Stenay (the triple tour town)

Home for the last five nights 

It felt quite chilly on Friday morning, so the heating went on for an hour when we got up bringing it home to us that it may not be long before we start using the stove.  We left Vilosnes-Haraumont at nine to get to the first lock by ten where we would meet our éclusier of the last couple of days. 

Friday morning on the Meuse

It was a real 'birdy' morning with kingfishers keeping just in front of us by leaving their perches every time we caught up with them.  16 cormorants were roosting in a dead tree and all but one flew off as we passed.  We kept seeing them flying around over the fields and wondered if the one left behind was going to count them in when they returned.  We often see herons standing in fields as if they are fishing in the wrong place but on this particular morning there were far more than usual and sharing their fields with great white egrets doing the same thing.

Our guy had the lock ready for us when we arrived and he only had to see us through one more and then we'd be back to automatic ones which will be the case for the rest of this canal and also the rest of year’s travelling.  We stopped for lunch at Dun-sur-Meuse and as we turned off the river into the lock cut we exchanged pleasantries with a very happy fisherman.  While I moored up Karen walked back up the lock cut as she’d spotted a couple of walnut trees near the fisherman, but she wasn’t that pleased with her haul as she only found a handful. 

Dun-sur-Meuse for lunch 

Karen went off for a run while Buddy and I had a look around Dun-sur-Meuse.  Other than many references to WWI and wartime pictures around the town the only building that seemed of any interest was on a hill overlooking the place. 

The hill above Dun-sur-Meuse

On my way back to the boat I walked past the lock cottage and a guy came out to talk, I soon realised it was the friendly fisherman.  He said he’d seen my wife looking for les noixs (walnuts are just plain nuts in French) and offered to give me some of his.  He was sorry he hadn’t found many that morning and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.  I knew Karen would be pleased anyway so I went back to the boat clutching my small bag of nuts.

When she came back from her run, we went back to the lock cottage so she could thank the chap, and we also bought some eggs from him.  When we set off again, he was waiting for us at the lockside and wouldn’t stop waving.

Happy fisher-, nut-, egg-man

Karen had struck lucky last year when harvesting walnuts after a windy night near Reims, but she was a bit put out that a French guy was also bagging up plenty too.  She felt awful afterwards for feeling like that because when the chap said goodbye to her, he gave her the large bag he’d been collecting.  Maybe Frenchmen giving Karen nuts is going to be a regular thing each Autumn.

After leaving the lock and re-joining the river we passed the town moorings which were empty other than a couple of campervans taking advantage of the water and electricity bornes.

Dun-sur-Meuse moorings

Downstream from Dun-sur-Meuse we passed the remains of two bridges.  We know the French blew up bridges on the Meuse to try to stop the German advance in WWI, but we couldn’t find out if the bridges we saw were such examples or taken out for another reason.

What happened here?

We moored for the day at a small town called Stenay and found a pleasant place to moor in the lock cut using some commercial bollards.  Well, we could only use one bollard as at 50 metres between them they were too far apart for us to use a pair and we took advantage of a hole in the piling to secure the other end of the boat.  We were right opposite the entrance to the port in town which we found out later would have charged us €14 a night so we were quite happy where we were.  It was especially good for Buddy as we were on a spit of land at a junction where the canal drops back onto the river so the only people we would see, if any. would be the odd fisherman.

Moored at Stenay with Buddy guarding one of our extra long lines

We popped over to the port as it also housed the tourist office, and we thought we’d struck lucky as we picked up three different trails to follow around the town but obviously reserved judgement until after following them over the weekend.

The port was also a busy campervan stop with over two dozen vans in.  There was even a carpark-like sign at the entrance indicating how many spaces were free.  We felt it was a little over the top really, especially as every time we passed it said there were 21 free spaces even though vans were coming and going all weekend.  Talking about campervans reminds me that we saw a British one during the day, only our second this year.  We’d been cruising alongside a road and a van came past honking madly with the occupants waving just as madly.  We responded accordingly and as they went past us, we realised they were British plated. 

We were back onboard for a call in the late afternoon with boater friends in the UK and ended up staying in for the rest of the evening.

On Friday we cruised 14 miles down six locks.

We’ve been heading north at quite a good pace for us over the last few weeks and this map shows where we’ve travelled since setting out at the end of February this year.  Since then, we’ve covered 463 miles through 289 locks.

Green flag is our current location at Stenay

We’d put Saturday aside for following Stenay's three town trails that we’d picked up at the port-cum-tourist office on Friday.   Stenay grew up as an inland port and a garrison town so should have had some interesting stories to tell.  It was the ‘Heart of the town’ trail that we started with in the morning and the descriptions of the couple of dozen points of interest certainly piqued ours.  All the trails started and finished at the tourist office which was proudly described as the town slaughterhouse until 1989.  When we saw that the third item to visit was vegetable plots, we began to realise that maybe the trail wasn’t going to live up to expectations.  Next was a lavoir that was closed to the public thus adding to our disappointment; however, the church was different to those we usually see having only been built in 1830.

Having found a house that the guide told us was built in the 1760s we started wondering about the accuracy of the leaflet.

Lintel with the date 1714 tells a different story

The town’s coat of arms is topped by the head of a devil and reading that the hôtel de ville displayed a carving of the coat of arms gave us something to look forward to.  Unfortunately, the building was shrouded in scaffolding.

The bandstand in the foreground was quite quaint and was apparently built on the site of communal ovens.

The coat of arms with the devil

Several houses had stone busts protruding under their eaves and it is believed that they represented the original owners.  Sadly for us they were so small and high up that we couldn’t see them properly let alone take pictures. The main square had arcaded buildings around two of the sides which were quite attractive.

One of the arcades built in the 16^th century

A large building that we did find stunning was the cavalry barracks built in the 1750s and is now used as offices and apartments.  In its day it housed over 300 horses with 400 beds on the first floor for the regiment.  The top two floors were used to store hay and tobacco and note the bus stop half way along.

The 144-metre-long cavalry quarter

The second of the two lavoirs on the tour was also closed to the public but in this case it was because it had been converted to a private dwelling.  The owners have bequeathed it to the inhabitants of the area in return for the town maintaining their tombstone.

Converted lavoir

During lunch we worked out a way of combining the ‘Old Town Ramparts’ and ‘Gardens & Waterways’ trails into one.   The ramparts part of the walk was a lot more interesting than the morning’s walk and quite a large proportion of the 17^th century walls remain with a good grassy path at the top.

Walking along the ramparts

A lot was made of the gates through the walls, but it was very difficult to actually make them out as they’d either been demolished by road building or formed part of, or were enclosed by, more modern structures.

Remains of the northern entrance can be seen on the corner

The guide also raved about posterns which were small hidden entrances through the walls.  This one was so hidden it had been filled in with concrete.

Marker indicating the position of an ex-postern

Apparently, the bastion de la grille was worth a visit but when we found it, it turned out to be a park which was fine, but we couldn’t walk around it as it was private with no public access. 

Walking along one of the higher points of the ramparts we were invited to see the site where Vauban, the famous French military engineer, injured his left leg in 1654!  It wasn’t completely wasted on us as we could see some likely looking walnut trees ahead but found they were in a fenced off field of cows and horses.

Rampart walls to the left and walnut trees to the right

We’ve reached that time of year when the expression, ‘that looks a likely one’ can have two meanings depending upon which of us says it.  For most of the year it means that one of us has spotted a building ahead that looks like it could be a lavoir.  At this time of year, if Karen says it, it means she thinks the tree ahead is a walnut.

The ramparts ran out as we got back to the centre of town and headed for a large 17^th century mill which had caught our eyes in the guide as it still had a waterwheel.

Several wheels used to operate machinery in its heyday

One of the last places to see was a needle dam which we’d been really looking forward to.  Alas, the guide was out of date as the needle dam no longer existed, having been replaced by a modern automated hydraulic weir.

Needless to say, we weren’t particularly impressed with the trails but both felt that of the three, the ramparts was the most interesting and worth following.

The rain held off all day, but we heard it occasionally during the night and we also heard the wind getting up, so the forecast rain and strong winds on Sunday seemed like it was going to be correct.

A wet Sunday morning on our spit of land

Sunday was indeed wet and windy, but at least it wasn’t cold when I set off at 9.00am to catch the one bus a day to Verdun to pick up the car.  The town bus stop was by the most impressive building from the previous day’s tour, the cavalry quarter.  It was handy as the building had walkways between the front and back every 20 metres so there was somewhere to shelter while waiting for the bus.  While walking to the bus stop, I'd noticed a sign dated from 1908 high up on the wall of a disused building.  It was so high that I could hardly read it.

How would cyclists read this, let alone follow the instruction?

The bus turned up on time which always seems to be the case other than the last one I caught which rapidly made up time by breaking all the speed limits as highlighted by the constant beeping each time the limit was broken.  The buses must be heavily subsidised as the fixed fare, which seems to vary by département, is either €2 or €4 for a ride of an hour or so and it’s not often there’s more than one or two of us on the bus.  Travelling by car isn't necessarily any quicker either as the buses hardly ever stop as it seems to be quite rare that passengers get on or alight.  By the time I reached Verdun it had stopped raining, so I was able to walk to the car in the dry.  On the journey back I stopped at a WWI German war cemetery where over 11,000 German soldiers were buried. 

German war graves at Consenvoye

A statement by Jean-Claude Juncker (former PM of Luxembourg and former president of the EC) at the entrance translated to: “Those who question Europe or despair about Europe should visit these military cemeteries. They show what a disunited Europe, the confrontation of the individual peoples with don’t want to join or can’t join attitudes, must lead to”.

I was back on the boat within two hours and as it rained nearly all day we stayed in with the odd short walk during each lull so we didn’t go stir crazy.

Karen worked on Monday and as Sunday’s inclement weather had been replaced by warm sunshine I got on with more painting at the rear of the boat.  I’ve repainted all the burgundy on the boat over the last year and much of the blue.  We’ve had a spotty back of the boat for a week or two as we’ve done a lot of cruising lately not leaving enough time to paint.  It’s been spotty because of the anti-rust treatment followed with red oxide.  At least I got the first coat of undercoat on the areas that will be blue, so it doesn’t look quite so bad now the spots have been covered up. 

With France making covid booster jabs available to people my age I’ve managed to make an appointment to get mine.  As France recommend six months elapse between the second and third doses I’ve booked myself in for just before we go back to England at the end of the year.

Replacing Karen’s carte de séjour is still not progressing as it has now transpired that the system that accepts requests to replace or renew cards only works for numeric card numbers.  Cards issued to Brits under the withdrawal agreement have alphanumeric identifiers, so we have to wait for IT to make the necessary changes.  Must be quite a backlog as the system caters for all changes for British residents such as addresses and names as well as replacing lost or stolen cards.

There was a chance of rain at lunchtime on Tuesday, so Buddy and I went for a good walk instead of risking doing more painting.  We went to a village called Cervizy where there was an amusingly ironic sign at the lavoir I found.  We’re used to seeing signs that say, ‘no bathing allowed’ or ‘water not drinkable’, but this was the first ‘no washing’ sign!  

There was also quite an elaborate series of water troughs where the next-door neighbour was pumping water from for his garden.

Later in the afternoon I took the car to a place called Montmédy where we would leave it until we get to Sedan when I’ll catch a train down to pick it up again.  I knew Montmédy was one of Lorraine’s famous fortified hill towns so gave myself plenty of time to look around before catching the bus back to Stenay.  The trouble was, that it started raining on the way there and was really quite heavy by the time I got there.

Over the years the town has expanded into the valley below and that’s where I planned on leaving the car and then walking up to visit the citadel at the top.  I know that’s almost a tautology but not all citadels are at the top of hills.

The citadel on the hill behind the current mairie

I have to admit to chickening out and ended up driving to the top as it was raining so hard.  It really was quite amazing and would be well worth finding out more about the history and then visiting on a fine day.  Mind you, with the weather it did mean there was no one else around.

The road going through one line of fortifications…

…and then another one further up the hill

There were a few houses, a church and a couple of bars at the top but the original mairie was in a sorry state together with some of the other buildings:

An information board explained that the town didn’t become French until 1657 and previously had been part of the Spanish Netherlands.  Vauban (he of the injured leg) was responsible for significantly improving the fortifications in the following years.

I walked around some of the ramparts but was getting drenched and was just about to turn around and go back to the car when I found an entrance that took me along a passage deep into the ramparts and could walk along in the dry for much of the way back.

By the time I got back down to the bottom of the town and found somewhere to leave the car the rain had stopped.  There were two of us on the bus and I thought that I was becoming a creature of habit as I noticed I always sit in the same seat on every journey.  Goodness knows how I’ll feel if I get on a bus one day and find someone else sitting on the left, by the window, four seats back from the front.

Having spent five nights at Stenay we’ll be setting off on Wednesday and plan to be in Sedan for the weekend.