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| Ready for French national day |
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| Leaving our peaceful mooring by the château at Chemilly |
As we went up the lock at Chemilly Karen popped into the lock cottage to buy some eggs.
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| Nice old couple waving goodbye to Karen (note the old lock information plate above the door) |
It didn’t take long to get to our destination for the day, Port-sur-Saône, where a lock cut runs through the town as well as the river Saône. As we left the lock off the river, we passed the port.
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| The port at Port-sur-Saône |
The port was full, and we hadn’t expected to moor there anyway as it’s both a hire base and a base for private boaters to keep their boats. Instead, we carried on to the centre of town and moored on the long quay.
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| Moored in the middle of Port-sur-Saône |
As we’d arrived well before lunch, we went off to explore the town. The main street crossed the other end of the quay, so we were soon in the centre of things. We came up into the square in front of the mairie which seemed to have a few things going on. First, we saw three bronze figures and found out they were entitled “Statues of the third millennium” and represented tolerance and brotherhood between people. They were designed by Jean Thiancourt and cast by Antonio Serralheiro, a Portuguese artist, who lived and died in Port-sur-Saône.
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| Karen sat next to an African boy who's offering to play football with anybody |
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| Completing the set, an Asian lad chatting to a seated European girl |
Also in the square were a group of elephants, a giraffe and some African tribespeople. We couldn’t find out much about these other than they were artworks from the Ivory Coast which, for a reason we also couldn’t ascertain, has strong links with the town.
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| Elephants, a giraffe and a postcard mural |
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| The African tribespeople in front of the mairie |
The wall in the background behind the elephants contains a mural of old postcards of the town. Sadly, like much of the rest of the town, they were in a sorry state of repair. Opposite the square stood the church and another small square with a war memorial.
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| The church. Oh, and look what is lurking in the foreground! |
We were really surprised to find two further lavoirs in the town as many of them were removed in the larger towns to make way for developments. That was before the state recognised their historical importance, both socially and architecturally, and started protecting them.
Behind the war memorial in the church square was another fresco
which had also seen better days. This
one was painted in 1990 and depicted the fight for human rights by people such
as Lech Walesa, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Louise Michel and
many others. It was good to read later
that a project has been initiated to rejuvenate both this and the postcards fresco.
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| Fresque des Droits de l’Homme behind the war memorial |
Before we leave arty things, I’ll mention that there’s at least two modern life sized fishermen in white dotted around. This one is sitting on the bridge across the river Saône:
Here he is again, from the main street through town:
Seeing the flags, we were reminded once again that the UK is no longer in the EU. Many towns fly all the flags of the EU states and, until this year, the Union flag was among them: sadly, no longer. Thinking about the Union flag or Union Jack made me realise something I’d never noticed before, the flag is a only mixture of the flags of England, Scotland and Ireland. This uncovered another big hole in my history education – why isn’t Wales included? I can only assume that England and Wales were one nation when the union with Scotland happened.
While on things European, we were pleased to receive our digital
EU covid vaccination certificates over the weekend. Hopefully, the UK will soon recognise the EU certificate
and make popping back to the UK more realistic for people in our situation. Especially as the EU already accepts the UK digital certificate.
When our friends Mike & Aileen visited Port-sur-Saône,
they were less than impressed and Aileen described it as a shithole in her
blog. Mind you, they did visit on a
rainy day. Nevertheless, even though it
was hot and sunny, we hadn’t been expecting much, and I suppose the best I can say
was that it was very tired.
As we crossed the bridge with the flags and the statue of the fisherman a Frenchman stopped us and asked if we spoke French to which we gave the usual response along the lines of, “Nous parlons Français juste un peu”. He asked if we were from the péniche anglaise and it transpired that he’d seen us passing when he was walking along by the river earlier. We had quite a good conversation and he spoke a little English sometimes too. I was dying to ask what he thought of the town when he announced that his wife (no longer alive) was born and bred in the town, and he loves coming back as its such a nice place and his daughter and grandchildren live there. Needless to say we didn’t mention what we thought of it. Later in the afternoon he stopped by with his granddaughters and two of their friends as he wanted to show them our boat.
The sun was fully out by mid-afternoon and as it was so hot we just lazed around waiting for the England-Italy game which, being as we’re in France, started an hour later for us.
On Sunday we cruised four miles up two locks.
Karen was back at work on Monday morning and my main
job for the day was to retrieve the car from Gray. I’d worked out that I could get the later of
the two buses a day that run between Vesoul and Combeaufontaine, stopping at Port-sur-Saône halfway. I would then wait 15 minutes at Combeaufontaine for a much
longer journey to Gray. I’d been very
careful checking the small print on the timetables to check which days the
buses run, and it turned out they were weekdays only. I’d also bought a fresh block of tickets for
my Mobigo bus app.
The timetable indicated that the bus stopped at the
mairie in Port-sur-Saône, so I waited outside even though there was no sign of
a bus stop. A minibus arrived dead on
time, and I hopped on only to find I couldn’t get my ticket app to work. It was all rather embarrassing as I couldn’t
explain to the busdriver lady what was going wrong. In the end I gave her €1.50 in cash and sat
down. Fortunately, there was no one else
on the bus so the bus driver was the only witness to my embarrassment.
We arrived at Combeaufontaine after a hair-raising
ride, and I did wonder if she was making a point that I’d delayed things when I
got on. As I got off, I checked that
this would be the same stop that would be used by the bus to Gray. She said it was and asked if I’d made a
réservation demandée. I told her I
hadn’t, and she explained that I need to make the réservation demandée by phone
on the day before the journey. Once
again, I was saved too much embarrassment as there was nobody to hear my poor
French or laugh at my mistake.
Fortunately, she was making the return journey to Vesoul about 20
minutes later so all I could do was wait for her to come back.
At least the bus stop in Combeaufontaine was by a
lavoir!
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| The lavoir by the bus stop at Combeaufontaine |
I got back on the minibus rather sheepishly and proffered my €1.50 but she refused to accept it and was really friendly and offered me loads of apologies. When I got home, I checked online and couldn’t find anything to indicate that I had to ring to make the reservation for that service, but I rang anyway. After another conversation that seemed to go on for ages, as both the girl on the end of the line and I were repeating practically everything, I felt confident I’d made my réservation demandée. Let’s see what happens tomorrow when I get back to Combeaufontaine. If my plan fails then I’ll have to wait until Thursday because everything will be closed down on Wednesday, July 14th.
It was due to rain on Tuesday, but it didn’t matter as
Karen was working and I was having round two of car retrieval. The same busdriver lady picked me up by the
mairie and we chatted for a while, but I had to draw it to a close after a
while as I find it hard work concentrating on the language for any length of
time. When we arrived at Combeaufontaine,
the connecting minibus was waiting for me, so I got to Gray OK. The state subsidies must be high for these
rural bus companies as my fare was only €1.50 for a 45-minute journey.
It was really warm when I got out at Gray and the
town was packed; a fair had gone up along the quay which was also crammed with
boats into the distance, far more than when we’d stayed there. I picked the car up and headed for home via Conflandey
to check the mooring, our plan was to move there in the evening if all was OK.
I mentioned recently about how in the 19th
century many Burgundian mairies were built over washhouses thus reinforcing the
attitude to women in those days who were expected to do the laundry while men
did only things men could do, in the mairie.
At Dampierre-sur-Salon I was lucky enough to pass one of these buildings.
At least the women were under cover and protected from the sun or inclement weather, unlike the open air one in the park opposite that had been converted to a flower display as with the one Karen found at St-Albin last week.
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| In Place de Bosquet, Dampierre-sur-Salon |
The next village was back to highlighting the gender
differences as the lavoir was positioned outside the mairie but at least it
wasn’t underneath.
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| In Vaite |
I won’t show all the lavoirs from my journey to Conflandey but will leave you with this pretty but open air one in the centre of Lavoncourt. It conjured up interesting images of women washing clothes in the centre with animals drinking around the outside.
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| In Lavoncourt |
Conflandey was a lovely little village with a great open mooring above the lock and I found myself thinking how stunning it would all be in the summer and then realising we were in the middle of July already. The mooring was extra attractive as there was no path alongside which meant Buddy would be safe off his lead.
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| Where we hoped to moor at Conflandey |
My only concern was getting through the lock as the flow from the weir alongside was quite strong and not only that, but there was also a tributary coming in from the other side of the lock entrance making the water extra turbulent. The different colours of the two rivers can clearly be seen here at their confluence.
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| River Saône at the top and the Lasterne on the bottom |
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| Looking upstream, the Saône coming over the weir and the Lasterne joining from the right |
When Karen finished work, we set off for Conflandey. Karen took the car, and I took the boat with the intention of meeting her as she walked back downstream with Buddy. It was still quite grey but at least the rain was still holding off for the journey. As I left Port-sur-Saône I went under the viaduct carrying a bypass that was under construction. It’s due to open later this year and will hopefully allow the town to become a far more attractive place without the through traffic.
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| The viaduct carrying the new bypass |
Once Karen had parked up, she set off to meet me but stopped by a wire producing works just below the weir. Wire has been produced there for over 100 years and the company seemed very proud of their heritage. The wall along the towpath contained many information boards some of which depicted stories of families who worked at the factory before the first world war.
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| Montage along the mill wall |
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| One of the many posters showing details of workers’ families |
After a while Karen had to turn around as the towpath ran out, so walked back up to the lock so she could help me through when I arrived. The river was wide for much of my journey, so I didn’t have to struggle against the flow, but it was a different story approaching the lock because of the turbulence.
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| Approaching the écluse de Conflandey |
I got through with a fair bit of rocking, steering one way and then the other and picked Karen up at the lock entrance. Once we were moored up, we got the bunting out to decorate the boat ready for the French national day on Wednesday.
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| Putting the flags up for la fête nationale |
On Tuesday we cruised four miles up one lock.
Before I start on Wednesday I want to respond to
Helen & Chris who left a comment asking a question about UK/EU gas bottle
adpaters. I’m not convinced that Blogger
handles my responses to comments correctly so here are the salient points: “This is a link to the adapter we purchased in the UK.
Another solution would be to buy an EU regulator from a brico or large supermarket
over here to replace the existing UK regulator.”
Although the predicted rain didn’t fall on Tuesday,
the whole country was expecting bad weather on July 14th, so we prepared to
stay put for the day. It hadn’t started
when I finished breakfast, so I took the car to Baulay to check the mooring there. As it seemed a pleasant place with no
boats, I left the car in the village and then cycled back. There wasn’t a towpath, so I cycled back
along the lanes which were even quieter than usual because of the national
holiday.
When I got back to the boat it still hadn’t started raining
so I took Buddy out for a walk. We kept
dry and I was lucky enough to see my first hoopoe of the year. These birds are unmistakable in flight because
of their pink bodies and back and white striped tails. We also popped down to the wire works and went
around to the front entrance where the railings were bedecked with even more
information boards.
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| This one shows one of the factory rooms |
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| Taking a peek at cables of wire inside |
Between the wire works and the village of Conflandey
stands a large island with a rather run-down chateau in the centre. When the works was first built, a path across
the island was installed to provide access for the workers. It ran across a suspension bridge on each
side of the island and was raised on pillars as it crossed the chateau’s
gardens on the island.
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| The path across the now greatly overgrown gardens |
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| The chateau has seen better days |
Some of you will be pleased to know that I couldn’t find a lavoir in the village, but it did have a war memorial standing outside the church:
Walking back across the road bridge I was able to make
a comparison between nowadays and the river as it was over 100 years ago as
seen on one of the factory information boards.
The weir in those days was a needle dam and has now been replaced and the lock has been rebuilt
too. The factory could be clearly seen in the distance on the left whereas now it’s almost obscured by trees.
Looking the other way to our boat, you can understand how I had a
‘forgetting it’s July’ moment thinking how glorious it would have looked if it
were a summer’s day.
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| Moored at Conflandey |
The rain started in the middle of the afternoon, and it was still at it when we went to bed so it goes without saying that we stayed put. During the evening we had an Avis telling us that because of the rising levels, the pound below the one we're moored on is closed until Saturday at least. The lock below us was the problem as it's alongside a weir as opposed to being in a lock cut like nearly all the others on the upper Saône. We weren't surprised as it had been tricky when we'd come up 24 hours previously, so it was just as well we decided to move on from Port-sur-Saône when we did.
1 comment:
The 'old' guy waving from the cottage looks younger than you Neil! Judith xx
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