Fumay (face to face with a beaver)

 The beautiful Meuse valley

MONDAY 1 MAY

Karen went for an early run before it got too warm on Monday morning, making use of the cycle path laid alongside the Meuse as it travels through Ardennes.  She wasn’t gone long enough to have run 130+km, but she took a few photos including the mandatory one of our mooring at Bogny-sur-Meuse for our records…

…and a skater who’d raced past her:

Soon after she returned to the boat, the supposed full sun arrived:

Not what was forecast

Fortunately, it only lasted for a couple of hours, so we were able to go for a walk during the afternoon.  Being May 1^st, it was deathly quiet on the roads, the only sounds were from people eating and drinking as we walked past their houses.  French families traditionally gather together for the day, which is both Muguet Day and Labour Day, and give each other bunches of lily of the valley (muguet) as a sign of love and good luck for the following year.  We’ve only been in small villages on previous May Days, where the sight of people carrying the flowers was commonplace, so we were pleased to see the tradition was being carried on in a town like Bogny-sur-Meuse. 

Part of our walk took us up a steep valley where the housing was built for the slate miners.  As was mentioned when we visited Nouzonville last week, we could easily have thought we were in the Welsh valleys.

Other than the splendid views we were also lucky to come across three lavoirs during our walk.

Whilst browsing a website on péniches later I came across many pictures of commercials that had been decorated for May 1^st while they were laid up for the non-working day:

Péniches having a day off

Our mooring in Bogny-sur-Meuse is against a quay the height of which is just below the top of our windows.  It’s not on a public thoroughfare but if it were, all we would see when sitting inside would be the feet of passers-by.  I’ve explained this because you can imagine our surprise, and actual shock, when a beaver suddenly appeared outside the lounge window while we were sitting on our sofa.  This was the first one we have seen, and we hadn’t realised just how big they are, or indeed how well they are doing in Ardennes.  I spent a happy hour reading about European beavers in the Ardennes and reliving early childhood memories.  As a youngster I was absolutely fascinated by the habits of the North American beaver, how and why they build dams, their lodges or homes and, of course, sometimes building channels to float their material down to their living area.

TUESDAY 2 MAY

We walked back upstream first thing on Tuesday to have a look around a place called Levrezy.  Apart from a quaint looking church and a couple of lavoirs there wasn’t much to report, especially as the old part of town was strung out beside the main road that winds its way along the bottom of the Meuse valley.

The church in Levrezy

The two lavoirs we found were typical of the sad state of the lavoirs we have come across so far in Ardennes.  Départements other than Ardennes seem to have more pride in the heritage of their lavoirs, or maybe more money to spend on them.  Those we saw in Haute Saône, in particular, were very well looked after.  The dozen or so we have found in Ardennes on this year’s trip to date have generally been either bricked up or in a sad state of repair.

One of the two lavoirs in Levrezy

The second lavoir was locked up but a broken window allowed us to see inside and that the basin and other artefacts didn’t look in too bad a shape.

The museum of iron working in Ardennes was on the outskirts of Levrezy but unfortunately wasn’t open until later in the day.  When we returned to the boat, we set off on the short hop to Monthermé.  In the centre of Bogny-sur-Meuse, we passed the town mooring which, as is becoming a theme, was devoid of boats.

Bogny-sur-Meuse town mooring devoid of boats

After going under the bridge, we were in the large loop around the town that we’d taken a picture of from the top of the hill for the last blog.  I’d been a little put out as I’d had comments that I’d stolen the photo, but at least Karen would vouch for me that it was my own work.

Leaving Bogny-sur-Meuse

A couple of kilometres later, when we were nearing Monthermé, we passed a campsite where the river Semoy joins from the right.  It’s the Meuse tributaries such as la Semoy, where beavers build their dams and lodges.  

Around the next bend we found ourselves approaching Monthermé with the long town quay on the left:

Even though there was an empty quay there were plenty of campervans to keep the capitainerie busy.  As we've sometimes seen before, the water and electricity bornes were shared between the vans and boats.  We went under the bridge in the centre of the town to see what other mooring options there were.  Alongside the mairie and the church we found a stretch of riverbank that had railings running alongside so we chose to tie to the supporting concrete posts instead of going back to the town quay.

As the posts were concrete, we needed to prevent the lines from fraying so made use of the rope protectors that we often use in locks:

The town wasn’t very large, and we had a quick walk around to find the tourist office.  While we were waiting in the queue it made us smile that the French tourist office lady was using English to communicate with a Dutch family. 

During lunch we worked out a circular walk by combining two different walks that took in viewpoints in the hills above the town. Our first target was la roche à sept heures which is the name of the remains of a slate quarry and was so named because of the way it reflects the evening light.  The English form, seven o’clock rock, has a better ring to it though.

Seven o’clock rock!

We then walked further up the hill to the top and then along the ridge to another viewpoint which was above another rock formation.  This was called la longue roche and from the town level it can be seen as one long slab of rock reaching down the hill almost to river level.  We had a good view of it from the boat:

Longue roche in the woods on the right and the boat on the left

This was the view over Monthermé from above la longue roche: 

The picture was very similar to the one we took when we walked up a hill overlooking Bogny-sur-Meuse and put in the blog.  As I mentioned earlier, we’d received comments that that picture wasn’t taken by us but nicked from the web, so to prove the latest one was ours we took a selfie:

When we got back down we noticed that Monthermé was quite busy with tourists and assumed they're probably drawn by the hill walking and views along the meandering Meuse.  An old sign in the town was testament to this indicating two more viewpoints that we hadn’t visited:

On Tuesday we cruised five kilometres through no locks.

WEDNESDAY 3 MAY

We stayed in Monthermé for another day and had the occasional wander around the town.  Even though it isn’t a large town it does have named districts.  Walking to Lyre, the westernmost district, we spotted a tell-tale sign of a lavoir across some back gardens: a semi-circular window:

Suspect, centre of picture

When we found the building, it was a lavoir as suspected but unfortunately locked shut.  An information board on the outside explained that each district of Monthermé had its own lavoir and they were all built to the same style, both outside and in.  The text also explained that the basins were raised from the ground which must have made the lavandières’ work less back breaking.  By holding a phone up to the window and taking a picture we could see the information was correct and the basins were raised which is not a common sight.  The board also mentioned (as they often do) that not only was the laundry carried out there, but it was also where the women could chat and exchange the local gossip.

The lavoir at Lyre

Walking through the district called Rowa we found another lavoir and this one had been converted to a meeting room; however, it was built to the same style as the first one we saw.

In the afternoon a couple of Brits, Dave and Wendy, called by.  They’d arrived on their boat from further upstream and were moored at the town quay.  We had a good chat for a while on everything from Brexit to narrowboats via dogs.  They were heading upstream with the aim of cruising a couple of the Burgundy canals.  Funnily enough three other boats came through during the day and they were all going in the same direction.  We did wonder if the beginning of May is a trigger for more people to get on the move.

The district we were moored in was the old town and, as well as a few narrow streets, housed the mairie and church.

Monthermé mairie

The church was originally built in the 12^th century when slate mining started in the area.  It was destroyed in 1445 but replaced within seven years by the current building.  

St-Léger church which re-opened in 1452

THURSDAY 4 MAY

We set off for Revin early on Thursday morning and had an amazingly picturesque cruise in lovely warm weather.  The scenery is getting more stunning the further north we get, the hills are higher and the hillsides steeper.  Such a shame that our photos cannot do the views justice but at least they will aid our memories when we look back at them.

We stopped for a while just short of Revin as Karen had a call with her mum and sister.  Buddy and I had a quick walk while we waited but it wasn’t particularly pleasant right by the boat as there were so many droppings from pesky Canada geese.

Canada goose nest

We hardly ever see Canada geese over here, which is how we like it, but for some reason they are now appearing in some numbers in this neck of the woods.  Fortunately, it’s nothing like as bad as they are in England where they are real pests now.  

Whilst talking about birds we had a first for us on the journey.  Although we often see kingfishers in flight and perched at rest on branches as we pass them, we saw our first one alight on the boat as we cruised.  It perched on our sack barrow for a while before it flew off.  Many years ago, on the Kennet & Avon canal, we did have one perch on our tiller arm for a while but we were moored at the time.

Moored for Karen's call outside Revin

It looks a peaceful spot to moor until you see what’s behind us:

The sound of the weir would be just too loud for us to have a good night’s sleep.

It was only a short hop to Revin after Karen’s call, and we moored up in the port where there were already four other boats each from a different country:

We met the other boaters during the afternoon and between us we represented the UK, France, Switzerland, Belgium and Holland so it made for some interesting conversations.  Now we’re further north we had to pay to stop overnight and at 12.50€ including electricity and water it seemed very reasonable.  We took advantage and got some washing done which soon dried in the warm sun and river breeze.  The mooring was very pleasant as not only was it secure with coded entry gates, but it had tennis and boule courts as well as a large playpark.

Looking south at our Revin mooring

On Thursday we cruised 21 km down four locks.

FRIDAY 5 MAY

I know I’ve mentioned before about how quiet the Meuse is in France, but it’s occurred to us that one of the reasons is that there is no commercial traffic until it reaches Belgium.  We haven’t seen a commercial since leaving the Moselle over four weeks ago but with four pleasure boats on each of the last two days it’s certainly now starting to feel like it’s getting busy.

We decided to leave following the town trail around Revin until we stay there on our return journey, so on Friday morning while Karen went for a run, I just had a brief walk with Buddy and a few things caught my eye.  Several half- timbered houses on the riverside in Revin date from the 16^th century when the Spanish ruled this part of France and the largest one is known as the Spanish House in all the tourist literature:

La Maison Espagnole

Around the corner was the mairie complete with a tricolour and a Ukrainian flag but no EU flag.

We’ve only seen two mairies without flags so have always thought that the French and EU flags have to be flown whereas we’ve assumed the Ukrainian flag is optional even though most mairies are flying one like this one in Revin.  We’ve been reading this week that there is no legal requirement to fly any flags and there is currently some controversy as the government want to introduce a bill to make the flying of the EU flag compulsory on mairies.  I think, understandably, people would rather government money be better spent on other schemes rather than that particular bill.

In the middle of the old town a water pump was hidden away in a narrow side street, and it was so large that its top reached to the first floor of the house it stood outside.  It must’ve taken some effort to draw water:

Karen came back from her run all excited and clutching some bunches of wild garlic that would be used for dinner that evening.  We’ve not come across any this year, and it did feel like it was getting rather late in the season; however, the plants growing along the banks of the river where she ran were still fresh.

We set off for Fumay later in the morning and one of the first things we had to negotiate was a short tunnel which had been built as a short cut to avoid the large meander of the river almost encircling the town.  The approach to the tunnel was on a stretch of river that had quite a heavy flow and as we were heading downstream, we had to keep circling whilst waiting for the tunnel light to turn green to avoid being carried past the entrance to the tunnel.  The process was made longer as there was a lock at the far side of the tunnel and that had to be set before we were allowed through. 

The roughly hewn Revin tunnel

Needle dams have always fascinated us, and we have included in previous blog entries examples of dams that are still in use as well as alternative uses that have been found for the old wooden needles or aiguilles.  The few needle dams that remain are slowly being replaced by modern hydraulic barrages so it’s always good the needles are being preserved in one way or another.  The cottage at one of the locks had used a few in their porch while keeping the traditional colouring:

As we are becoming accustomed to over the last couple of weeks, our journey was a series of large meanders around wooded hillsides:

Fumay around the corner

As we approached the town quay, we could see all 200+ metres was completely empty:

Soon after tying up, we heard our only boat of the day approaching which, at first sight, looked to be a downmarket hotel boat.  It turned out to be one of those that offer bed and breakfast for their guests who then cycle to the next overnight stop.

To give an idea of how long the town quay is, here is a picture of us taken from halfway along:

On Friday we cruised 10.5km down three locks.

SATURDAY 6 MAY

We stayed put in Fumay on Saturday so we could look around the town, watch the coronation procession and have a hill walk during the afternoon.  Fortunately we only have to store one set of bunting on the boat as it works for both French and British celebrations:

We were impressed with Fumay, there were very few run-down houses and some of the buildings were quite stunning.  It did seem that most places, including restaurants, weren’t opening until May 8^th which probably explained why there weren’t many tourists around.  The capitainerie wasn't opening until May 8^th either which meant the services weren't switched on yet.  That probably explained why there weren't any other boats there as it seems most people want to hook up to electricity when they're moored. 

Looking at some of the pictures we took during the day you would be forgiven for not believing that it remained warm and dry all day.  

A château, built in the late 1600s stands proudly by the river in the centre of town:

Château des Comte de Bryas

The mairie had extra flags on display in preparation for VE day on May 8^th:..

…as did the war memorial:

Locally made slate was used as a building material in many of the buildings including the chapelle Saint-Roch erected in 1662 to mark the end of a plague epidemic:

After our walk around the town, we made our way back down the river to complete our circular walk.  At one particularly peaceful spot some ground works were going on and we realised a campervan park was being constructed.  It was such a lovely location that it made Karen say that it’s that sort of place that would make her live in a camper.  It reminded us that when looking at the planning notices at the mairie that one of them was all about the new campervan park and what the proposed rules and regulations would be.

During our afternoon walk we could see down to the only remaining slate mine pithead in Fumay.  Apparently, over eight centuries, there were more than 300 slate quarries and mines in Fumay, this mine was the last to cease production which was in 1934:

Like several of our walks over the last couple of weeks we had good views over the town where we were moored.  The church of Fumay can be seen in this shot standing proud on a small mound in the centre of the town.  The quay, where we were moored at the far end, is at the far side of the river bridge.

Looking over Fumay

At one point we came across a patch of what we initially thought were lily of the valley plants about to flower.  We were corrected later by Steve, the family plant expert, who explained that they were actually Solomon’s seal.  Although Solomon's seal also displays white flowers, they are longer in shape. Also, its leaves grow alternately up the stem unlike those of the lily of the valley which grow in pairs.

Later on, we found there was a trail to follow from the town that takes in some of the old slate mining operations, so we’ll probably do that in the morning before moving on to our next stop.