Barging is Always a Challenge

Rabelo tied up for the night

After Louhans it was time to move on.  Barging is always a challenge.  Sometimes it is more challenging than others.  Canal du Centre was enough to keep Tom and Kevin on their toes. Originally designed for 30 meter boats, the locks on this particular canal were rebuilt to handle 38.5 meter boats.  That’s good except the canal itself wasn’t altered. This meant the lovely gently winding canal had curves that were too tight for us.  There simply wasn’t enough room for us to maneuver around the turns we were facing.  Moving very slowly we occasionally wound up with our nose against the side of the canal, or we would move forward and then backwards as we put our big baby through her paces to get thru this charming picturesque valley.  More than once I heard grinding that told me we were aground and pushing our way hopefully through mud and not taking too much off the bottom of our hull.

Entrance to Chateau de Santenay

The night we arrived in the village of Santenay we all went for a walk.  We didn’t pay enough attention to the weather and got caught in the rain before we were able to return to Rabelo.  I always find it amusing when that happens.  The next day we went with Jerry and Arlene to the Chateau de Santenay.  There we were given a tour and did a wine tasting.  We were fortunate in the timing of our tour.  Apparently wine evaporates through the wooden barrels where they are aged.  Too much air in the barrel would result in vinegar instead of the beautiful wines that are produced.  In order to keep the barrels full the bung (the cork or stopper on top of each barrel) is removed, more wine is put in to top off the barrel and then the bung is reinserted.  We were able to witness this being done.  Just so you know a bung is inserted into a bunghole.

Talking a walk in Santenay with Jerry and Arlene

Topping off the wine barrels

Original manner of filtering wine after the press

Chateau de Santenay

Three star Michelin restaurant Lameloise 

Tom and I decided to have dinner at Lameloise, a 3 star Michelin rated restaurant.  We’ve eaten at one and two star restaurants but this is our first 3 star restaurant.  It would be a huge splurge!  Was the food good?  Absolutely.  Creative, innovative and different for sure.  Beautiful presentation.  The service was impeccable!  We did the price fix meal.  Normally portions for a price fix meal are just the right size so you aren’t stuffed when you leave.  In this case even Tom was too full at the end of the meal.  Not that it’s their entire fault.  The bread was delicious.  Especially with their freshly churned salted butter.  That was hard to resist.  Surprisingly there were many Amuse Bouche courses between the main courses.  We had to eat everything!  The restaurant was full and enjoying its elite status.  Reservations are required in advance.  Would I eat there again?  Maybe not.  If I were to return I would order off the a la carte menu. But that’s just my opinion. My all time favorite Michelin restaurant (2 stars) is still Chapeau Rouge in Dijon.  And it is much more affordable as well.

L'amuse bouche

 

Fish course

Lovely wine from a winery we were introduced to and given a tasting last year.

No explanation needed

The food kept coming...

Dessert L'Amuse Bouche

The grand finale: Crepe Suzettes for dessert.  And then another few bites of sweets.

What a sight we saw the other day.  First we heard a dog barking for our attention.  The owner of the dog felt that wasn’t enough so he started ringing his bell.  That got our attention!  He was almost stark naked!  I say almost because he had a little “leaf” held on by some string to cover his little French flag.  Ok, he was also wearing dark socks and shoes.  He kept ringing his bell and waving as we cruised by.  In case you were wondering, he was not young or fit and I’ll bet he had a major sunburn that night.

We went for some lovely walks

Another walk

We love our country walks

We saw these guys

We found fields of poppies

We bought from this vender at an open market

Then we bought cheese from these guys.

 With 3 sets of guests coming in a row we thought we had to be out of Paris by the time our third group arrived.  After putting in 10-12 hour days and not having any fun we decided to rethink what we were doing to ourselves.  We put on the brakes!  We aren’t moving every day.  The days we do move are shorter.  We’re back to having fun, exploring, taking walks and finding some time hopefully to relax.

The Louhans Monday Market

Anyone for olives, garlic, sundried tomatoes...

I love the local open markets.  Some of the villages have their streets filled with goodies for everyone.  Some towns have smaller markets, and others go crazy with what they sell.  The venders have a circuit.  After a while we recognize the venders in the different towns.

You can find anything and everything at some of the open markets we visit.  Plants, herbs, flowers...

Maybe you need a new mattress?

Or some new shoes?

There are venders selling a variety of cheeses.  Look for the longest lines to find the best products.

I've never seen such huge loaves of bread

The asparagus is beautiful.  We had to buy some.

Mondays are a special day in Louhans.  We’ve seen many outdoor markets, but this one was exceptional!  Not only were there the normal fruits, vegetables, clothing, and household items, but then came the special treat.  LIVE animals!  Chicken doesn’t get any fresher than this!  You can buy chickens, ducks, pigs, rabbits and all sorts of animals for eating, breeding,  producing fresh eggs, milk or cheese.  Then there were horses, goats, sheep and even puppies if you are looking for a new pet.  Besides the food which was growing, live, fresh picked, cooked, or ready to eat, furniture and the rest of the miscellaneous items that are too numerous to mention…there was a carnival!  It was a holiday that Monday so there was a huge carnival for the children to enjoy.  Louhans was crowded and the traffic so heavy that we decided to park about a mile from the center of town and walk. It was a wise choice as there was no parking near the market. 

Delicious looking prepared foods.

Chickens for sale

Really?  Not even in a box?

What a beauty

If you don't want to kill it, pluck it and cook it yourself, you can get it already prepared.  But not as tasty as Costco.

Handsome guy

 You would think they’ve had enough of barging on Rabelo but here they are back for their 5^th visit in 4 years.  My brother and sister-in-law Jerry and Arlene are excellent guests!  They help with cooking, do dishes, and make themselves as useful as possible.  No wonder they keep getting invited back.  We had hoped to be in a new area of France when they arrived, but barging is so unpredictable.  Even though they recognized the area we were cruising through, we were able to show them some new sights and give them new experiences.

Jerry and Arlene are enjoying their champagne welcome.

The carnival came to town.

From Seurre to Fragne, France

View as we walk around our marina.

Entrance/Exit to our marina which is called The Old Lock

Looking from the bridge at the entrance into our marina.

Our neighbor Linda with Wilson.

Another neighbor

First time this season putting our car onto our deck.

There are good days.  There are bad days. And then there can be really bad days.  We had one of those really bad days.  In the end, no one was hurt and issues that weren’t completed eventually will be resolved.

We're off!  Finally!

This was high tide two weeks ago.  We're happy we weren't on the river then.

It started in Fragne when we got in the car for the hour drive to Dijon.  The car wouldn’t start!  Fortunately we were right across the street from a car dealer.  Since we didn’t know yet why the car wouldn’t start (I assumed a dead battery), I went back to the boat.  Let the men handle the car troubles.  While waiting a boat passed by much too rapidly.  Next I hear a commotion on deck.  Kevin has run back to the boat with Tom on his heels.  Since there were no bollards for us to tie up to we had driven heavy stakes into the soft ground.  The boat going by created too much wake rocking Rabelo, which caused the stakes to pull up.  One even landed in the canal.  Kevin’s keen eye saw our pilothouse bobbing up and down and knew there was a problem.  Had we not had car trouble our boat would have drifted across the narrow canal blocking traffic in both directions.  Getting permission to move Rabelo to a mooring just vacated by a hotel barge, Tom had to maneuver our big 130 foot baby backwards a fair distance to our new mooring.  At least here we would stay put!  By now we had a new car battery, a safe mooring, and we were over an hour late meeting a friend for lunch in Dijon. 

Dead battery.

After a quick but lovely lunch with our chief friend Alex Miles it was off to HSBC to complete our banking transaction so we could have our French account.  The problem was (making a very long story short) our French debit cards and pin numbers were being sent to our California address.  That wasn’t going to work.  I was finally told that in an emergency HSBC members could receive emergency funds from our United States account by making a phone call and answering the security questions.  Using the bank phone I proceeded to do as instructed.  After being on hold a LONG time I finally got a real person on the line.  I told her what was needed in order to get the funds to their Dijon HSBC branch.  She understood but said she must speak to someone at the branch who spoke English!  There was no one available who spoke English!  She refused to send the necessary email to the Dijon branch confirming the available funds until she spoke to someone who spoke English!  I’m in France!  They don’t have to speak English here!  It isn’t normal for me to hang up on someone but after the day we had experienced, my frustration level was too high and I hung up after telling her I didn’t think HSBC was going to work as our international bank.  If it hadn’t been such a frustrating day I might have asked to speak to a supervisor.  I honestly don’t understand how people are supposed to do international banking in foreign countries when it is expected that the world will speak English.  By the way, we’ve waited weeks for our debit cards and pin numbers to be sent to the Dijon branch as requested.  They are promising that next week all will be resolved.  I’m not holding my breath.  Besides, Monday is another bank holiday!  They have many bank holidays in May in France.

Optimistic couple before spending two frustrating hours at HSBC.

OK, on to more pleasant topics.  ICE CREAM.  We have now made chocolate ice cream, which was amazing, roasted banana ice cream that was ok, and rum raisin, which will knock your socks off.  It had tons of raisins soaked in lots of rum.  The coffee ice cream was also excellent!  It’s all delicious!

We stopped for a night in Seurre where we came across 3 couples from California.  They had rented a canal boat for the week.  We enjoyed meeting them.  We counted 4 boulangerie in the little town.  The one we choose was great!

We are finally getting some good walks in.

Where are my eggs?

Next was Fragne where we had our troubles.  Our time there wasn’t all bad.  We drove to Chalon-sur-Soane, which we had visited last year.  We wandered around, had a good lunch with wine at a Bistro filled with locals.  Then we found a wine shop!  We were running low on red wine.  How can that be when we are in Burgundy?  We took care of the problem by buying over a case of wine.

Today was a beautiful cruise on the Canal du Centre to Chagny.  It feels like fall here instead of spring.  The wind has a crispness to it and leaves were blowing into the canal.  How windy was it you might ask?  Windy enough to wish we had a bow thruster on Rabelo.  Windy enough to watch beautiful wave patterns playing around in the fields of grain.  Instead of amber waves of grain it’s green waves of grain.  We will be here thru the weekend.  We have a special treat for our first guests on Monday.

Fragny Square.  Last time we were here this was an outdoor market.

Some local French news:  Paris is almost doubling fines for dropping cigarette butts.  They collect around 350 tons of them a year!  Can you imagine?

This morning as I cut into a freshly baked crusty loaf of bread the crumbs sprang from under my knife to jump and spread all around.  

My new web site is almost complete.  Check out the progress at www.lisamillerartist.com  

Saint Jean de Losne, France

We went truffle hunting.

We were supposed to be moving the boat Thursday but discovered that the crane motor was broken.  No crane, no car, no land transportation…you get the idea.  We needed to get it repaired, so Tom and Kevin (our new captain) went into town only to discover that Thursday was a religious holiday, Ascencion.  Being that this holiday fell on a Thursday, and we were in France, our guess was that nothing would be open the next day.  That meant we couldn’t move until Monday.  

We got lucky.  Between our neighbor who is an amazing electrician, and Kevin they spent the day tearing down the motor for the crane, oiling, greasing, and doing whatever people do to motors.  By evening we had a working crane again.  Amazing.  With strong winds and some rainy weather coming through we decided Kevin should have a long weekend and Monday we will leave Saint Jean de Losne.

Let me tell you what we have been doing to amuse ourselves for this last week.  We enjoyed a BBQ with the marina residents, which gave us the opportunity to meet some new people.  We went to dinner with our immediate neighbors Bobby and Linda as a thank you for watching our boat all winter.  Then we had cocktails and a long get acquainted evening on the boat of John and Sandra.  Sandra is a quilter, knitter and painter.  John also paints although lately his painting has been focused on his 1906 boat, which the two of them lovingly restored over four years.  We then had them over another evening for dinner.  We never ran out of things to talk about, and didn’t even touch on quilting, knitting, or painting.

We went Truffle hunting!  While we enjoyed doing it once, this operation needs work in being more English-speaking tourist friendly.  While I think our host was knowledgeable about truffle hunting; his English wasn’t strong enough to convey much information to us.  We still got the idea of what is involved and have a better understanding of why they are so expensive.  The dog that was used loves truffles and probably ate half of what he found.  We did buy some truffle infused products to enjoy on board Rabelo.  After truffle-hunting Kevin took us wine tasting.  Of course we had to buy wine since our wine cellar was a bit light after last season.

Alf with his summer hair cut.  Ready to search out (and eat) truffles.

Alf has found a truffle but who gets to it first?

After a hard afternoon of truffle hunting we need to sample the delicacies available for purchase.  They were delicious!

The Truffle Farm

Thanks to Kevin I now have a real French phone, which means Internet service (when it’s available).  I don’t recommend trying to call us since I rarely have the phone with me, and I am not set up for messages.

For my birding friends I think you would love it here.  Judging by all the different bird sounds we are hearing there must be a whole slew of different types of birds.  Let me tell you what happened!  I thought someone must really like cuckoo clocks since they kept going off at odd hours all day long.  I was mistaken.  This place is full of cuckoo BIRDS!  For real!  Here is a little education about cuckoo’s:  This species is a widespread summer migrant to Europe and Asia and winters in Africa.  The cuckoo is a brood parasite, laying its eggs in the nest of other species and will provide no parental care of its young.  There!  Now you know almost as much as me about cuckoo’s.

Finally, our 4^th season and I have an herb and flower garden.  Kevin and I went shopping/errand running and left Tom behind on Rabelo.  That was a good move.  He wasn’t around to tell me I couldn’t buy those wonderful pots with water reserves on the bottom.  Kevin and I had a very successful day with the post office: buying stamps and mailing cards, getting a French phone, planters and plants!  We could have done more but it was time to return to Rabelo and prepare dinner.

Here I am planting my new garden in my shed.

My new herb and flower garden.

Tom and I made a quick visit to Dijon thinking we were going to open a French bank account.  Unfortunately our papers hadn’t arrived yet.  I’ve grown to love Dijon.  It helps knowing where things are in a town.  With very little time before everything closed for lunch, we went to our favorite bakery and then wandered through the covered market.  The cheese stand was still open and the woman (who spoke a little English) guided us in selecting cheeses that were made no more than an hour away from Dijon. 

With Kevin off this weekend we had a little excitement.  First, the weather has changed daily.  A few days ago we had the air conditioning on because we were sweltering.  The mistrals blew in and brought rain and cold with them.  Now it’s warming up again.  I’ve gone from sleeveless tops to my down vest in a short time.  It’s crazy.  Because it got so cold Tom had to start up our heaters.  There were problems!  Ultimately he figured out that the exhaust vent is a good nesting place for birds.  Having a boiler system blocked isn’t a good thing.  With the vent belching black smoke and then creating a small explosion, Tom figured out what the problem was and got things cleaned out and running.  The birds didn’t understand that their home was under attack and returned the next morning. 

In the food department I’ve made the Ultimate Roasted Potatoes from Cooks Illustrated.  Using duck fat they came out incredible!  We are also making ice cream again.  I bought The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz.  So far it’s a winner.  I also love following his blog.  His recommendations for restaurants thus far have been spot on.

I finished the book When the Crocodile Eats the Sun by Peter Godwin.  It is extremely well written and very informative.  If you’ve ever been to Africa, are planning a trip to Africa, or are just plain interested in the history of Zimbabwe during our lifetime I strongly recommend this book.

Check out Tom Miller’s book The Wave.  It is the second in the Chuck Palmer Adventure series.  It is now available as an E book.  Having been re-edited it is a winner and a great summer read!