motorhome

Boating around Besançon

| Mairead

(Can you see the assistant? She sitting waiting for us to enter the lock)

I nearly forgot to tell you about the boat ride. So let’s go back to last Thursday. A glorious day in Besançon I found the tourist office in the morning, got my hair cut, had lunch and headed back to the tourist office to pick up the boat. The walk took a bit longer than I imagined but thankfully the captain didn’t keep a strict departure time. As I was not French-speaking he gave me his notes in English to read as we went along. I nearly fell of the boat when I read that we would be going through locks! And the first one was right around the corner. His assistant was waiting to close and open the gates when we arrived.

(Not too sure what all that means but Ecluse means lock. On the wall of the mill beside the lock)

Lock successfully navigated we set off around the loop that is the river Doups and it was so relaxing. There was a warm light breeze and on every side nature. Imagine you’re sitting on the boat beside me (in one of the bright pink chairs) and let the pictures guide you on your own imaginary boat trip….

(Shade your eyes from the sun as you look up at our first glimpse of the citadel… did I mention I walked up there?)

(Can you see that gap? Under the house? Mind your head we’re going in!)

(Wave to the man walking along the tow-path. Look the captain has put on a light show overhead for us)

(And we’re out the other side of the tunnel… I know that bridge is very low but I promise we will make it underneath…)

(We’re at the automatic lock and there’s the automatic lock keeper… having the chats. Go on give him a wave, he seems very friendly…)

(See I told you – we made it under the bridge!)

(And now we out from under the citadel…. oh did I mention… I think I did)

(Take a deep breath of that beautiful greenery)

(Over there. look. look, you can just make out our aire )

(…and there’s Denis taking a picture of us taking a picture of him… give him a big wave! I rang him when I realised you’d be on the boat with me!)

Do hope you enjoyed our boat trip around Besançon, please take all your belongings as you alight and mind the gap when stepping off the boat.

Just floating along, Mairead.

Loop Le Doubs

| Mairead

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(Can you see me on the boat, on the river Doubs, that loops around Besançon)

Yesterday after finding the tourist office and using their very good wifi, I went for a boat trip. But first… I got my hair cut, in French! This is the first time I’ve had my hair cut in France and through French. You might remember I have been working up to doing this. Part of my preparation was looking in hairdressers’ windows. I was checking for two things, opening times and pictures of hairstyles I liked. I felt that they wouldn’t put a picture in the window unless it was a style they could cut. So if I liked it and they could cut it we were a match made in heaven. A couple of times I liked the pictures but the opening times didn’t line up with when we were parked nearby, until yesterday… when a third thing lined up.

(That’s my hairdresser – the light blue shopfront)

I has passed the salon a number of times before yesterday morning. We were on our way to coffee and although the opening times suggested it should be open, it was closed. We have come across this more than a few times, when a shop or restaurant will have an Ouvert (Open) sign outside but the doors are firmly Fermee (Closed.) Oh well, no hair cutting here. Anyway, I thought no more about it, have my coffee with Denis and went off in search of the tourist office.

(Markers on the ground for one of the walking tours of Besançon)

On my way back I just happen to look into the salon and the door is definitely Ouvert! I walk straight in before I forget this is a good idea. The hairdresser and I say Bonjour and my with very next sentence I check if she can speak English. From her reply I ascertain she has about as much English as my French. Ok… well that’s probably enough. So I take out my halting French, remembering that hair in French is very like horse and I don’t want her to cut my horse and I slowly tell her I would like my hair, em… but I cannot for the life of me remember what the French for cut is. No problem, she is fluent in hand signals and as I am cutting the air with my pretend scissors-fingers she says, coupe (cut). Yes! We are doing this. Then I point to the picture in the window and say, like that…

(The beautiful river Doubs from the bank)

In case you don’t know it and this is of course a generalisation again but here goes: the French are very straight talking, they don’t tell a lie to spare your feelings and although my hairdresser was not talking, her look was very truthful. I could almost hear her thinking I hope she doenn’t think she will look like the twenty-something year-old in the window display. No problem, I understood her concern and used the international hand signal for give it your best shot. And we were off. We tried a little chit chat in our mix of French/English and all in all the experience was most enjoyable.

(Can you see the flag? Did I tell you I walked up there?)

But the time I was paying we both had become very confident in finding ways to understand and be understood, but it took me three goes to understand what she said next. Eventually, she made me understand that we had met earlier. No, I don’t think so. But yes, we had.

(Hair is very important here, even the statues have good hair)

One of the things I love about walking into shops and restaurants in France is that the owner/waitress/server will always, always greet you with a Bonjour! or a Bonsoir! and maybe a little wave. I feel like they are glad to have me as a customer. Sometimes the other customers will also say hello. Just lovely. It usually takes me a few days to stop saying hello as I walk through the door of Costa in Greystones. Anyway, do you remember before I went to find the tourist office I went for a coffee with Denis? We walked in and the owner said Bonjour and the customer enjoying her coffee also said hello…and both of us said hello to each of them. Well, the customer was my hairdresser!

(Here we are enjoying a selfie moment!)

It made me realise something – I don’t really look at the people I meet in cafes or shops…  I would have recognised her if I did. I meet a lot of people when we travel so I have a bit of an excuse, but maybe I could do better. After all I like being greeted so much maybe I would enjoy taking a little more time to pay attention to the greeter.

Boat trip story tomorrow, Mairead.

The Salt Factory

| Mairead

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(Entrance to La Saline Royale at Arc-et-Senans)

Today we are at a salt factory – not like any factory I’ve ever seen and nowhere near the sea in a place called Arc-et-Senans in the Franche-Comté region. (Just to the right of Burgundy and famous for that comté cheese you love, Ashleigh!) The factory is not in production any more so in order to explain it we’ll have to go back to the 1700’s when salt was like gold. It was used to preserve food before refrigeration and it was heavily taxed to bring in revenue. In fact, it could be one of the things that led to the French Revolution… could be.

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(There was a map…)

So imagine this, we are back in the time of royal France. The king is Louis the fifteenth. He has great power and he happens to have a mistress, Mrs Barry (I don’t want to start any rumours but that’s a very Irish name…) who will come into this story later. At the time there’s a salt factory right beside a lake full of saltwater (ok I’d have to understand a lot more than nothing about geology to explain this but… I have accepted and would suggest you do the same that some earth movements pushed a bit of land, formerly in the sea, now dry with salt stuck to it into the middle of Franche-Comté) in a place called Salins-les-Bains and they wanted to extend production but couldn’t due to it’s location in a valley. Along comes Claude-Nicolas Ledoux.

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(The factory director’s house)

Claude is going to be the hero of this story. Claude came from a middle class family but had aspirations to be an architect. His mother encouraged his drawings as a child and he got money from some monks to go to college. He was very enthusiastic and eventually his enthusiasm paid off and he came to the attention of Mrs Barry (remember? the King’s “friend“) who told the king about him. He designed a very fancy music studio for her in her huge garden (not entirely sure how but she seemed to have plenty of money.) Anyway, one day the King visited her music studio and was very impressed. Between the gigs and the reels Claude ended up getting a job as Commissioner of the Saltworks (all of them) in this part of France (I now realise there must have been many salt factories… probably to do with geology again…) Now, I’m not sure how this job related to being an architect but Claude made it work and learned loads about saltworks factories.

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(Worker’s apartment buildings on left and right. In the middle, the main gate which also contained the bakery… remember we are in France)

Then with all this information he came up with a way to improve things at the hemmed-in factory in the valley – he would move it! Creating salt from salt water requires lots of heat and the way they generated heat was by burning wood but they had pretty much used up all the wood around the valley factory and were dragging wood from all over the region to supply the fires. So, Claude figured it would be cheaper to move the water than the wood and he proposed building a new factory in a forest. He was really pleased with himself and while he was proposing that he went ahead and designed some lovely factory buildings. He had to scrap the first set because the older architects on the job thought they were a bit too fancy and they were also a bit too expensive. Claude was not disheartened, he pared down his initial idea and his proposals were accepted… well mostly.

 

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(There was a lovely exhibition in one of the buildings and I particularly liked this one exhibit about a tree)

I nearly forgot to say, they moved the salt water to the new factory location via wooden pipes! Over distance of… 16Km! Isn’t that amazing? Probably isn’t very amazing really, because they were moving water all over the place at that time in canals and so they had a lot of expertise in this area but still, I’m impressed. Anyway, back to Claude…

(The semi-circle layout of Claude’s factory here at Arc-et-Senans)

Claude was well before his time in his appreciation of living conditions and as well as beautiful buildings for the factory he included apartments in beautiful buildings for the factory workers and their families. He also included gardens for them to get back to nature after a hard day at work. He wanted to build a town around the factory too. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen. There was no town and the workers were working such long hours that they never got to enjoy the gardens. His own life took a bit of a downturn too because along came the French Revolution and anyone with connections to royalty was in big trouble. I think he might have spent time in prison and some of his buildings were destroyed, but in spite of all that he continued to design and in the museum here there are models of lots of buildings he designed that never got built.

(Our view this morning beside the salt factory)

So here we are back in the 21st century and the factory is a museum, a Unesco World Heritage Site and a hotel. Just over the wall there’s a camping car aire where we are parked. Claude is long gone but definitely not forgotten. In fact, you can almost hear him… listen…. My passion for drawing, lead me to Mrs Barry, the king of France and even a prison cell but I’m not sorry, Claude.

Go Claude! Mairead.

Quiet town in France has deadly secret…

| Mairead

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(Quiet little town… or is it?)

We stayed in a noisy place last night so I’m tired today. We often see comments on the app about aires where noisy youths having late night parties in the car park keep the motorhome people awake. We usually give these aires a miss and go somewhere quiet. Yesterday’s aire in a small town seemed very quiet during the day. In fact everything was closed and the path I hoped might lead me on a journey around the town and into the countryside stopped around the back of the church. Nothing much going on here. Or is there?

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(There was a château, but it was closed)

Anyway, there we were, settling down to sleep when it started. Well I supposed it had been going on all day but you just don’t notice it when you’re awake or when you’re happy to be awake. As soon as you want to be asleep all the noises seems much louder. Surely it would stop soon? And it did but it started up again an hour later… and every hour until 7am. We were gone by eight.

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(The culprit… and that’s us parked behind the hedge on the right)

Have you guessed? Our noisy youths weren’t young at all, they were the church bells… I suppose parking so close to the potential risk of a huge church bell ringing all night is on us. So, today I will be extra nice to myself. I will hydrate and rest. I will ignore any comments from Denis that seem negative, because maybe I’m just a little extra sensitive. I will make myself a nice cup of tea and sit outside (with a few additional layers, it’s cold today) on the bench generously erected by the local community. And I will never, ever pick an aire beside a church again.

Zzzzzz, Mairead.

Rust and Decay

| Mairead

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(Welcome. Settle yourself. We are in the vines… can’t you just imagine?)

Yesterday we were in Beaujolais and I am completely sure of that because we stayed at a wine farm and the wine they produce is Beaujolais! We had a lovely conversation with the farmer’s wife (in french! Denis’ french comprehension is coming along in leaps and bounds.) Her husband’s father bought the farm in 1959 and now there are three generations of the family involved in the business. They are not connected to a cooperative so they grow, press, bottle and sell everything themselves. They are very busy.

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(A Renault truck, just one tyre remains…)

I didn’t get around to asking but I think the grandfather must like old machinery because the farmyard and camping field had lots of old tractors and farm machinery. Laid out really neatly, by the way. Well, they are French. They also had modern machines, one very like the funny tractor I saw trimming the vines in Prisse. Old machinery always reminds me of my childhood because from time to time my Dad would bring home old cars or motorbikes. I think they may have been in lieu of payment for services rendered at his service station.

(The man-made colours of autumn. Can you see there’s still a little piece of glass in the headlight on the right? and the one remaining tyre? and the number plate?)

One motorbike in particular was a favourite of mine and my brother’s because of it’s position between a wall and a shed we were able to climb on without fear of falling over. It provided no end of imaginary play. This french farmer’s collection reminds me I love the colours of rust and decay and the feelings they invoke.

(Can you see the opening to a tank, just above the Renault badge? Is it for petrol or water?)

As well as machinery there were hens! And a cockerel… who wakes at 7am. I was making Christmas cards (I’ll tell you next week…) in the afternoon when I first saw the farmer and his wife in the hen enclosure. He had a bucket and was on a ladder against one of the trees picking fruit. His wife was holding the ladder. The hens live in an orchard!

(Here’s Henny and Penny just being chickens)

There are also nut trees in the farmyard and thanks to Stewart (from the houseboat) who taught me, I was able to identify walnuts. Whoever discovered them first was very persistent because it takes a lot to get to the tasty bit of a walnut. It’s very well hidden.

(This is what a walnut looks like when it falls from the walnut tree. Peel off the outer layer and you’ll find the shell. Crack the shell and you have a walnut!)

From Beaujolais (or nearby) Mairead.

Nice Little Things

| Mairead

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(The market in Saint-Gengoux-le-National)

I love this Voie Verte greenway. Everyone who travels on it seems very happy. All the bonjours are lovely. We have moved on again but we are still on the greenway. About an hour by road south to a little town of Prisse. First things first, I did go to the market this morning. It wasn’t very big but it was big enough to get a tablecloth and some blue cheese for Denis and a picture of the man with a big knife who cut the blue cheese.

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(Here’s the cheese man)

We arrived in this town, Prisse (funny name) just before lunch. The aire itself is on a wine farm at the edge of town and the greenway runs beside the vines! Actually on our way here we saw the TGV (very fast French train) speeding along beside the motorway. Made me think of fast tracks and slow tracks and how we seemed to have found the slow tracks.

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(All the tablecloths)

After lunch I went to visit the town of Prisse (still funny). It was very small and very quiet but I followed a signpost to the post office and there was a bend in the road just ahead. I wondered if there might be something interesting beyond it. There was. A huge new supermarket!

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(The old railway station road… the old railway is the greenway now)

Maybe that doesn’t seem interesting to you but supermarkets can provide a lot of useful things for the traveller. Yes groceries but this one also had diesel and toilets (I’ll say no more) and a surprise… a laundrette. I didn’t have any washing with me but on our way to the next town we’ll be stopping here. They also had great French craft magazines (can’t read them but can follow the pictures…) Then I noticed the greenway ran just around the back of the supermarket, so I returned to the grape farm aire via a new route. I love when that happens – finding a new way.

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(A pink rose on the greenway)

It’s the little things, always the little things. Actually, just yesterday I realised that I love the nice little things but the opposite is true of the little things that are not so nice. I hate them as much as I love the others, if you see what I mean… Like biting insects. Or a stone in my shoe. Such tiny, tiny things but they tend to focus my mind and I somehow forget about the wonderful day I was having. For now though I’m focussed on the nice little things and going for another walk on the greenway tomorrow.

Prisse, Prisse, Prisse, Mairead.

Peaceful Day on the Greenway

| Mairead

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(A grey day in the town at the top of the hill)

We’re still here beside the Voie Verte (Greenway) and it’s so peaceful. Just a few cyclist, some walkers and two other motorhomes here today. Monday is always a quiet day in France. I went for a walk up to the town this morning. Fortunately it was overcast and a little chilly so climbing (walking, really) the big hill was very pleasant. Not too many people around there either but tomorrow will be different… there’s a market!

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(Strange wooden bridge joining the clock tower and bell tower)

Already there are signs around the center telling motorists not to park from 6am on Tuesday. I don’t think I’ll be there that early. At this time of year the market takes place only on the first Tuesday of the month so I suppose it’s a big deal for the town. I’m imagining crowds of people and lots of nice things for sale… but it might be just groceries. I suppose groceries can be nice.

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(Can you imagine the train going under that bridge?)

Yesterday afternoon when it got a bit cooler we took the bikes down and went for a cycle along the path. For some reason we have been very active on the bikes this trip – go us! It’s very flat along the greenway because the train tracks needed to be on the flat or at the most only a slight incline or decline. Trains don’t like steep hills. I have a lot in common with the trains…

(View from the bench)

Just outside the station the vista opened up onto a huge plain with vineyards, wheat fields forests and hills. We stopped at a bench, there’s always a bench near where you want to sit everywhere in France. There was an oak tree nearby and all we were missing was a picnic and a tablecloth. We have noticed the French people always have tablecloths when they sit outside to eat. It’s such a lovely idea and it looks adorable. I think I’ll look out for one in the market tomorrow.

Sending peace, Mairead.

This is Burgundy…

| Mairead

(Tourist map of Burgundy – Bourgogne in French)

My trip on Valerie and Stewart’s boat has definitely affected our travel distances over the past week. (By the way, the boat is for sale!) It’s possible to fit our last seven days of travel onto a tourist map (see picture above) of Burgundy.

(The beautiful city of Auxerre. Lots of old buildings, churches and half-timbered houses. Can you see the boats moored on the right? The motorhome parking is to the right of the boats)

Ok, last Sunday we were in Cravant where we had coffee on the houseboat. On the Monday the boat left for Auxerre with me on board. I got off after four kilometers and cycled back to Cravant. The following day Denis and I drove to Auxerre, even though it was in the wrong direction – northwards – because Valerie and Laura made it sound so beautiful. It was very beautiful. And honest… that’s where Denis lost and found his phone.

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(Entrance to one of the cathedrals in Auxerre)

Next day we moved to Arnay-Le-Duc where we met Marc whose battery was on the blink and where we got a great lunch. After that, Autun, a very old and very pretty large town where we parked between a huge graveyard, a Roman Amphitheatre and a lake. We did get bitten by bugs but the neighbours were very quiet.

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(Covered walkway between the old part of town and the very old part of town in Autun)

On Saturday morning we drove to the small town of Givry where they are especially proud of the fact that Henry the fourth’s favourite wine was Givry. He’s dead now but they still produce the wine. We saw a bottle in the supermarket and it must be good because it costs the same as a bottle of wine in Ireland.

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(That’s the paved greenway path along the disused railway line. Can you see the giant water tap? For steam trains?)

That’s where we found the Voie Verte, the Greenway. Like the ones we have in Ireland, where the old disused railway line is converted into a cycle and walking path. Here in France they also provide aires for motorhomes to park at the old disused stations. We had breakfast at a lovely shaded one in the town of Buxy – unfortunately shade isn’t our friend when we are generating solar energy, so we moved on.

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(Just as I was reading that the greenway was for biking, walking and rollerblading along comes someone on roller blades! It look like fun!)

Now we are beside one in a town called Saint-Gengoux-le-National. We haven’t visited the town yet but the brochure I found at the station here looks very interesting. It’s a 25 minute walk uphill and 26 degrees so maybe I’ll go for a walk when it’s cooler, in the morning.

Maybe I should get some rollerblades? Mairead.

Paying it Backwards…

| Mairead

(Look! It’s Camille’s house!)

About 28 years ago we visited France with our two-year old daughter. We took the ferry from Cork to Roscoff and drove our car due south. We stayed in small hotels all along the Loire and loved every minute of it. One afternoon as we were driving in the middle of the countryside steam started coming out from under the bonnet. We were overheating. Fortunately, we had about half a dozen small bottles of water with us, we emptied them into the radiator and carried on down the road. Within a few miles we were steaming again. This time we came to a stop right beside a farmhouse. The farmer saw our problem, brought us into his house and explained to his wife. She cooked us a meal and because the garage was closed until the next morning, she moved her children out of their bedroom and made up their beds for us! Next morning she gave us breakfast, the farmer contacted the garage, she gave us lunch and when the car was fixed all the children lined up for kisses and we kissed everyone and drove off.

(Old tower in the pretty town)

Yesterday we had an opportunity to return some kindness but we only remembered afterwards. We had arrived in a very pretty town with a lovely modern aire complete with payment collection by machine and a personal code for the electricity. As usual now we don’t need the electricity so we just paid for the parking, €7. We went off for a walk at lunchtime and had a very nice “plât du jour” sitting outside on a flower-filled terrace. When we returned to the aire, Denis went to work and I started writing. It’s very unusual for anyone to approach the van so when a man approached we assumed he was another motorhome person. He wasn’t. He had broken down on the edge of town and he wondered if we could help him to charge his battery by plugging in his charger. Of course we said yes so off he went to collect his car. By the way he had great English, he’d been to Ireland and he was often mistaken for Irish because of his hair – he has red hair.

(Church in the pretty town)

He arrived back in 30 minutes with the car and proceeded to take the battery out. He explained to Denis that he was coming from a funeral in Paris (300 Km away) and his battery had died on the way and the garage he found didn’t have a replacement battery but sold him a battery charger and charged his battery. That was an hour ago, he still had another 300km to travel and the car had started spluttering just outside this pretty town. On his way into town he had noticed the aire and thought that’s a good place to plug-in the battery charger. That’s why he was approaching us.

(The charging arrangement)

While the aire had electricity, the only way to avail of the electricity is with a motorhome. He could plug-in his charger to our sockets inside the van but… we only had solar power and it was not up to the power requirement of his battery charger. On top of that because we hadn’t chosen electricity at the modern pay by credit card entrance there was no way for us to get the high power electricity now. Not a problem… he would temporarily become a motorhome and pay the parking and electricity at the entrance, then plug-in the electricity he had paid for into our van and then plug-in his charger to our socket in the van. Are you keeping up? No problems so far… until Denis explained what a trickle charger was… it’s a cute name for slow charger. It’s very slow. We had run out of conversation within an hour and the meter barely registered a charge. When three hours had passed it was dark and no one was talking. I made a cup of tea. That’s when we realised his English wasn’t as good as we had thought. Or maybe we don’t understand English as well as we had thought…

(A terrace built around the tree, Auxere)

It would take at least four more hours to charge the battery, he was staying… overnight. Oh. Ok. Long story short, he slept in his car we slept beside him in our motorhome with the door locked and the electrical cord of the charger squeezed underneath and in the morning the battery was charged. He was a lovely man and very grateful to us. There was no kissing, though. When he was gone we both remembered the farmer and his family in the Loire. How amazing were they to take us into their home and share everything with us, even their kisses.

You just have to love the French! Mairead.