Bogny-sur-Meuse (still no boats)

Bogny-sur-Meuse - where are we moored?

WEDNESDAY 26 APRIL

Fog was a bit of a surprise on the river on Wednesday morning at Lumes.  When we got up we couldn't even see across the river, however, the sun soon broke through.

Nearly cleared at Lumes

We had an easy morning, did a bit of butterflying and caught up with some admin.  I always feel guilty when I say we’ve taken it easy as it usually involves a run for Karen.  Whilst on her run she saw more beaver-gnawed trees such as this one:

After lunch we were just about to cast off when a Dutch couple, who were cycling past, came over to talk with us.  They were very interested in our lifestyle as it transpired that they’ve been bikepacking for three years all over the world .  They didn’t seem much younger than us and explained that they generally cycle 100km a day, spending summers in the northern hemisphere and winters in the southern.  Clearly, they carried very little with them, the largest items being their tent and sleeping bags.

We were heading for the large town of Charleville-Mézières which is a conurbation, officially named in 1966, of Charleville to the north separated by the river from Mézières to the south.  It wasn’t too far away and after an hour or so we were heading into Mézières and moored in the lock cut above the town lock against an old quay.  It was a little problematical as the quay was higher than us.

That’s not usually a problem as we climb onto the roof and step across to get on or off. On this quay a large wooden bumper held us out from the side making it unsafe to use the roof to gain access, but the bumper was ideal to tie to.  We’d moored the back end against some steps which, for some peculiar reason, finished over a metre above the deck.  It did mean we had to make ungainly entrances and exits and ensure one of us was up top and one on deck when letting Buddy jump on or off.

We were leaving a tour of Mézières until the next day but noticed that just ahead of us were some ramparts and even an old city gate so wandered down to the lock to have a look.  In a typical planner’s nightmare large apartment blocks took away the serenity of the old walls and the 16^th century gate.  The disused 19^th century lock cottage to the left and below the gate wasn’t so out of place though.

Lock cottage, ramparts and the porte de Bourgogne

On Wednesday we cruised six km down one lock.

THURSDAY 27 APRIL

Catching the rising sun in Mézières

There didn’t seem to be a tourist office in Mézières, so Karen did a web search for local attractions and devised a walking tour around the town for the morning.  The town was fortified from the 13^th century and most of the ramparts and towers that remain date from the 1500s.  The citadel inside must have been impressive from afar especially as such a large area was enclosed.  Nowadays, the town is a mixture of old and new with some odd modern styles in places.  The river Meuse forms a loop almost the entire way around the town and the lock cut we were moored in completed the circle.  Karen started the tour from the porte de Bourgogne just down from our mooring.

The porte de Bourgogne

There were several vaulted rooms inside the gate, and it was only when walking through to the other side and looking back that we realised the apartment block was built onto the gate and walls:

In a garden in the maze of apartment blocks we found a statue of Jean Rogissart, a local 19^th century author, but as the garden was private, we couldn’t really see the statue.

Statue of Jean Rogissart

Here are some more pictures of the ramparts and towers:

This was called tour du roi (King Tower)

The Union Jack was still flying on one of the many bridges across the Meuse and the backwaters through the town.

The main square can be seen just across this bridge

The largest church in town

War memorial in the main square

The préfecture was an impressive building and had obviously been recently cleaned.  We'd noticed ‘I love Charleville-Mézières’ logos all over the place but the one in front of the préfecture didn’t really enhance the look of the place.

The préfecture

It was an impressive building from the rear too if you ignore the modern extensions:

The last attraction to see was a piece of street art simply titled, Arbre:

It was nice and quiet at our mooring but, because it wasn’t easy for Buddy, we decided to carry on a little way in the afternoon to see if we could find a mooring in Charleville.  We dropped down the lock by our mooring and after a couple of kilometres we were in Charleville.  We found an old low quay with a few bollards opposite the port and moored up there.  It was on a small island containing a park and had access to the town via a footbridge.

Moored in Charleville

We were only 400 metres away from place Ducale, the main square in the town and where the tourist office was located, so we took a walk up there to pick up a couple of town trails.  As we’d had a trail in the morning, we decided to leave any further exploring until tomorrow and sat at a bar to work out a plan.

On Thursday we cruised 2.5km down one lock.

FRIDAY 28 APRIL

Looking at the map for the rest of our journey down to the border with Belgium, each town tends to be situated within a large arc of the river. It makes sense, as having a river practically all the way around a town makes for additional natural defences. Both Mézières and Charleville where we’ve stayed for the last few days are good examples. What is now the large town of Charleville-Mézières sprawls over the four loops in the picture below with Mézières in the lower loop and the old part of Charleville in the loop above it.

Goodness knows what’s happening to the weather at the moment. Since we’ve been back the two-week forecast keeps saying the warm and dry weather will start in a few days’ time, but it never seems to arrive. Friday was a good case in point: rather than the expected full sun from first thing and temperatures in the 20s, we awoke to grey skies. It was actually better for us as we planned to be sightseeing and dragging Buddy around pavements for hours in the sun isn’t fair.

Much of Charleville’s wealth arose from the many iron and steel companies based in the town. Not many exist nowadays but Deville, who now make stoves, are still based there: 

As with many towns, Charleville’s layout includes many squares based around the central square, place Ducale, which was built in the early 1600s. As you would expect it is now mainly occupied by bars and restaurants to attract the large tourist trade:

Place Ducale

A small fountain was placed centrally in the square as can just be seen in the picture above, but it seemed rather out of character with such a large square. Later in our tour we came across a much larger fountain with a statue of Charles de Gonzague, the designer of Charleville around 1600, and found out that it was originally placed in the main square. For a reason that wasn’t explained it was moved to its present location in 1999.

The moved statue of Charles de Gonzague

Whilst walking around we were checking every bar to see if they were showing the England-France match on Saturday but, considering how big women’s rugby is over here, we couldn’t find a single bar. In fact, for some strange reason, we didn’t come across any sports bars with TVs, maybe they concentrate more on tourists.

One of the squares was renamed place Winston Churchill and was the site of the town war memorial:

The square also contained the international institute of puppetry, a puppet museum and the national school of puppetry which rather explains why Charleville-Mézières always hosts the world puppet festival. In the corner of the square the entrance to the museum housed a large puppet that puts on a display on the hour during the daylight hours. The display varies throughout the day and each display shows a different scene from a medieval tale called the Four Aymon Sons:

Curtain reveals various scenes

In one square that was originally the site of several religious buildings many double crosses could be seen on the walls. These crosses are more usually found in eastern European countries where they’re known as Byzantine crosses and even appear on several of the national flags such as Slovakia's. What we hadn’t known was that they are often found in this part of France where they are called Lorraine crosses and were used as a symbol of the Free France movement in WWII. Interestingly none of this was explained on the town trail but my research seems to be well founded.

A couple of Lorraine crosses

The area between the two towns is known as the Art Deco area and there were some interesting buildings along the side streets including what were once the public baths:

The remaining houses of the era were private dwellings and here’s a couple of them:

On a small square on the edge of the Art Deco area stood a grand 19th century building complete with large statues portraying the 15th century knight Bayard and a couple of his squires.

The tour took us near the station and as we needed to go the Amazon locker to pick up a couple of French flags that we’d ordered for the boat we took a slight detour to retrieve them. After that we were directed to the EDF building which was nothing like we were expecting:

Erected in 1962, the EDF building has been given a French Outstanding Contemporary Architecture award. Although not on the tour we did come across a couple of lavoirs including one with a ghost advertising sign and modern wheelie bins.

Walking back along the riverside we had a good view of the island where we were moored and an old mill on the smaller non-navigable channel. We were moored just out of sight by the footbridge on the other side of the island to the mill.

The mill was built in 1626 to the same attractive style as the buildings on place Ducale and many of the other town buildings. It now houses the Arthur Rimbaud museum in memory of the poet born in the town in 1854 and who spent his early life in the mill. Apparently, his works were a great influence on the Symbolism movement, something that means nothing to me but would easily have been explained by my mother and by at least one of my siblings.

Along the pavement outside the museum stood an art installation, not on the tour, commemorating some of the poet’s poetry. This was a series of fixed bright metal chairs inscribed with extracts that were the favourites of other literary artists who visited Rimbaud in Charleville. For those interested there is also an Arthur Rimbaud trail around the town.

Chairs by Canadian artist, Michel Goulet

Back at the boat we noticed that one of Buddy’s armpits looked sore with raised red marks. Knowing that there are now many invasive plants in Europe and the UK that irritate animal and human skin we got an appointment with a vet in town. We were seen within the hour (we never seem to have a problem getting appointments with French vets) and the vet gave him an injection. Fingers crossed, the rash subsided, and he seems to have been alright since. We’re normally careful where we let him wander by the water and mustn’t have noticed a patch of likely looking vegetation.

SATURDAY 29 APRIL

With labour day taken seriously in Europe, as opposed to in the UK, all the locks would be closed on May 1st and, as we wanted to reach a place called Bogny-sur-Meuse by the beginning of the week we cruised part way on Saturday. After another quick look around Charleville and a visit to the market we set off for our next planned stop at Nouzonville. We were soon out into the Ardennes countryside and noticed it was getting hillier as we travelled north.

Arriving in Nouzonville

The much-anticipated England-France ladies’ rugby match started in the early afternoon, so we made sure we were moored up and ready for the kick off. What a tense game it was, with both sides profiting too many times from mistakes by the other. It was made worse as we had been in two minds who to support during the build-up this week. We finally decided we couldn’t change our allegiances to France although they would have deserved to have come good in the second half.

On Saturday we cruised 7.5km down one lock.

SUNDAY 30 APRIL

Early morning in Nouzonville

We went for a walk around Nouzonville during the morning and soon realised the town was larger than we’d thought it was.  Nouzonville grew up on the back of slate mining and iron production and slate was very much in evidence as a building material.  The town was situated on the steep valley sides of a small river running down to join the Meuse making us feel like we were in a Welsh valley town.  The three houses to the left in the next picture exhibit three different building materials: slate, stone and brick.

The slate walls at the bottom of the picture were surrounding a lavoir:

To be honest most parts of the town felt quite dismal, but I suppose it may have been different on a sunny day.  Here are some more pictures from the town:

The church

The mairie

The war memorial

We set off for Bogny-sur-Meuse later in the morning and even though it wasn’t sunny it was a pleasantly warm day.  The scenery was wonderful so we didn’t mind having lunch in the first lock while waiting for VNF to arrive to remove a branch that was stopping the top gates closing.

Lunch in the lock – yes, that’s Buddy being inquisitive

A Belgian family on bikes were having a picnic lockside and the father asked me if I had any Allen keys as he needed to make some adjustments to his bike.  I lent him my set and he returned them just as the éclusier arrived.

We’re used to flood level markers on bridges and beside locks and they are usually metal plates stamped with the date the level reached the height shown.  The ones at this lock were the most rudimentary we’ve seen:

It’s hard to imagine how terrifying it must have been to be close to the Meuse when it reached the levels shown.  

Here are some of the views during our cruise.

Passing through Joigny  

Approaching the lock in Bogny-sur-Meuse

We found a quay with rings set in the wall and moored up for the day.  It was diagonally opposite a busy campervan park and only a short walk into town.

Moored in Bogny-sur-Meuse

During the afternoon we went on a good walk taking in two hills, one on each side of the river.  The picture at the top of this entry is from the first hill we walked up.  On the way we passed the market halls:

Next to the bridge, joining the two sides of the town, stood a large iron horse which we learnt was by Éric Sleziak.  He is the sculptor who created the massive Woinic boar that can be seen on the A34 autoroute as it passes a service station in the Ardennes.

Le Cheval Bayard

At the top of the first hill was another statue, again by Éric Sleziak, and an information board indicated that the sculptor was born in the town, hence the number of his creations that are displayed there.

Statue du Chevalier Dardennor

The statue was looking over to the second hill we were going to climb where yet another statue had been placed. This one wasn’t by Éric Sleziak but by Albert Poncin who started it in 1932 and took 18 years to complete. It was yet another depiction of the Four Sons of Aymon that we’d come across in Charleville-Mézières together with the horse Bayard as in the earlier, riverside statue.

This picture only shows three of the sons

 As the river will be closed for labour day tomorrow, we’ll be staying put and doing some more exploring.

On Sunday we cruised 10 km down two locks.