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Our mooring for Friday and
Saturday at Charly-sur-Marne
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Our current cruising plan has us
moving during the morning of alternate days.
We then have an afternoon off followed by a non-moving day. As we had moved from La Ferté-sous-Jouarre to
Saâcy-sur-Marne on Wednesday it meant Thursday was a non-moving day.
We walked into Saâcy-sur-Marne,
which had more shops than we expected, it even had two bars and a
restaurant. We had forgotten it was a
national holiday in France and therefore nearly everything was closed, so we
made our way through to the other side and back down to the river.
Most villages have book swaps, but
we have refrained from photographing them as we can’t really start adding to
the list of things we collect (which already includes Victorian post boxes,
locks, canal tunnels, lavoirs, stanking plank stores and milestones). I know I included a picture of one when we
were in Tonnerre but that was very unusual: a continental style fridge/freezer.
However, Karen couldn’t resist taking a
picture of today’s one as she found it really pleasing.
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| Saâcy’s book swap |
In addition to book swaps we have
noticed village notice boards are almost taken over by the current water
shortages and their impact. It seems we
are in a village where mains water can only be used for domestic purposes (i.e.
not car washing, gardening etc.) and people are asked to use it sparingly.
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| The water shortage notices |
We found our way back down to the
river and a great path along the bank where we could let Buddy off for a run
and some stick chasing. As well as
looking out for butterflies we were checking that it would be somewhere Karen
could go for her Friday morning run and it turned out to be ideal. We also saw quite a few butterflies including
this female holly blue (male holly blues don’t have the broad
black wing tips).
There are also a lot
of clouded yellows around at the moment so we assume we are in the midst of the
emergence of a summer brood.
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| Female holly blue |
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| A rather tired looking speckled wood |
On the way back we let Buddy have
a play in the water and to our surprise he had a couple of short swims. He seemed so pleased with himself but still
remained cautious. It may have been our imagination,
but his tail was wagging more than usual on the rest of the walk and he seemed
to be looking for other dogs to tell his news.
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| Finally, Buddy swimming |
Near the lock we came across a
stone kilometre marker. This was the
first we have seen on this river whereas on some rivers it’s the opposite and
it’s odd when a kilometre marker is missing.
Not only was there a stone kilometre marker there was also a kilometre
post. Again, we have only seen a couple
of these on this river but, to be fair, this one would not have been visible
from the boat:
The 76 means we have 76 kilometres to go until we reach Epernay which in turn means we have covered 102
kilometres since leaving the River Seine. Epernay is the end of the
navigable river and is where we will join the Canal latéral à la Marne.
Before I go onto Friday I must
correct an error in the blog entry recounting our visit to the WWI memorial in
La Ferté-sous-Jouarre. When Karen read
that entry yesterday, she noticed the number I had quoted for servicemen with
unknown graves didn’t match the inscription on the memorial. I had taken my number from the town guide
issued by the mairie.
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| As you can see, the number on the memorial is quoted as 3,888 |
Friday promised to be another warm
and dry day and we set of for Charly-sur-Marne after Karen’s run. We were only half a kilometre from our first
lock and the remote-control unit continued to work wonders, ensuring the lock
was ready as we approached. The rod to
set the lock operation going was in a different place to the previous locks and
meant Karen had to climb up onto the roof to pull the rod up. The previous ones had been positioned towards
the rear meaning I was able to use the rod from the back deck.
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| Karen doing the honours |
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| Blue to set the lock going; red for emergencies |
As with other canals and rivers we
have travelled on over here, each lock seems to have a lock cottage. Unlike those on the other canals and rivers,
the ones on the River Marne don’t tend to have name or information plates and if they do they are very faded and hardly discernible.
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| Lock cottage at écluse 8 Méry |
In the early 1800s several long
cuts were built to make the navigation shorter and easier at loops
further downstream at the Paris end.
Looking at the map for where we are currently cruising it’s surprising
further cuts weren’t built this far upstream.
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| The windy (not blowy) Marne |
It wasn’t long before we were in
Champagne and vineyards could be seen on the southern facing slopes. We are entering from the western end of the
region and over the next few weeks plan to travel through to the eastern end
and then down to the southern point before retracing our steps back to
Paris. We also hope to detour northwards
and pop up to Reims on our way back.
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| Green vines above Crouttes-sur-Marne |
All the vines leaves are a lovely green colour at the moment and by the time we retrace our steps in
September/October they should have turned to the well-known wonderful
rusty-orange colour.
At many points along today’s
journey there were series of pipes leading from the water to pump houses on the
bank. We assume these pipes extract
water from the river for use by the champagne houses. We did wonder if each pipe was used by a
different champagne house.
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| One of the extraction points |
We arrived at Charly-sur-Marne
after going up the second lock and once again our luck was in and there was a
single boat pontoon available opposite the main moorings. We were soon tied up and eating a well needed
lunch.
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| Our latest mooring |
After lunch we walked into Charly-sur-Marne
itself. This is a town full of champagne
houses but on a completely different style and scale to the pompous champagne
houses in Epernay. We visited Epernay on
our road trip last summer when we were exploring the parts of France we might
want to visit when we came over with the boat.
We likened Epernay to the Las Vegas of Champagne and, to be honest, the
majority of voices we heard were Americans.
Saying all this we will probably revisit Epernay when we pass through in
a week’s time.
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| Some of the champagne houses in Charly-sur-Marne |
The house of Bernard Naudé caught
our attention as we approached it. It
had a high turret with what looked like a German soldier standing on the
top. When we got closer, we realised it
was probably meant to be one of the Napoleons as there was a date of 1830 on
the wall near the top.
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| The house of Bernard Naudé |
Later on, I was looking at their
website to find contact details to enquire about their champagne tour and
tasting and noticed they had a page on the tower. Apparently one of Napoleon I’s generals lived
in the house and erected the tower in homage to his emperor. Both he and his wife are buried in tombs in
the grounds. Their champagne labels
depict the tower too.
We carried on walking out of
Charly-sur-Marne towards Saulchery, passing more vineyards on the way. We wondered whether they are like red and
white wines where the best wines are produced in the middle of the slopes. No doubt we will find out when we visit our
first house.
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| Walking to Saulchery |
We were lucky in Saulchery and
found our first lavoir for many weeks.
It had been restored but wasn’t open to the public. It had metal foxes over the roofs and on the
walls and an accompanying notice explained that it was depicting Aesop’s fable
of the fox and the grapes, or more strictly, the Frenchman Jean de la
Fontaine’s 17th century version.
More details of the lavoir can be seen by clicking here.
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| The lavoir at Saulchery |
The story is about a fox who wants
to eat the grapes but cannot reach them.
Rather than admitting to others that he couldn’t reach them he told them
the grapes weren’t worth eating. We
hadn’t realised it, but they say the fox and grapes story gave rise to the
expression, ‘sour grapes’.
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| The fox and the grapes fable |
On Friday we cruised ten
kilometres up two locks.
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