La voyage en bateau

Bonjour!! I guess you could say that spending a week cruising along the French canals in Brittany , is in stark contrast to Davo’s recent entry detailing the Glastonbury mudfest. Annabel, Sue and Fi headed to the land of frogs legs, snails, fine wine and champayne for a week of relaxation…….

Collecting our Penechiette (boat), “Sarcelle” from Chenille-Change in Western France we began our journey both as French tourists and virgin boat operators. After a short induction into how to operate both our boat and the locks, we were off with a slightly stronger wind to contend with than hoped. Swerving up the canal approximately 400meters proved challenging so quickly we decided to experiment with our parking (or mooring) abilities and opted to pull over at a jetty outside a sleepy little French village which we soon discovered to be completely deserted and lifeless. With fruit trees heavy with plums and fresh rosemary at the side of the road we naturally helped ourselves to get our fresh produce basket well under way, while exploring the uninhabited area. This was shortly followed by a glass of rosé to celebrate (both not crashing to the boat so far and for finding food).

Making our way successfully through a lock was to be our next challenge, a mere 300m or so up the canal. Once through – again, a celebratory glass of wine was called for…..

Chasing markets along the way, there were times when we did have to ‘put the foot down’. Our days were filled with exploring villages, sampling fresh produce at numerous markets, visiting a stunning chateau with an equestrian centre and horse stud in operation which just happened to be only a 5 minute walk to a donkey farm! Despite a serious lack of sunshine we still managed to fit in plenty of walking as well as bike rides along the picturesque banks overlooking the canal on one side and the farm land on the other.

Cows proved to be good company with many curiously venturing down to the waters edge as we glided past sometimes only 5 meters away.

Despite our French being perhaps closer to pidgin than fluent, we managed to have some interesting conversations with the lock keepers who without fail, provided us with some beautiful garden scenery and more often than not, a dog to admire as we waited the water level change. Having spent the week relaxing and enjoying getting in touch with nature (ahhhh two stroke!), we headed to Paris for a couple of nights seeing the world renowned Palace of Versailles, being wowed by the stunning (and topless) Moulin Rouge dancers and while Sue explored Monet’s garden, Fi and Annabel (having missed markets for a day or so) headed to the popular Parisian markets where some final purchases were in order. Beads galour! And here ended our trip and ‘la voyage en bateau’. We returned feeling relaxed, refreshed, with slightly lighter pockets (Rick wasn’t really worried, was he?) and feeling like we could now handle driving any vehicle thrown our way!

Au revoir!