We left Reims after breakfast on Friday and were soon going up the three locks that took us through the outskirts of the city where the canal is lined with mature trees on either side. The horse chestnuts on one side were in full autumnal colours whereas the sycamores on the other were still relatively green.
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| Contrasting colours as we left Reims |
Water was available at the third lock so, providing no commercials were waiting to use the lock, we were going to stop and fill up. We could see to the end of the three-kilometre-long straight that runs through Reims so knew there wasn’t one following us when we cast off. Karen got ready to get off as soon as it was safe to do so as we rose up the lock. She was aiming to save time by getting the hose ready but unfortunately could see a commercial approaching the lock a few hundred metres away.
This called for a quick decision, so she took four empty 20 litre water containers and filled them while I brought the boat up and moored at some handy bollards just outside the lock. It meant we had several trips back and forth between the water point and the boat but we soon had the tank full and from the thumbs up we got from the guy and his wife on the commercial it seemed they appreciated what we were doing.
We stopped for lunch at the lock landing below the lock at Sillery and then went for a walk. Karen remembered there was an automatic launderette outside the supermarket in Sillery and we took our washing with us so we could leave it going while we continued our walk.
On the way to the supermarket we passed a French national cemetery containing the remains of over 11,000 WWI soldiers. Unusually, for a war cemetery it was sited within the town boundaries.
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| The French WWI cemetery at Sillery |
There were more contrasting colours behind the cemetery: the light green fields of the Reims arable plain, the orange of the Champagne vines and the dark green of the beech trees on the Montagne de Reims.
Things didn’t go very well at the laverie I’m afraid. We only needed to use the smaller of the two washing machines, but it was out of order. As we’d walked all the way there with our dirty clothes, we decided to pay the extra and use the large machine. The machine took our card payment but resolutely refused to start. After a long and tortuous phone call to the help line, we think we’re getting the debit card credited. The final straw would have been if the machine had locked the door, so we were unable to retrieve our clothes. Fortunately, that hadn’t happened, and we now await the return of funds; it was just as well we hadn’t used cash!
Walking back across the supermarket car park I noticed a Dutch plated car which reminded us that, for obvious reasons, we have seen very few ‘foreign’ plated cars this year. As far as UK plated cars are concerned, they are normally quite common in France, but we have only seen three since we came back at the end of February. We saw the third one a couple of weeks ago and I forgot to mention it at the time, but the occupants must have thought we were mad as we both waved madly away at them as they passed us. Goodness knows what they thought!
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| Cruising through the Vesle valley |
We moored for the day at a place called Beaumont-sur-Vesle on a large quay that is no longer used commercially.
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| Moored for the rest of Friday |
Walking around Beaumont-sur-Vesle later, it was obviously a Champagne village judging by the perfectly manicured gardens and well-kept houses. The other giveaway were the street names like Rue de Pressoir and Rue des Vignes.
On Friday we cruised nine miles up six locks.
Saturday was walk day and we set out to take in the three villages of Wez, Courmelois and Thuisy which are in an area called Val-de-Vesle. We are currently travelling along the valley of the River Vesle whose source is up near Châlons-en-Champagne and it runs for the best part of 100 miles down to the River Aisne at Soissons where we were a couple of weeks ago. We were only a couple of kilometres away from Wez, the first village, and our hopes were raised when we saw this street sign.
It was a cart track rather than a street and we followed it all the way down to the River Vesle but there was no sign of the lavoir, not even a line of washing stones on the banks of the river. Thuisy was the next village and here we did strike lucky and found a lavoir hidden away on the side of a tributary to the Vesle.
As we came into Courmelois we saw these charred wooden statues:
They were standing outside the studio/workshop of Christian Lapie, a French sculptor, who, after living in the Amazon for a period changed his style to these large figures. They are installed in many places across Europe; the one in the picture below is known as “In the interval” and can be found outside the Champagne TGV station in Reims.
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| In the interval (photo by Par Garitan) |
While on the theme of art, the church in Courmelois has been converted to an art and exhibition centre, a great use for these vaulted buildings that also ensures they are maintained.
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| Courmelois church dating back to the 13th century |
Our walk brought us back onto the canal a couple of kilometres up from where we were moored. Although it had been cloudy all morning, we escaped any rain and were glad to get back aboard as the wind had got up.
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| Our mooring hidden away in the far corner |
As we are in area that is covered by the new French curfew affecting about three quarters of the population we were unable to go out in the evening. Under the curfew, people have to be indoors by 9pm unless they have a signed attestation. We would be allowed to take Buddy out for exercise but, ironically, he would protest if we tried to wake him up and drag him out at that time of night. The not going out statement was tongue in cheek as we haven't been out in the evening since the original confinement so the curfew won't affect us directly.
Sunday was quite a different day; it was raining when we got up and it felt like it was raining whenever we looked outside. We seemed to pick the best part of the day to go for a walk as the rain eased off to a drizzle for most of the two hours or so we were out.
We walked to a village called Prunay-en-Champagne which, as Karen described it, was uninspiring and especially so on a wet day. It did sport a mairie that had the traditional extensions either side for the boys’ school and the girls’ school.
The only other photo we took in the village was of the railway station but I’m not sure why as it really didn’t have anything going for it.
We did find out though that an iron age vase, decorated in La Tène style, was discovered in the village but is now exhibited in the British museum! A famous French archaeologist, Léon Morel, who worked primarily in north eastern France found the vase in the late 1800s in an iron age burial site in the village. The British museum purchased over 7,000 items from his collection, including this vase, in 1901.
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| The 30cm tall vase in the British museum |
Walking back along the canal towards the end of our walk we could, once again, look across to the Montagne de Reims.
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| Another picture of the three contrasting colours |
We spent the rest of the day indoors again and, as we had a good internet signal, we were able to watch our team beat the top of the table side.
With a sunny dry day forecast for Monday we will probably move on and head down the other side of the summit of this canal to its end at the Canal latéral à la Marne.
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