Winter in Roanne

Week 14 — November 13th to 25th (Sally)

Well what an interesting social time we have had lately. As we are continually being told, we live in a floating village and we certainly are getting a taste of village life, even to having our own bar, " Les amis du port," and a less inviting bar would be hard to find. One small room, not enough glasses to go around, a couple of bare tables, but we make it come to life on Friday nights which seems to be the only day which madam makes any money. However it is a good chance for the Boating Village to get together and organise the weeks activities.

But first of all the weather, and our first taste of snow. We woke one morning, and just as we were discussing whose turn it was to get the croissants we noticed snow flakes falling. Within 10 minutes it was a blanket of white, very pretty, and incredibly cold. We never did get to have croissants and the only time I left the boat was to take a very quick photo. It soon cleared and since then we have had rain, several days of wind and a couple of good frosts. Plus a little sunshine in between.

Friday night was dinner with Jeff and Jane on their boat Whisper, joined by an Australian couple who live on a bigger boat than ours which fills me with admiration as Katinka has MS and gets around on a little fold up battery operated scooter. She does all the wheel work while Scott handles the ropes. We had a good time and enjoyed a meal of Chilli.

Saturday we were invited to lunch with Max, an American who has bought a french residence in a smalll village outside of Roanne. Early Saturday Max arrived to collect us and take us to his place where he had prepared lunch, a great dish of... Chilli. The property he has bought is very interesting, built in 1741 as a hunting lodge, then the owner at a later date built the adjoining chateau and then stables, bake house and servants' quarters. Now it is a square of buildings around a central courtyard and was bought some years ago by a Brit who renovated the chateau as a B&B then sold off the other buildings as part of a Body Corporate set up. Max has a part of the hunting lodge, and we saw photos of the ruin he started with before he restored it to a very interesting, comfortable holiday home. He has spent five years on it and a considerable amount of time in salvage yards and antique shops so the finished result is interesting and authentic. He's now building a garage for his car and boat, so after lunch Tony suggested he help put the roof sarking on, a suggestion that was agreed to immediatly so some of the chilli was worked off in the country air and Max got most of his roof done before we came home.

Sunday we biked across the river to a Food Fair that featured food and wine stalls from different areas of France, and even one from Germany. The first stall was the German wine and Christmas cake. While sampling they asked where we came from and when we said Australia, a lady on the stall started talking about her trips to Australia and did we know Currumbin and did we know the Neumanns. A small world. The Food Fair was a great success and we came home with various purchases which kept us in beverages if not in food for most of the week.

The next Friday we were invited to dinner by Cora Michel, a local identity with an extremely vibrant personality. Born in USA, raised in Croatia, educated in France, fluent in five languages, Cora is now married to a Frenchman, Thierry, and they live in a village about 15mins from Roanne. Cora teaches English at the local school and university, Thierry runs a woollen manufacturing plant and they are renowned for their hospitality — and the size and scope of Thierry's wine cellar. Cora likes to invite various folk from the port to partake of their hospitality, and it was truly a night to remember. The ten of us, eight from the port - two Dutch couples, one American couple and us - sat down at eight o'clock and eventually rolled out the door at 2.30am.

Cora and Thierry live in a 400 year old property that they are still in the throes of renovating. The village has narrow one way streets, you have to negotiate a lefthand right angle turn into a courtyard, a very tight turn indeed, and then you are into the house which is one delight after another. Metre thick walls, huge rooms and a myriad of possessions. They discovered in one room a Louis 14th fire screen, complete with the Royal Crest which now sits in front of the huge original fire place.

However the pleasures and delights of the house fade when compared to the main attraction of the property — the WINE CELLAR. Thierry started collecting wine when he was eighteen and now has a cellar that had a smile on Tony's face that could not be erased. His comment, "I'm not dead yet I've seen Heaven" We eventually got to bed at 3.00am, after five courses (I did manage to count those) and inumerable bottles of very fine wine. Truly a night to remember.

The only other social occasions this week have been entertaining Christian and Charlotte, our Swiss neighbours, for dinner; Sunday lunch with Jeff and Jane; boules this afternoon; French lessons last Wednesday and packing for our trip south tomorrow. We are on a train to Montpellier, as long as they aren't on strike AGAIN.

Roanne

Week 9-10 — October 23rd to November 1st (Sally)

Did I say Autumn was slow in coming to France? Winter is coming in at the gallop. Our first night after leaving Nevers we woke to a frost that had left a thin sheet of ice all over the boat AND made the ropes that I handle frozen stiff. An extra hour in port helped with some of the thaw and we made an early stop at Décize where we had turned into the Canal du Nivernais just over a month before. It is a pretty town mentioned by Julius Ceaser so has an interesting history. We cycled into and around the town, exploring the ramparts, cobbled streets and the various river banks. We didn't anchor in town as there was an enourmous canoe/kyak festival on and we felt that chugging through the centre of that with our Australian flag flying would do little for inter-country relations.

From the next morning we were on our way over familiar ground retracing our steps from the first week. We felt a little like the last swallow to head south as there were almost no other boats on the canals but the scenery while not new was just as interesting and picturesque.

We bypassed the entrance to Roanne to spend a night at Digoin, an interesting town with a rich history as a river port on the Loire. In its heyday 700 barges a year would tie up to its quays either bringing spices, cloth and manufactured goods up from Nantes or taking coal, stone, tin and gravel downstream. The voyage downstream could be done in ten days, the return would take sometimes several months and would have been frightfully dangerous. All that was replaced by the Canal when it opened and now of course by road and rail. The Loire is the longest river in France, begining in  the mountains 300 km south of Roanne and flowing more than 1,000 km to the Atlantic at St Nazaire. Our day in Digoin extended to two when we woke to a cold raw day that had us scurrying for an extra layer of clothes. We wandered down to the Office of Tourism and she suggested a nice walk around the parkland to view the varied trees and plant life. EXCUSE ME... We turned the other way and found a shop that sold fluffy slippers.

Two more days on the water cruising gently up the Canal de Roanne à Digoin, both feeling quite sad that our first cruising adventure was over and yet relieved that we were home in Port Roanne. Now moored to the quai we were overwhelmed by the welcome. We hadn't been here an hour before we were whisked off to happy hour at the local harbourside bar. About thirty boat people there and we are struggling to keep track of names, nationalities and boats. I have started a book to aid the memory and so far am onto our second page. Roanne is a very popular port for wintering and, like golf clubs years ago, has a waitng list of people trying to get in. We are here only because months ago Bob and Bea had begged our neighbours to allow them to raft-up to their barge. Christian and Charlotte are Swiss, about the same age as us I guess, and a lovely couple. Christian was formerly a Minister of Finance for Switzerland. They have elected to be harbourside, so we are moored to the quai and they are rafted-up outside Sable.

There will be up to 100 boats in port when the last few arrive Americans, Brits, Dutch and a couple of Swiss, Kiwis and Australians. We are definitely the new chums as most of the people we meet have been on their boats for years, some are on their second or third and more than a few have no other home. The community has a lot of social functions, we played boules on the shore on Sunday afternoon, all went to a barbeque Tuesday and Wednesday we attended French lessons in the Maison du Port. As well as that we have signed-up at a local gym to work off a few calories and intend to spend some time exploring the town and countryside before we head to Spain in about three weeks.

Thursday, November 1st is a public holiday. It is All Saints Day, a day for remembering departed relations and everywhere there are chrysanthemums for sale, enormous pots with perfect flowers in every colour imaginable bursting out of the doors of florists and in roadside stalls. One never gives chrysanthemums as a gift as they are the flower for the dead.

We're Afloat

Week 4 – September 15th to September 22nd (Tony) 

It’s hard to believe we have been a week in our barge, cruising. And every day, the weather has been absolutely glorious. We slipped out of Roanne sharp on 9 o’clock Saturday. New friends came down to see us through the first lock, after that we were on our own. From Roanne to Digoin the canal is fairly ordinary, by comparison with others, and as we will repeat the run  up and down this section a few times we put in a couple of longish days in order to allow us more time to slow down and enjoy the countryside further on. This is Charolais country, gentle rolling hills and lots of trees, and green, green fields.

Roanne is at the very end of the major canal system in France. To go further south, it is necessary to enter the Saône and then the Rhone Rivers to the Camargue, then one can easily move via canal again into the Canal de Midi, which effectively links the Mediterranean to the Atlantic (at Bordeaux). We’re not bold enough yet to take on the Rhone — it’s a very big river but it is not beyond our boat’s capabilities, just ours for the moment.

Digoin is a junction point. The canal north goes up to meet the Saône at Chalon sur Saône which is another major junction for several canals, to Burgundy, Champagne, and the river itself. We have opted to head west along the Canal Lateral à la Loire to Décize then up the Canal du Nivernais. We did a section of about half this canal in 1996 with the Stentons, Overells and Woodhouses. We will reminisce those happy times as we pass through.

So, we are heading for a little town called Vermenton, about 158 kms up the Canal du Nivernais from Digoin where the British proprietor of a hire-boat company based there is going to put us through the necessary training and evaluation procedure for us to obtain our ICC (International Certificate of Competency), in other words boat licence. You are supposed to have it, although everyone says it is only required for insurance, and Bob said he was only asked twice in ten years (both times in Paris) to show any papers at all. However, we’ll feel ever so much more comfortable having done the course. I’m sure by the time we get to Vermenton we’ll be quite confident. We’ve done bloody well thus far, negotiating dozens of locks and narrow bridges with only a couple of very minor “touches”. And Sally has got the hang of the ropes, pretty well to perfection. A 47 tonne ship, 20 m long, in locks that are barely a metre wider than the barge is heavy work. And there’s more than 100 locks to go!

As soon as we have achieved our competency qualifications, we will continue on to Auxerre, the home of Chardonnay (they call it Chablis) where we expect Sally’s sister Myra will join us, having just completed a mammoth trip through China, Mongolia, Bhutan, the silk road, Pakistan and various other …stans that I can’t spell let alone identify on the globe. She’ll be ready for some restful cruising I’m sure.

After that, we hope to join back up with the Loire near Fontainbleau and return down the Canal Briare back to Décize and so on back to Roanne before the canal locks are closed for winter on 1stNovember.

Sally has enjoyed getting back into the kitchen and cooking up delicious meals. It is pleasing to be no longer spending hundreds of euros a day on hotels and meals. In fact the last three days we have spent a mere handful of coins buying essentials — croissants, cheese, paté etc. I’ll overlook the cost of topping the tanks with 600 litres of diesel, that’s an occasional occupational necessity! Actually, Sable is very economical to run. And everywhere there is water and electricity, sometimes free, but usually no more than €8 a night.

Sable Casts Off

Week 3 – September 8th to September 15th (Tony) 

Lyon has to be one of the loveliest cities we’ve ever visited. Generally speaking we don’t enjoy cities, preferring the serenity of the countryside and small towns and villages. But Lyon really appealed. Geographically, it is set at the confluence of two rivers — the mighty Rhone, flushing cobalt glacial melt from high in the Alps and the sombre Saone, olive green and lethargic converging from the northwest. The old picturesque city, dating back to Roman times, nestles in the hillside on the right bank of the Saone the throbbing hub lies in the narrow strip between the two rivers whilst the new flourishing commercial heart spreads west across the Rhone valley. Anyone who knows me, knows I detest shopping. Lyon almost converted me. The shops, especially mens and womens fashions, including shoes, bags and accessories are so beautifully presented and reasonably priced we wished we’d left our laden, overweight baggage at home and replaced our entire wardrobe in Lyon.

We enjoyed dining out in what is reputedly the gastronomic capital of France. One meal was particularly memorable. Not only the food was delicious — our waitress was young and gorgeous and extremely professional. Her only blemish occurred as she cleared our table, knocking over my wine glass and spilling red wine over my trousers. She was mortified. I calmly tipped the carafe of water over my pants to prevent the stain spreading while the french lady at the next table exhorted the waitress to, “Take his trousers off!” To which Sally replied, “The last person who did that had to marry him.” We all ended up having a great conversation and lots of fun before we teetered off to our hotel, me looking as if I’d peed my pants.

We loved Lyon so much we extended our stay an extra day, then caught the train to Roanne. Sable is moored in the boat harbour there, along with twenty or so other boats. It is a delightful town and the people in the port are so friendly and helpful. Bob and Bea were stranded there for 71 days prior to our departure from Aus after the canal wall breached, requiring major repair works. We plan to return Sable here for the winter. It’s a great location, right at the end of the canal system yet handy to everywhere — Spain, Switzerland, South of France, when we get our car late November.

Today, Saturday, Bob and Bea are leaving for Paris then on to home in Florida with their big Doberman, Lilly. Everyone knows what I think of dogs, but I have to say Lilly is one of the best trained and best behaved dogs I have encountered. So far I’ve admitted to a change of heart over 3 aversions… am I going through a transition here? Every boat owner we’ve met here has been cruising the waterways of France for six years or more. Perhaps our plans to spend fifteen months here is going to require revision…

Sable is absolutely exactly what we dreamed of. Bob is an ex 747 captain and has documented and systemised everything, so as long as I don't forget the pre-float check list before we head off all should be fine. Sable’s spacious, comfortable and well fitted out. However, we did get on the scooters this afternoon and zipped over to the other side of town to buy new pillows, underblanket etc. The rest of the afternoon was spent vacuuming dog hair from every possible surface, crevice and covering we could think of.

Tomorrow we intend to head out into the waterways of France to begin our adventure. And the only thing missing is you.