Soing (it's OK she's from Barcelona)

Catherine's view across Barcelona

We really enjoyed our long weekend in Barcelona, and it was good to spend time with Matthew and Catherine.  We haven’t seen Catherine since February 2019 as she’s been locked down in her adopted hometown of Barcelona.  It wasn’t quite so long since we'd seen Matthew as he visited us on the boat for a few days last summer when Norway relaxed their travel ban.  We took in the usual tourist sites in the city but as spending time with the children was the main reason for going, we spent most of the time relaxing outside:

As fully vaccinated French residents there were no restrictions for us driving to and from Spain, so we didn’t have any of the hassles of paperwork or needing Covid tests in either direction.  The same applied to Matthew although he did have a test before going back on Saturday as the rules for Norwegian residents travelling back from Spain weren’t entirely clear.  When he arrived back in Norway it transpired that he needn’t have spent 3½ hours queuing for his test as it wasn’t a requirement for his re-entry.

The 9½ hour drive down from Gray was uneventful with just a short delay when we hit Lyon during the morning rush hour.  We didn’t leave until mid-morning on Monday for the 875-kilometre long drive back but were back on board by 8pm, so another reasonable journey.

One evening Catherine & Matthew treated Karen to a cooking lesson for her birthday.  We had a great evening preparing, cooking and finally eating our meal.  The experience was extra special as we had an exclusive session and therefore dined totally privately. 

Barcelona is home to many of Anton Gaudi’s iconic designs, so we took in a few of those during our daily walks.  The cathedral which has been under construction for 135 years and still isn't finished was one block away from our apartment and Buddy had his pre-breakfast walks around the outside.

The Sagrada Familia…

…and the other side

Casa Batlló (apartments built in 1904)

Casa Milà (Gaudi’s last apartment building – built 1906-12)

Catalan is the main language spoken over much of Barcelona, so most information is presented in both Catalan and Spanish, and we really had to rely on Catherine to help us navigate our way around menus etc.  She is determined to add Catalan to her armoury of languages over the next year as she intends on working and living in Barcelona for the foreseeable future. 

Walking to see the superyachts in one of the ports we passed Barcelona’s Arc de Triomphe:

Arc de Triomf (or Arco de Triumfo in Spanish)

To complete the tourist pics of the city here's a Spanish pillar box:

And this is one of the narrow streets in the old town:

One afternoon we went to see where Catherine lives up on a hill overlooking the city.  She is very fortunate and has wonderful views across to the Med below as in the opening picture to this blog update.  This final view of Barcelona shows the size of the cathedral in proportion to the rest of the buildings. 

Even though we were only away for a few days, our first holiday for three years, we felt really relaxed when we got back to the boat.  The weekend had been extra special because we were able to spend time with two of the children.

Karen wasn’t working for another week therefore we decided to take advantage and have a few days cruising.  Unfortunately, rain was forecast for Tuesday, but we thought we’d get a move on anyway.  We were going to dispense with the car for a while until we could find somewhere where we could get buses back to Gray to retrieve it, this meant we wouldn’t be restricted in how far we travelled each day.  It was getting on for midday by the time we were ready to leave and had said our goodbyes to Helen & David who weren’t leaving until Tuesday.

It did rain a lot of the way, so we used our parasols to protect us from the worst of it while on the back deck.  We weren’t the only ones on the move as we passed and were overtaken by many hire boats.  They tend to move every day whatever the weather, so we even had company at one of the locks.  This picture sums up the afternoon’s cruise:

Near a place called Quitteur

We moored for the night at a waiting area for the tunnel on the lock cut at Savoyeux and the rain stopped once we moored up.  We thought it would be OK to moor there overnight as we planned on getting away early on Wednesday morning and any early risers would probably get straight through the tunnel without having to wait.

Moored in Savoyeux lock cut

On Tuesday we cruised 17 miles up four locks through one tunnel and the sun finally made an appearance a bit late in the day at almost nine o’clock.

Wednesday was back to hot weather with some welcome cloud cover.  As we’d moored overnight in the tunnel waiting area we left at 8am before VNF asked us to move on.  After a little way we were passing the port at Savoyeux which is where we were going to leave the boat when we went to Barcelona.  We cancelled it in the end as we decided to leave it at Gray as friends were staying for a few days and were able to keep an eye on it and water the plants.  You may remember me explaining that we would have had to breast up alongside a narrowboat owned by a guy on a small Dutch barge.

It would have been problematic getting Buddy on and off anyway

We headed for Ray-sur-Saône for breakfast and were lucky as three boats left as we were nearing the mooring, leaving it free for us.

Heading for Ray-sur-Saône

Moored for breakfast

It turned out to be a lovely mooring and a very pretty village with the usual things like a mairie, a church with Burgundian roofed bell tower, a lavoir and a château overlooking the village.  A sign indicated that the lavoir was unusual as it had an 18^th century oval washing basin.  Ironically, the other two lavoirs we found during the day also had oval basins.

The château gardens were open to the public, so we walked up to the top of the hill above the village to have a look around.  The original fortress was built in the mid-1400s and had 14 defensive towers, two of which remain to this day.  The castle was extensively rebuilt in the 1700s and has been unchanged since then.

Looking over Ray-sur-Saône from the château gardens

When we got back to the boat the mooring had filled up and we set off for Soing.  Two 25 metre pontoons were provided just below the weir at Soing, but they were full.  After a bit of investigation, we realised we could probably just perch on the end of one of the pontoons and tie the other end to some trees. 

Is this a record for the shortest amount of pontoon used?

It took us ages to get lines across to the bank and make the boat secure.  It wasn’t made any easier by the swathes of stinging nettles Karen had to stand in along the water’s edge.  I had the job of cutting back the overhanging branches so that the boat would fit under the trees without knocking the plants off.

After mooring up we went for a look around Soing: here’s the church, an odd looking lavoir, the massive mairie which was totally out of proportion for a small village and the war memorial. 

We then walked three kilometres out of the village to see one of the two main local attractions according to the blurb on the information sign at the mooring.  The walk took us across fields to some woods to see the Fontaine des Ormois which was built in 1780.  We weren’t sure what to expect as there were no signs of any settlement around, but it turned out to be two oval basins.  The smaller one was an abreuvoir or animal watering place and the larger had washing stones around the perimeter and was obviously a lavoir.  We were completely flummoxed by the lack of any housing in sight and couldn’t find out why the fontaine was built there.

Abreuvoir, lavoir and Buddy enjoying the water and the shade

Back in the village we went to the playing fields to find the other attraction which was a 12^th scale Eiffel Tower erected in 1992 to celebrate a riverside festival along the Saône.

As it was Karen’s birthday, we thought we would go out for a meal if we could find a restaurant.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t one in Soing, so we resorted to plan B.  We'd bought some good steaks before we left Gray and had a lovely meal on board before the England game.

On Wednesday we cruised 12 miles up two locks.