Category: Travel 2018

In Paris we are joined by Dan’s grand niece (several times removed) Gabby and her friend Olivia visiting us from Massachusetts. We spent four days exploring Paris with light shows on the Invalidies, Napolean’s tomb, champagne at the Criillion Hotel, Museum d’Orsay, a side trip to Monet’s garden in Giverney, cruising True East up the Seine and a day of shopping to boot.

We left Paris on Canal St Martin and travel a mile and half in a tunnel under the city before entering the Canal St Denis with its 17 locks on route to Cergy. Gabby and Olivia leave us here and head back to Paris for a few more days on their own.

At Cergy we enter the Oise River and work our way north, stopping first at Compiegne where we pick up some fuel from the barge. Another wonderful small french city with it’s palace and fortress and even a light show at night. Our friend Bernd from Coconut Grove joins us here for a few days of canal cruising.

It’s now about 7 locks a day as be head thru Peronne and enter the 3 mile long Rayoulcourt tunnel. This tunnel is wider, taller and better lit than the one at Mauvages on the Rhine-Marne Canal, it even has a passing zone in the middle. At Douai, we are tied to the quay wall for the night before moving on to Lille.

Dan and Marcia visited Lille briefly a couple of years ago and looked forward to returning. Unfortunately, the facilities for recreational boats are minimal. We ended up tied to the dock of a canoe school that graciously allowed us to stay for a few days. Once again, we visited the citadel, the very old cathedral with a wooden roof and a couple of museums….did I mention the food? Bernd leaves us here and head into the Canal de Nor just in time to miss the world largest flea market with over 2 million attendees – yikes!

We are now headed for Dunkirk and the North Sea, a couple of days cruising. At Armentiers, we leave the canal and head into a marina with a huge regional park. After dredging our way in, we tied up and enjoyed a quiet night after a walk thru town.

Dunkirk is a seaport on the North Sea and the site of major evacuation of British troop in WWII. The recreational boaters here are 99% sailers who would never think of going inland. As a result we learned the hard way there is only one small lock for recreational boats to get to the sea, and it was closed for four days on our arrival. We tried a number of other alternatives but found canals closed or open only to commercial vessels. So, we enjoyed four days of Dunkirk and its wonderful ‘evacuation’ museum. By boat or train we visited the surrounding Valbon walled cities of Berges and Graveline and even had a night in Bourbourg with half it’s cathedral converted to an art musuem. This is something we would see again several times in Flanders.

Completing our ‘evacuation’ of Dunkirk, we head to Belgium on the Canal de Frunes and up to Nieuwpoort on the North Sea. On route, we stopped at Veurne to buy our canal permits for Belgium. For the first time all summer, the dockmaster answered our radio call and in English to boot….love the Belgiums. At Nieuwpoort, we left the rivers and canals and headed into the North Sea. True East got her first taste of salt water since the Mediterranean and a chance to get the engines out of idle mode, nice 25 mile run up to Zeebruges.

We had planned to visit our friends the De Langhe’s in Bruges; however, they left for holiday the day we arrived. No matter, we loved Bruges and ended up spending a week there. Wrapping up their European trip, Glenn and Gail Patron joined us in Bruges and cruised with us to Ghent. While very experienced boaters (Glenn’s published a wonderful book “The Accidental Captain”) this was their first canal experience. Ghent is larger than Bruges but equally charming and served as our base for several days. By train we retuned to Bruges for a visit and dinner with the De Langes at their wonderful restaurant Cafe du Phare. Another train ride took us to Brussels for another visit with Glenn and Gail wandering the city and its museums.

It was then on to Antwerp, about 45 miles, for the last leg of our summer cruise. Tom Janssens, Sabre dealer for Europe, came out in a tender to lead us into our slip at the Royal Yacht Club of Belgium where we are now members. This makes our third yacht club membership, Antwerp, Hull, MA and Barcelona….who would have guessed. Cocktails on the boat followed by dinner with Tom, Veronique and family to fill out the day. A couple of days of wrapping up the boat for the winter and wandering around Antwerp as this adventures came to an end.

Leaving Nancy, we headed to Toul were we planned to enter the Rhine-to-Marne canal and the in follow the river Marne on our way to Paris. In this area, the locks operate 9am to 6pm. We were right at the starting gate at 9am and covered 24 miles with 28 locks in the first day, arriving at the last one at 6:03pm. Yes, they kept the lock open for us.

At Toul, we met an American couple on their wonderful barge Maria. Don and Patty have been summering on canals with their 1925 restored barge for 17 years. What a wealth of information for novices like us.

The first day out of Toul, we were told the Rhine-Marne canal, 81 miles with 97 locks, would be closed due to low water at the high point tunnel. Not much to do but turn back to Toul and either wait it out or select another route.

Just as we were ready to head back to Toul in the morning, we were informed that the water had risen overnight and we were clear to go. The tunnel at the highest elevation  was built in 1853 and is 3 miles long and 5.5 meters wide with minimal lighting, the passage took almost two hours. The canals are pretty weed choked so cleaning out the sea stainers has become a daily routine.

At Bar-le-Duc, we hiked the old hill top town and enjoyed dinner off the boat. This area was the center of action in WWI as we were reminded visiting Parguy-sur-Saulx, the town was completely destroy, except for the church, in the battle of the Marne. There are memorial markers in each village for the men lost, such a tragedy.

Chalon en Champagne turned out to be our base for exploring the Champagne area of France.  A quick train ride to Reims brought us to the capital of the region and the Palace where the French kings were coordinated along with the magnificent cathedral. Marcia enjoyed the city so much she decided to go back for a shopping day while Dan arranged for an oil change for True East, just over 3,000 hours on the boat

Another side trip took us to Epernay, home of the major Champagne houses and the underground storage for more than 200 million bottles of Champagne. Moet alone has 18 miles of tunnels cut into the chalk under this town. Returning to Epernay by boat, we took a half day tour in the vineyards in Ay followed by several more ‘house’ tours and learned a great deal about the history and production of the ‘bubbly’. ‘Longer aging, smaller bubbles.’ Needless to say, we are well stocked with great champagne, thanks in part to our new friends Matzaz and Tanya from Slovenia who were kind enough to give us a ride with a case of champagne.

The Marne had been ‘canalized’ from our start until Epernay, now we start to cruise parts of the natural river. At our next stop, Reuil, we hiked and biked to the Carpentier House for more champagne and enjoyed time with Australian’s Ian and Lynda Dobson along the quay.

We then pushed on 41 nautical miles to Le Ferte-sous-Jouarre, even with a lunch stop at Chateau-Thierry. The best part of the river turned out to be here back to Epernay and we saw only one small hotel barge on this route.

Next was Meaux where we found the first chandlery since Barcelona and Dan was able to pick up a new battery for the generator. He had been jumping it for the last two weeks. Temperatures have been really rising and a couple of hours of air conditioning in the evening are a real luxury. The WWI musuem at Grand Guerre was a great presentation of a dreadful time, no wonder France did not want to fight again in WWII.

Our last stops before Paris were Lagny and Nogent-sur-Marne and we could feel the transition from the country side of France to the influence of the city. France is really a country of villages and small cities. Unlike America where very few people are involved in large scale agriculture, France has a great many people involved in crafted agriculture.

On to Paris where we will stay in a marina right at the Palace de la Bastille and plan an number of side trips out of Paris.

At Basel, France, Germany and Switzerland meet. As we head down the Rhine, we will have Germany on one side and France on the other until for about 60 miles until we have Germany on both sides.

Leaving Basel, we headed down the Rhine and decided take a side trip to Colmar, FR. This was a 20 mile detour along what would be best described as a grass filled creek to this wonderful Medieval city.  Well worth the side trip picking up Alscaian wines as a bonus.

Back on the Rhine with a two knot current with us, we were fortunate to follow the freighter Taberna and locked thru with him saving many hours. We then took the Rhin de Rhône canal north down to Strasbourg with a stop at Boofzheim as the locks closed at 5:30. Two cruising boats viewed today.

Strasbourg is a wonderful city with the cathedral featured in one of our favorite books “Pillars of the Earth”. With it’s French and German influences, the city was a key battleground during WWII. Thirty years ago this city decided to install a new tram (streetcar) system and convert the city to a pedestrian paradise, it sure worked and we enjoyed all of it. 

At Strasbourg, we had to decide to take the canal across to Nancy (the original plan) or to go down the Rhine and back up the Mosel, a detour of about 300 miles. We decided on the latter and regretted it for a couple of day. For the first hundred miles we saw no cruising boats and were in a canalized river.  Speyer Germany was the one relief. Largest cathedral in Germany, but very plain. Nice pedestrian streets, good schnitzel, and a nice farmers market.

Another side trip off the Rhine took us to Heidelberg where we got a chance to spend an evening with Birgit, our homesick Miami neighbor who is back in Med school here. After an uncomfortable night on the river, we headed to Worms. On arrival were so disappointed in the lack of boating facilities, we decided to move on and ended up on the Eicher Sea, a lake created in a dredged sand pit just off the river. 

On the way out of Worms, Dan was laying in a new route instead of watching the river and nicked a prop. The Rhine is very shallow, like 10 feet deep and on the sides are cairn (piles of rocks) that control the narrow channel. While nothing fatal, one hates to be wounded in uncharted territory. About five miles down river, we stop an ancient boatyard with boat our size on the ways. The Bingen YC was only another half mile, so we docked in the pouring rain and set about seeing if we could make arrangements to be hauled. 11am the following day we were hauled, replaced on prop with a spare and were back in the water by 2pm, how this happened is too long a story for the blog.

While in Bingen, we had dinner with fellow cruisers Michael and Gertrude at the YC. The next day we took the ferry over to Rudesheim and took the cable car to the Germania Statue, followed by a fine wine at the Schloss. An invasion of Americans off a hotel boat induced us to find another place for dinner.

Below Bingen one enters the Rhine Gorge, about 36 miles of vineyard covered hillside and castles. At the end is the wonderful city of Koblenz, at the confluence of the Moselle River. A great walkway along the rivers, a cable car to the amazing fortress, and a great Italian dinner (German food gets boring very quickly). An opportunity to waste a couple of hours trying to figure out how to get a big data package with german telecom….grrrrrr. 

After a couple of days here, it is up the Moselle headed back to France. Relatively long waits at the locks, about three a day. More cruising boats, mostly down river and on a 2-3 week holiday. We continue to be an anomaly. Cochem is next stop. Wonderful castle high on the hill, started in 1000 and destroyed in the 1689 and restored by a German industrialist 1868. Dan took the bus, Marcia hiked up and we walked down. Across town to the ski lift to the cross, then another hike down to a winery. Very popular tourist town.

Continuing us river we stopped at Taben during their wine festival and on to Trier, the oldest German city. Although heavily damaged during WWII, the city has a wonderful collection of Roman ruins, churches and tourists. A few more miles along the river and we entered Luxembourg with a stop in Schengen. Not much here other than a great fuel price $5.17/gal. Here we met Graham and Ilse who guided us thru six locks and into the Metz, Fr port the following day.

Metz is a wonderful small French city with famous cathedral with stained glass and lots of canals. We took the train to Luxembourg for the day that was highlighted by the new Musuem there, five levels underground with great archeology. Great fireworks show on French Independence Day in the Metz boat basin, enjoyed by all expect Lola. On to Nancy in time for French World Cup celebration🏀🍻💥. In the same square the following night was a wonderful light show on the buildings, reminder of Ottawa.

Quite a side trip thru a lot of history.

This leg of the trip starts in Lyon where we have spent a week with the boat docked at Confluence Marina. Ed Howe and Kim Keown joined us in Lyon for a three day road trip to Geneva, Lausanne, and Dijon followed by a day of sight seeing in Lyon. Only farmer Ed would know all the grains we passed in the fields or that the Swiss are the leading experts on wheat due to their drive for self sufficiency. Marcia loved the textile museum in Lyon, the center for weaving.

Peter and Diane Mahoney then joined us in Lyon on the Jun 1st and we started on the journey to Basel, first up the Soane River from Lyon to Losne. At Losne, we entered the Canal du Rhône at Rhin with our first stop a Dole. Peter, the lobsterman, had trouble getting used to minus readings on the depth sounder, but Diane did not get the least seasick. On to Osselle with a rescue of an Welsh boat hard aground, this effory endeared us to the VNF lock team.

Uphill toward the Rhine this is a canalization of the Doubs River, downhill it is pure canal. The older European canals have set of standard dimensions and The Sabre 48 with a clean cabin top is pushing the maximum except for length, here is comparison of Canal and True East Dimensions. Width – 5 meters vs. 4.7; Depth – 1.6 meters vs 1.3; Height – 3.5 meters vs. 3.4.

We calculated June 6 would the day of reckoning at the Thoraise tunnel. Clear sailing thru this tunnel and the next, looks like we get to Paris after all. On to Besancon where we toured the citadel before Peter and Diane left us to head for Barcelona. Peter felt like he was having a reincarnation in each of the medieval cities we visited.

Continuing uphill we passes thru Baums-les-Dames, Sur la Doubs, Dampierre-sur-le-Doubs then on to Montbelaird. Typically we would see one or two cruising boat and some days none.

We pass thru 126 locks on this route over the two week period. Most of the locks are remote control operated, we got a hand held device at the start and turned it in at the end. A lock typically takes about 15 minutes for a passage. At our tightest passage we had an inch and half clearance on a bridge and typically had 6” on each side of the boat in locks and under bridges.

On June 13 we were joined by Tony and Julie Prigmore at Montbeliard for several days on the downhill run to Basel, Switzerland. Along the way we had our second rescue as 6 ducklings were about to be squished by a lock door, Tony met Tony and again our VNF lock team were terrific. Our typical cruising speed in the canals is 5 miles an hour, Marcia and Julie spent much of the time walking along the tow path next to the canal.

Two days with over 25 locks per day brought us to Mulhouse where we were tucked into a wonderful small marina in the center of the city. This is Peugot’s headquarters and home of the fabulous Cite de l’Automobile Musuem that even Julie enjoyed. What a great visit.

Arriving in Basel, we cleared the boat out of the EU resetting the VAT clock for another 18 months, saving a 22% VAT tax 😃. At Basel we rented a car and headed for Interlocken and the Swiss alps. From the lake at 1,500 ft, three trains and cog railways take you to the Top of Europe at 11,300 ft. The last stretch is thru a 16 kilometer tunnel built by Italians at the turn of the 20th century. We returned to Basel via Lucerne with a stop for lunch in this classic city on the lake.

We arrived in Barcelona on May 3 for the start of our second summer in Europe. After consulting with Jose who took care of True East for the winter, we did a sea trial down to Stiges with our friend Uli Behr. It was then off to Seville for our Spanish road trip and back in Barcelona on the 10th.

Mike and Malli Gero joined us for a few days in Barcelona taking in a number of Gaudi masterpieces. Some jazz with Eric and Orly until late and Dan has a paddle tennis game with them the next morning. On the 14th we head out northeast on the Mediterranean coast. This is about 200 miles to Sete, France where we will enter the first canal taking us to the Rhone River.

Our first stop in in Blanes where we visit the fabulous Jardí Botànic Marimurtra and walk the old town. With a careful eye on the weather, we move on to Roses where we spend a couple of days. The highlight here is a visit the Dali Museum in Figures and his home in Cadaques, what a character. Visiting the house in is beautiful seaside setting really gave one a better feel for Dali’s life and works.

We dropped the Gero’s off at Sete where they connected with an old friend for some additional time in this region.  We proceeded from Sete to Avignon where we enjoyed a couple of day first tied to a hotel boat and then on the quay. The highlight being the Pope’s Palace from the 11th century. We then continued up the Rhone River to Valence, about 90 miles. There were six locks on this part of the river with no facilities for recreational boating in any of the towns along the way. In fact, this was pretty boring country. At Valence, we stayed for a couple of day to clean up the boat, provision and fuel up. Howard Yuan joined us here for a three day stay on board.

From Valance, the three of us headed up to Lyon with five locks spread over about 75 miles,  again no facilities for recreational boats and few hotel boats in this area. Lyon is the third largest city in France and remains the textile capital. At Lyon we stayed at Confluence Marina, a fabulous facility off the river with power, water, wifi, etc. next to a major shopping center and a quick walk to the tram system. With Howard, we toured the Confluence Museum, took the funicular up to the Roman ruins, the beautiful Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourviere and the incredible Lyon Cathedral before he left on the 25th.

As our tour of Lyon continued we visited the Textile Musuem, The Musuem of Decorative Arts  and the Musuem of Fine Arts. Another day of walking about 5 miles with Marcia doing a lot of window shopping. The town was a little rowdy as Montpelier just won the Rugby finals vs Lyon.

Ed Howe and Kim Keown joined us in Lyon on the 27th to continue our visit to the Lyon area.