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| The port at Fontenoy-le-Château - our home for the last few days |
We’d put Sunday morning aside for exploring Fontenoy-le-Château and were especially looking forward to following a literary trail we’d heard about. Apparently, there were nearly 50 literary quotes to be found around the town and searching them out meant we’d also get a good look at everything else there was to see. We soon found a mural that looked like it was our first quote but thought that if all the others were the same size, then nearly all the buildings would be covered in them.
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| Our first quote? |
Translating the text, we realised that the mural was recognising the first ever French woman to receive a university degree. This was Julie-Victoire Daubie who was born locally in the Vosges, graduated at Lyon on 17 August 1861 and then lived and died in the town. Clearly this wasn’t one of the literary quotes we were looking for.
Strangely, the mural wasn't on a building in Place Julie Victoire Daubie either:
Opposite the mural stood the hôtel de ville with a statue of the poet Nicolas Gilbert who was born in the town. This made us think that the literary trail may have been created to commemorate him. The square was called Place Gilbert and looks very much the same as today as it did at the turn of the last century apart from the cobbles on the side street have been tarmacked over.
The road running through the town was paved with sandstone in the middle of the 14th century and repaved at the start of 20th with granite cobbles. It is reportedly the last town in the old Lorraine région with a fully cobbled high street and is certainly the longest stretch we have walked along.
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| Looking north from the hôtel de ville… |
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| …and looking south |
The river and canal lay to the west of the high street and
to the east was a large hill upon which the castle (the château of Fontenoy-le-Château) was built. Many of the side streets were
also cobbled and those leading up the hill were quite steep.
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| Leading up to the château |
The castle was originally built over 1,000 years ago with extensive rebuilding in the 14th and 16th centuries. It’s all in ruins now, but the public can wander around and it’s easy to imagine what a strategic position it was situated in. Restoration works were started in the 1970s but in good old French fashion don’t seem to have got very far – as we heard someone say, “Lay a block of stone, drink a bottle of wine”. To be fair though, most French construction projects we see seem to be as efficient as those we've seen elsewhere.
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| Restoring the 1,000-year-old keep |
We did come across a foundation stone inscribed with the insignia of the Burgundian family who sponsored the 16th century rebuild:
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| Looking down on the town with its church built around 1500 |
As well as the castle, the cemetery overlooked the town together with the good old air raid sirens which are still tested on the first Wednesday of each month. In this part of France they are sounded at noon whereas in the south it’s 11.45am and in the north it’s 12.15pm. Whenever we hear the sound we still find it strangely eerie and spine-tingling.
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| Fontenoy-le-Château’s air raid sirens |
Walking back down the hill we passed the embroidery museum which sadly wasn’t open at the time; however, we did read that by end of 1800s there were 500 embroiderers in town. Carrying on our walk through the town we came to the conclusion that the literary trail no longer existed and was probably created on a temporary basis on the anniversary of somebody or something. Anyway, we did at least get to see around the place which was typically empty apart from the mad English couple walking in the midday sun.
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| Looking north at the other end of the high street… |
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| …and looking south |
At the far end of town, we crossed the river Côney to reach the canal and walked along it back to the boat. Again, it didn’t look much different to the way it did
over 100 years ago.
After lunch we walked the nine kilometres back to Pont du
Bois to retrieve the car. You may think
us daft, but as we’d cruised along the length the previous day, we knew the towpath
was in the shade nearly the whole way. At
one point we came across people swimming in the canal, a practice we find most
strange. We don’t mind swimming or
cooling down in rivers but the thought of doing it in canals knowing what goes
into them is more than off-putting.
On the drive back we found some lavoirs including one at either end of the village of Ambiévillers. They were built in a similar style and the horse troughs outside were being used as flower beds.
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| The pretty lavoirs at Ambiévillers |
Karen had to work on Monday, so I got on with boat stuff and also went to Bains-les-Bains to do a supermarket shop. Helen & Dave left during the morning heading for the famous Lock 8. This is meant to be a really remote and pretty mooring further up the Côney valley near the summit where they planned on staying for several days. Karen informed me that she already had it on her radar and was hoping we’d stop there for a while too.
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| Helen & Dave leaving on Monday morning |
We were sorry to see Helen & Dave go as they’re good company,
but they’d been here far longer than we had and had stayed longer than they’d planned. We were with them for a while back in Gray
and used to enjoy listening to them practising their jazz compositions during the afternoons, Helen on
sax and Dave on piano. We were fortunate to hear them again here in
Fontenoy-le-Château.
We’ve decided to stay put until Wednesday afternoon as the internet
signal is good enough for Karen to work.
The canal is closing for a few weeks on the 4th of October
for winter maintenance and we plan to be off it by the 1st, but we’ll
still be able to take our time and visit places we’ve earmarked.
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| On our own after Brontë departed (other than the trip boat the others are unoccupied) |
With the impending closure of the canal and the current good
weather, Karen is taking a holiday and won’t be working next week which will leave just a couple of weeks left before she finishes (again!). This will make it easier for us to pick and
choose when we cruise and visit places.
So we won’t be tied down by having a car I’ll move it to Épinal,
some 50 kilometres further north and get a bus back. As the bus route is one of
those that has to be reserved 24 hours in advance, I rang the bus company on
Tuesday morning and believe I made a reservation for the correct day, time,
route and direction. Time will tell if I
was successful when I go to Épinal on Wednesday.
I spent most of Tuesday morning painting and managed to rig up the parasols to keep the direct sun off. Soon after I started, men turned up with strimmers and mowers. As I was only preparing for the final coat I wasn't too concerned as there was quite a wide path between the boat and the grass. They finished and put their equipment back on their pickup just as I wanted to start painting. I soon realised they'd got leaf blowers out and were clearing up their mess. When they got to within 20 metres of the boat I had to ask them to keep away because of the painting. They were OK about it and did as I'd asked. What I soon realised was that they'd stopped completely and packed their stuff away and driven off. They didn't reappear during the afternoon so it'll be interesting to see if they turn up on Wednesday morning to finish off the job.
We
went for a walk at lunchtime to a little place a few kilometres away called
Montmetier. On the track from the canal
up to the village we came across a lavoir built from a rather pleasant reddish
sandstone. It was in an odd location as
it was a good 200 metres from the nearest houses at the start of the village. A further oddity was that it was
semi-circular in shape.
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| Lavoir at Montmetier |
As usual there were a few butterflies on the wing and it was good to see a sooty copper, a map and a great banded grayling, none of which occur in the UK. Sadly, none of them settled long enough to present a photo opportunity.
We spent the rest of the day back at the port and noticed
that hire boat traffic had dwindled to just the one passing through. It must be because the summer holidays are over
but there are obviously still a few out judging by the number of free berths at
the hire boat base at the other end of the port. We’d seen four private boats passing during the day,
two of them stopping for the night. One
of the couples who stopped were Aussies Phil & Katherine who’d sold their
previous boat, Vindi, to Aussie friends of ours, Guy & Ardon. They moored up immediately behind us but after
an hour moved right down the other end. Phil
said he wanted to move into the shade, but I think it was because I’d upset
them by not realising they were on a Piper.
I did notice that by 4.00pm they were back in full sun though.
The other boat that stopped for the night had a Dutch couple
on board but other than exchanging the odd pleasantry we didn’t really
chat. One of the passing boats was a
single Polish guy on a small motor yacht from Gdansk who probably would have
had some interesting stories to tell. The final boat was an older Brit couple who
stopped for fuel at the hire base on their way through. It was obviously closed for lunch as he
came down to ask if I knew when it opened.
He was an interesting chap and wanted to chat about the troubles Brexit was
causing him and his wife. They felt they
couldn’t easily continue cruising in Europe, so they were on their way up to
Calais to make the crossing back home.
Assuming I manage to get back from Épinal ok tomorrow we’ll
be off for a cruise in the afternoon.
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