.

Bottom line: we are now back in Ménétréole-sous-Sancerre. The good news is that the other canal boat which had been tied up behind the “Anna-Marie IV” had now left, and so we were able to get power and water. And, hey, there are those two bars and a boulangerie – very important – so we will be fine here for breakfast, and in the morning we’ll be able to get a taxi up the hill to Sancerre. Meanwhile, we can hunker down, drink wine, have a nice meal and stay warm.

 

AND THE SUN CAME OUT!!!!”

 

Check back later when I’ll post about our visit to Sancerre – a place never to be missed. Thank God we were able to get back to Ménétréole-sous-Sancerre.

France: Canal Boating Day 1

5 May

After breakfast we had a final walk around, popping in to a chemist to pick up some hay fever medication – yep, all those lovely falling white flowers with their lovely falling pollen were having an effect - and a new umbrella before a walk-through of the Tuileries. We left our large suitcase in storage at the hotel, taking only a couple of carry-on size bags, and then checked out of the hotel, grabbed a taxi and zoomed off to the Gare de Lyon to catch our train to take us south, to Burgundy, for the next stage of our holiday. 

We easily found our seat on the train, only to discover some Frenchman sitting comfortably ensconced in one of them, happily reading his paper and sipping a coffee. We checked our ticket numbers and told him that he was sitting in one of our seats. He just smiled, apologised, and moved down the carriage to his allocated spot – he had obviously simply decided that our seats were better ones and had hoped that they were unoccupied. We stored our luggage overhead and settled down into the super-comfortable seats. Right then and there we fell in love with rail travel in France.  

Why would you stress out on the autoroutes when you can sit back, read a paper or book, have a meal, a drink, access to clean toilets, and watch the stunning countryside roll past? Lunching on baguettes and a bottle of wine in our seats, we gave up on reading our books and just relished the views of chateaux, forests of a green we had never seen before, and charming, picture book villages. 

Oh, and one thing I have to share with you: on the train there was a special little area, about half a carriage in length, I would estimate, which was set aside as a play area for kiddies. The walls below window height were all thickly padded, and there were toys on the floor. It was just lovely to see this, and to see children happily spending the journey in there, having fun as kids should. 

Something else which also really impressed us on the train was the stress on respecting the comfort of your fellow travellers, and this means: if you want to talk on your mobile, leave the main carriage and stand in the between-carriage spaces to hold your conversation, or if you must stay in your seat you have to keep your conversation really low. Oh, and no blaring music either. Wow, impressive! 

We had to change trains at Nevers – a famous city, and the one where Julius Caesar apparently had his war chest stolen. What?? Wow, stories and history at every turn aren’t there. The railway station is not the most salubrious of places, but by this stage we were so excited that it could have been a tin shed and we wouldn’t have cared. 

The trip from Nevers to the town of Decize, where we were to start our canal trip, was a short one, and so we were soon there. We were met at the station by Florent, from Crown Blue, now under the umbrella of LeBoat, and driven to the spotless, well-maintained marina. Completing the paperwork with Elys, a member of admin staff at Crown Blue, was completed quickly and easily, and we were then shown our boat, the Cirrus.  It was love at first sight for us.  While my man spent time learning the ins and outs of the vessel, all the necessary technical “stuff” and how to operate her, I happily unpacked our bags and then checked out the excellent fit-out, opening kitchen cupboards, discovering the clever layout in which not an inch of space was wasted.



Our boat



This was our first trip to France, and our first boating holiday, and we had left all the arrangements to the fantastic staff at the French Travel Connection in Sydney. Susan, who was the consultant we dealt with, had herself done a few of these boating trips in France and so she was able to advise us from first-hand experience. She recommended this particular cruise as being scenic, having lots of little villages to pop into along the way, and with a perfectly manageable amount of locks for a crew of just two people. Susan also gave us details of shops and restaurants along the route, and various other little tips that you only get from someone who has actually been there. For future trips we made all the arrangements ourselves, booking everything direct, but for the first time traveller – cruiser particularly – I think it’s fantastic to have such experienced and helpful staff to rely upon.

Now, back to the boat. David, the engineer who was providing the pre-cruise instructions then got my husband to start up the vessel, go for a little cruise, practise a bit of manoeuvring, and then pull up back at the jetty and  moor the vessel by the necessary method before handing over the keys and all the paperwork and wishing us a bon voyage.

We had been advised that there was a large supermarket almost opposite the marina, and so we took advantage of its proximity and did a fairly big shop, stocking up on cheese, wonderful Paris ham, breads, terrines, butters, etc, and of course quite a bit of wine. We actually thought we’d done a really big shop, but of course it turned out that we really had not bought nearly enough. 


Isn't this gorgeous.



Many people spend their first night on the vessel at the marina, setting out on their cruise first thing the next morning, but we were too impatient to do this, so as soon as I had put away the shopping and got the kettle on to boil, we set off. To exit the port area and turn north towards our final destination, Chatillon-sur-Loire, we had to pass through our first lock. This was an automatic lock, and it opened automatically as we approached, which was great. Into the boat our lock went, the gates closed behind us, the water level dropped, the gates in front of us opened, and we sailed out, out onto the canal, its green banks lined with stunning trees that dropped their blooms all over the water. A heron rose from the rushes along the side of the canal, flew over the Cirrus and headed straight forward in front of the boat, as if to say “Follow me; I know the way”.

It was already quite late in the afternoon, and the sky was darkening rapidly, and so we pulled up to the bank and secured the vessel by way of mooring spikes pushed into the earth. We went for a walk along the tow path, feeling happy enough to burst that we had now actually began this wonderful trip.

Our mooring site.

Sitting on the front deck, we dined on delicious ham and pate, cheeses and tomatoes that tasted the way tomatoes used to taste years ago before we started gassing them and turning them into flavourless red globes. We sipped wine and chatted softly – any volume would have jarred with these beautiful surroundings.  As the evening wore on the sky got blacker, and blacker, and blacker. I had never known such darkness; it was complete. Add to that the silence, amazing silence. It was almost as if we had been picked up and placed in a black box somewhere, isolated from all life on earth.

Getting darker

Did I say silence? All was shattered by the loudest thunder I had ever heard; it sounded as if very heavens were being ripped apart. And just so the ripper knew exactly where to tear, blinding lightening lit everything up with light so bright it almost hurt your eyes. Oh, and of course it rained – no, that’s wrong, it pelted down. So, here we are, night one on the canal boat, and we are smack bang in the middle of a storm of Hollywood blockbuster proportions. It was amazing!



What a place to spend the night - wow.



Catch you later.