Friday 28 June 2013

Major Engineering Works

We are actually in Greffern, Germany as I write this, we arrived today, so I thought a round up of the last bit of France would be a good plan.

We are on the Rhine at present, which forms the border between France and Germany at this point, so it's partly by chance that we are actually in Germany - the first marina was on the German side of the river.

Anyway, back to France. We were on the Canal de la Marne et Rhin heading towards Strasbourg, and that canal has some major engineering, hence the blog title.

First, across an aquaduct:


Then into an enormous lock at Rechicourt. You sail toward this great wall of concrete ........


And into the gate at the bottom of the wall.


This is the view from inside the lock


And looking forward. We have to rise right to the top. Thankfully, this lock has floating bollards, so we don't have to shin up a ladder to get a rope around a bollard at the top, the bollard floats up with us.


This is the top, no clue of the immense distance we have risen


Except our depth-ometer, which shows we have 17.1 metres of water beneath the bottom of our keel. Our keel is about 1.3 metres, so we've actually got 18.4 metres of water beneath us. This is not the time to be dropping anything overboard.


Next, we are onto the Niederviller and Arzviller tunnels. The Niederviller tunnel is 475 metres long and the Arzviller 2,306 metres long, with just a short gap in between the two


Now, two tunnels, of this length, one straight after another would be dramatic enough, as the tunnels are pretty dark and low. But we actually had to do them three times, as we lost a big fender coming through the first time. Stopping, reversing and generally fiddling about inside the tunnels is not permitted, so we had to finish the journey, turn round, do it again (collecting the missing fender) then finish the return trip, turn around again and come back.
 
I am officially done with tunnels for the foreseeable future.
 
Next day, the inclined plane, also at Arzvillier.
 
Basically, an inclined plan is a large bath into which you sail your boat, that bath is sealed at each end and you slide down a slope.
 
It's a very slow and controlled slide, but it's still a slide dropping you 44.55 metres.
 
This is the view from the top: 


And this is the view from the bottom:

And this is a nice side view:

 
 
Pretty impressive, huh?

Monday 10 June 2013

Deux Detour - Dole & Soing

I think that just about every boater we have met in France has told us how wonderful Dole is and that we Must Visit. Without Fail!
 
We had been in Verdun-sur-le-Doub; however, with the huge amount of flooding in Germany and the Czech Republic, some of the flood water from Besancon, upriver was being release along the Doub, meaning there was a very fierce current and the water level was rising very quickly - over a metre in eight hours. More like Verdun-sous-le-Doub (not my joke, sadly - thank you, Tracey Morgan, our most remote reader, in East Timor)
 
The force of the current meant I had a very unrestful night as the boat was swung about on the pontoon, so I was very glad to move on the next day to St Jean-de-Losne, where, at last, the sun came out!
 
St-Jean-de-Losne is a nice town with two large marinas a good chandlery plus commercial boats on the river itself.
 
The Saone at St-Jean-de-Losne
 
Also, according to my Dad (the fount of all knowledge, do not take on his team in a pub quiz) it was, when the canals were busy with commercial traffic, a major town for the peniches (commercial boats) to take on contracts for the forthcoming year.
 
However, we aren't hanging around, having had to wait around for a month due to the canal bursting its bank, so we took the advice of other boaters and detoured to to Dole.
 
It's a beautiful trip along the Canal du Rhone au Rhin, except for one bit. All of a sudden we can to a lot of signs warning us not to stop or moor in the "area of technological risk" informing us that we where "under CCTV surveillance". Eh? We count ourselves lucky when we can get WiFi on the canal; generally it's not a highly technological area. Anyway, on we went and this is what we saw:
 
 

Only it was HUGE! About a mile long, we think. No signs, no business names, no hoardings and no people (but there were cars and trains, so I guess they were in there somewhere). We think it was a chemical/petrochemical plant. But oddly, we've sailed by at least two nuclear power plants, and they didn't have any of the same warnings. Weird.
 
Anyway. Dole. Wow! Stephen has admitted that he was a bit reluctant to go as everyone said how wonderful it was and therefore it might turn out to be a bit "meh". But it's not, it's great. In the same way that in Brugge there is a photograph to be taken at every step, that's how it is in Dole, but it has the French shabby-chic thing going on.
 



 
 
 
Stephen was able to add to his photographic collection of wonderfully aged and textured doors
 
 

 

 
 And Emma got an ice-cream (handmade, vanilla - wonderful, I had to have one too) which made her day - it we moor somewhere with ice-cream, a playground and a cafĂ©, then she's happy - Dole has all of these thing.
 
 
 
Do go if you get a chance, it's a beautiful town. Also, as you cannot fail to notice from all the road names/statues/museums/etc, it was the birthplace of Louis Pasteur. Now, being a lover of milk in my tea, I am appreciative of his discovery as the next woman, but the sheer amount of road names/statues/museums/etc in his honour does make me think that maybe they are milking it a bit (yes, that one is my own joke - Stephen groaned, but admitted he wished he'd thought of it first).

Next detour: Soing.

Not a huge detour, just 15 minutes along the "proper" course of the River Saone, as opposed to taking the "derivation", which is what it is called when a canalised bit is added to bypass a particularly twisty bit of river.

Soing (I don't know how to pronounce it, I am saying it to rhyme with boing, as in a bouncy ball) is a delight. A great mooring (water, electricity, next to a playground, honesty box with a suggested minimum donation of just 2 Euro) in a lovely village.

It's a proper working village; Stephen described it as "honest" and I think that's right. Great buildings, not chocolate box-y, some renovated, lots not renovated, chickens, ducks, sheep and friendly people.






And, for some reason we couldn't fathom, a giant public bath (didn't seem to be in regular use any longer, at least, not on Sundays) and miniature, yellow, Eiffel Tower.

 

It was a totally delight. I'd happily have stayed a few days, but we have places to be (Nancy, maybe Strasbourg)

Saturday 1 June 2013

Moving On, At Last!

Thankfully the canal re-opened last Monday and we were able to move on. I was really surprised that once the breach was fixed it only took about 2 days to re-fill the empty pound (which was 4km long) with water.


 
This is the newly fixed sluice which had caused all the problems
 

 
And this is boatyard in my previous post, with, it appears, all the boats safely re-floated. 


  
 
We even had a day of sunshine, before the heavens opened again. We've had about a week of non-stop rain, but today (fingers crossed), the weather seems to have changed. It's cloudy, we still need a sweater on but, IT'S NOT ACTUALLY RAINING AT THE MOMENT!!
 
We are currently moored at Franges, a wonderful village just outside Chalon-sur-Soane. The port is really well equipped and has a wonderful Port Captain, Celine.

Last night there was a Fete de Plaisanciers (Boater's Celebration); we all had to bring a dish and it was all shared, picnic style. The theme was "Spanish Auberge" so I made Garlic Shrimps, Roast Olives and Spanish Omelettes. They went down very well, so will try and post the recipes later on.

 

 
 Plenty of food and wine for all!
 
This morning we explored Franges a bit more, saw the impressive Cycle Statue and went up the village farm shop for cheese, eggs and veg.
 
 
The shop was wonderfully rustic, it just sells what the farmer has a surplus of and what they've made (jams etc.), but you can see the hens look pretty happy, so I am sure the eggs will be tasty.
 
 

The current plan is to head towards Nancy, so hopefully the weather Gods will stop the rain and open the canals!