Barging. A Day in the Life of Living on a Barge

The lonely park bench in early morning waiting for its  daily visitors.

We are spending a lot of time in Dijon, which is relaxing.  I love being able to walk into the city, walk to the market, and walk to the boulangerie.

I think we are tied up near a retirement home.  Elderly people come and sit on the park benches looking at the canal all day long.  They sit in groups chatting; some come alone and sit quietly, some people read.  I wish I spoke enough French to be able to offer the ladies a cup of coffee and visit with them.  Instead we smile and greet each other every day.  They don’t come when it rains.  Thursday also seems to be a slow day.  Perhaps it’s Bingo day at the home?  The ladies wear skirts or dresses, hose and sensible shoes.  In the late afternoon they go home and then men drinking beer occupy the benches.  I don’t like that as much.  We also get fishermen in front of and behind Rabelo.  Writing this sitting in my pilothouse I am watching a grey heron perched on a branch surveying his territory.  All day long there is a parade of ducks, geese, swans and mud hens swimming by.  Sometimes the swans do a fly by which is amazing!  Across from us is an island, which seems to be a bird sanctuary.  An odd man slowly pushing a wheel barrel came by.  It was full of old baguettes, which he threw into the water at intervals.  When I looked into the wheel barrel I saw the bread was moldy.  The ducks wouldn’t touch it.  They wait for the mothers with their little children who come to toss fresh baguettes to them.  It’s all lovely.

Rabelo

Today was one of those days where it feels like we’ve accomplished nothing yet the day is almost done and shortly I will begin cooking dinner.

We woke up to almost a whiteout.  Fall is here.  Thanks to another aggravating situation left over from our previous captain we had to find a Laundromat.  I pulled out what I thought was a brand new never used king duvet that we can add to our bed as it gets colder at night.  It was disgusting it was so dirty and stained.  It appears that a delivery crew member used it without any sort of covering and then shoved back into a plastic bag and into a closet until I found it a year later.  This is typical of what we have been dealing with.  Too large to fit in our washing machine Tom and I put it in the car and drove all over looking for a Laundromat.  When we couldn’t find one we returned to the boat and Julian (our captain) looked up a Laundromat not too far from us.  Back to the car, we started driving.  Had we understood where it was we could have walked since parking in Dijon is awful.  Round and round we drove until we found a place to park blocks from where we needed to be.  We finally arrived at the Laundromat to discover how expensive it is to wash a duvet.  It costs around $15.00 for the washing and $3.00 for the dryer.  (We now understand why the French are always hanging their duvet’s out of their windows to air.)  I suspect a new duvet from Ikea wouldn’t have cost much more.  While the duvet was in the washing machine we were walking back to the car and discovered what looked like a great boulangerie.  It was!  Along with a large group of high school students we shared two types of flatbread sandwiches.  They were delicious.  Once the duvet was cleaned we went back to the boat.  The day had cleared up and was spectacular.  I shed the down parka.  Tom worked on painting the outside of the boat.  Julian worked on our large windows (another fiasco from our previous captain).  Once Tom was done painting he and I walked together to the local market.  Wild mushrooms are in season so I’m making a pasta dish with all sorts of mushrooms some of which I’ve never seen before. 

Happy cows.

 The ice cream sold in the supermarkets in France isn’t to our liking so we solved the problem.  We bought an ice cream maker.  I’ve never particularly liked chocolate ice cream but that has changed.  I make GREAT chocolate ice cream.  Now I want to try my hand at coffee ice cream and then extra chocolate gelato.  Stay tuned.

Bar in Chateau Sainte Sabine where we started the evening with an aperitif.

Dining room of Chateau Sainte Sabine.

Thanks to the recommendation of a great travel agent (Jill Jergel of Frontiers Travel) who is an expert on Barge Hotels and extremely knowledgable when it comes to trip planning we had a delicious dinner at Chateau Sainte Sabine.

Rather than choose which of the many amazing dishes we wanted we let the chief design the meal for us.  I don't think I could have chosen better.  Every course was perfection.

Appetizer of smoked and marinated salmon with goat cheese and olive oil sauce

The fish course of creamy risotto with blue lobster and courgette

 The meat course was roasted pigeon, cumin carrots, bulgur with apricots, figs and raisins, spice sauce. It was so good I ate it before remembering to photograph it.

Warm "Marc de Bourgogne" souffle, black current sorbet