A colleague is taking his 26 ft sailboat from London to Marseille via canals and rivers in France. Every Friday he takes a train to wherever the boat is docked and moves it 50 miles or so, docks it and jumps on the train Sunday evening back to Paris. He started in September, docked the boat in Paris during winter for a few months and then resumed the trip in spring. This weekend another colleague and I are joining him. The boat is in Burgundy in a small town south of Dijon called Chagny, see the red flag below.
Our goal is to move the boat as far as we can in two days. We'll jump on the TGV (high-speed train) at 2:30pm this afternoon and arrive at the boat around 6pm. We'll stay in a hotel tonight, watch some World Cup and then get rolling first thing Saturday morning. We have to navigate a downhill canal through a series of locks before reaching the Saone river.
We'll sleep on the boat Saturday night and then take it as far as we can down the Soane river on Sunday. At 4pm, wherever we are, we'll dock the boat and hop on a train back to Paris. I've packed my pillow, my camera and a handful of clothes. I'm looking forward to it. This map shows our goal for Saturday morning - from Chagny to Chalon sur Soane. If you click on the photo you may be able so see the canal.
4 comments:
sounds great. hope you document it well
Do you remember opening & closing the locks when we took a canal boat in England?
@All - I'm back now and am organizing the photos and stories. I vaguely remember the canal boat trip in England - some of it clearly, like when I steered through a long, dark tunnel.
I'd forgotten about the tunnel until you mentioned it. What I mostly remember is you & your sister being in charge of cranking the locks open & shut; going so slowly that the swans passed us; and being woken up some mornings by cows mooing in an adjoining field. Good stuff.
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