Yonne and Beyond

6th June, 2011 (Sally)

Myra left us at Chatel Censoir, another familiar stop, where we moored under the shade of an ancient church set high above the canal and then it was on to Mailly la Ville where we finally got to ride through the Irancy area, grapes and cherry trees with the crop starting to ripen and a good picnic spot looking over the expanse of country. Another ride took us to Carrière Souterraine d'Aubigny, or as translated, the underground quarry of Aubigny. For 2000 years they have been quarrying limestone from this site, some of the old sacophagi are still there but it was in Napoleon's time when huge amounts of white stone were needed to remodel Paris that it really came into its own with 1,000 men working there. Today it is known as the upside down cathedral and it is easy to see why. Once inside you are dwarfed by the 20 metre high rooms which extend in all directions with displays of the old tools used, carts which transported the stone to barges and a very impressive display of the stone carvers' art. Apparently the water in the stone evaporates on contact with the outside air so all workings including the decorative carvings were done underground not only with fairly rudimentory tools but also with smoky oil lamps. Thus finished, the stone's surface calcifies and remains hard after exposure to the atmosphere. A new full size staircase was under construction, a beautiful example of the stonecarvers' art. We noticed a compressor discreetly tucked away to make the job much easier for the modern artisan than with the original mallets and chisels.

I decided to share my big sister's birthday with her so took a train to Paris for the day, as one does, and we had a fun day walking up towards the Eiffel Tower and down the Champs Elysée with a few hours in the Maritime Museum and a nice lunch at a sidewalk cafe. Fourteen hours later I arrived back on Sable with aching feet and a backpack of books from W.H.Smith Bookshop.

We left the Nivernais and joined the river Yonne at Auxerre, a very picturesque city but also a very popular one. The only berth available was on the outside of Gulliver, a barge we met on our very first year. Gulliver now has new owners, a delightful couple from California and we shared drinks and experiences on our top deck, again. From Auxerre it was down the river to Villeneuve sur Yonne, [the new town on the Yonne]. This new town was built for Louis IX, in the 1200's, so the name is a bit incongruous but a delightful stop with the old cobbled streets and ancient gates. It is better known for its restaurant, a remodelled mill-house on the quay. I had read about it in Gourmet Traveller years ago and had tried to visit once before only to find it closed. Its main claim to fame was it was the brainchild of Leslie Caron, of Gigi fame, who took a very old rundown ruin and renovated it to its present glory. We were delighted to see it open again under new management, I googled Leslie Caron and saw she was born in 1931 so it's understandable that she is no longer involved. However the new owners did us proud, a delightful meal and the original building has retained all the charm and character that we expected.

At Sens we had a two day stop, time to cycle out to buy a load of begonias to replace the pansies. Keeping the flowers going is a battle in the constant heat. The driest spring on record as we are constantly told. Good for us but disastrous for the farmers, with wheat crops a shadow of their usual yield and only a little hay being harvested. Some maize crops may not survive at all. From Sens we decided to put in some long days to get us out of the Yonne and down the busy Seine so we passed-by Joigny and stopped in Migennes, at the junction to the Canal de Bourgogne. A good stop but a noisy one as it is one of the busiest railway junctions in all of France with trains rattling past day and night. And after another long day we reached the junction of the Seine where instead of a comfortable mooring in the town marina — we had to leave that for the early arrivals — we moored-up on a very ordinary stretch of river bank where we were we caught every passing wake of the numerous freight barges. Needless to say we did not linger and very early the next morning we were on our way. Once again we have been sharing the waters and more impressively the locks with big barges carrying all the building materials into Paris. In this age of carbon footprints and economics of transport you can only admire how much and how effeciently it is being carried. We were held up at one lock for three hours while the commercials went first. It was on the third change we crept in behind three barges and beside a quadrupel gravel barge. I estimated that there was at least 3,000 tonnes of freight in the lock with us. How many trucks does that take off the road? It is interesting to observe that some of the bargees have become quite political with banners on the sides of their vessels with slogans such as "This replaces 26 Trucks on the roads" and "40 times less pollution than on the roads."  So it was with a sense of relief we turned right at the junction of the Marne and found ourselves in the much smaller and friendlier river. Now here we are at Lagny. We spent a delightful two days here last year when the townsfolk were in the midst of a river festival. The town is just as cute, four great boulangeries, three very good butchers and one of the best markets where I stocked up on fresh peaches, apricots and nectarines. The first of the season, bought enough for a family of six, but I daresay they will not be wasted. Now we are on our way to Champagne. In a day or two we will see the first vineyards, almost like coming home...