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| Peaceful mooring at the summit of the canal de la Marne au Rhin (ouest) |
Sunday 3 May
It was a bit cloudy when we awoke on Sunday morning but at least it was still warm. We took advantage of a need for some paneer to explore parts of Nancy that we hadn’t been to before. None of the normal supermarkets seem to stock the Indian cheese over here so it was off to the ethnic areas. We tried Greek, Turkish, Kurdistani, a non-identifiable Asian shop and a couple of other ones that were more cosmopolitan, but to no avail. Strangely we came across halloumi in a few of the stores and the only major French supermarket we’ve ever found it in before is Grand Frais, a slightly upmarket Waitrose.
After giving up hope we sat at a bar in Stanislas Square for
a couple of hours. You can’t be a tourist in Nancy without seeing and taking in
the splendour of the famous square.
As it was the afternoon I fancied beer and soon realised
that I’d misread the beer menu and it was twice as strong as I thought it was
going to be so after a couple I joined Karen in drinking a sensible rosé. At one point we were entertained by an older couple for 30
minutes or so doing some sort of photo shoot with him taking the pictures and
her wearing different shawls.
On the way back to the boat we wandered around a garden for
a while and were surprised how far advanced some of the plants were, such as the
aliums, compared with ours back at home.
The blossom on one tree was particularly striking. We’d not heard of Chionanthus
retusus before but could understand why one of its common names is snow
tree.
We called in at the port on the way home to the boat and saw that
the Dutch hybrid boat that we’d locked down with in Sommerviller last week was
moored up but all was quiet on board.
The port capitaine came
out of his office to see if we needed any help and we took advantage by finding
out what the overnight charge for motorhomes was. Many inland French ports also
have an area set aside for motorhomes. The area was practically full which wasn’t
surprising as it was just a short walk into the old town. He also showed us more
information on the redevelopment of the two basins:
It started drizzling so we took the short route home,
passing Porte Sainte Catherine, the namesake of the basin we were moored in.
The rain didn't last long and stopped soon after we were back on board.
Monday 4 May 2026
Monday was get rid of the car day. I left the boat before
the commuter rush into Nancy started, to drive the 200 km to Pont à Bar which is
just to the north west of Sedan. The first half of the journey was on an autoroute
to the other side of Metz and then onto wonderful undulating open roads through the
odd small village with very little traffic to speak of. I crossed into Belgium four
times and at each border crossing point the old customs houses were still
standing but were now either abandoned or converted to private residences.
Arriving at the boat yard in Pont-à-Bar I sought out Benedicté
the capitaine and she showed me to a secure place to leave the car for the next
six weeks or so. I was looking forward to the first stage of the journey back
to Nancy walking along the Meuse to the railway station at Nouvion-sur-Meuse as
I had been hoping to do some butterflying on the way. Sadly it started drizzling
as I set off so there was no chance of seeing any butterflies. As well as reminiscing
about when we travelled down the Meuse there were a few physical reminders at
locks and bridges of the sacrifices made by the locals in both World Wars:
At the first lock an information board explained how in WWI a
small company managed to cross the Meuse under machine gun fire and recapture a
village on the other side. A sad footnote explained that one of the company was
the last French soldier to be killed – less than one hour before the Armistice was declared.
I crossed the Meuse to get into Nouvion-sur-Meuse and the
photo below shows how miserable the weather was:
On the bridge was a memorial to the men of the village who
died defending the bridge and the village during WWI.
I’d hoped to have a look around the village before catching
the train but it started raining more persistently so I stood in the shelter of the
desolate looking platform for 45 minutes until the train arrived.
It was there that there was yet another memorial, this time
to the men of the two local railway stations who died during WWII:
As usual, the train arrived spot on time and I was looking
forward to wandering around Reims for an hour while I waited for the train to
Nancy. I was checking train times and it transpired that the interchange station
for the train back to Nancy was the TGV station at Reims which was 20 minutes
outside the city thus putting paid to revisiting Reims. The French are really into food dispensers
such as breads, pastries and pizzas in villages that have lost their
boulangeries but the TGV station had a honey dispenser, the first I’ve come
across. It seemed such a strange place to have one, especially with seven
different varieties.
The rain stopped whilst I waited for the train to Nancy and
when I got back to the boat Karen told me it hadn’t rained all day; however, it
had been very noisy due to the work going on in our basin as it was no longer the
weekend.
I did wonder if the two rings we’re moored on will be removed once they start charging at the revamped ports.
Tuesday 5 May
We’d decided last night that we’d leave Nancy on Tuesday
morning unless it was tipping down with rain. As it was, it was dry when we
awoke but started drizzling whilst we had breakfast but as the forecast was only
for light rain we thought we’d continue with our plan. In order to leave the
basin we were in we had to get a lift bridge raised. We’d noticed over the last
few days that it had two red lights on until 9am and assumed, unlike the rest
of the canal, it couldn’t be used from 7am and boaters would have to wait until
the commuter traffic had gone into Nancy. It seemed we were right in our
assumption as a German boat came past us at about 7.30am heading to the bridge but couldn’t get
it working. They moored up behind us and had obviously rung VNF and been told
to wait until 9am. The two red lights went out dead on 9am and they were soon through the bridge and about 20 minutes after that we set off too.
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| Bridge rising for us - traffic building up even though it was 9.20am |
After the bridge we immediately passed a long line of liveaboards in various states of repair.
The next ten km or so was mainly past old canal related buildings
which must have been really busy in the canal’s heyday. We then reached a sharp right hand turn which
looked like a junction.
Until the 1960s the canal de la Marne au Rhin continued straight on to Toul and then over 100 km further to Vitry-le-François in the Marne valley. The middle section between here and Toul was
abandoned in favour of the Moselle whose locks were improved at the same time
to accommodate 180-metre-long boats. The
right turn took us down a deep lock onto the Moselle which
we would follow all the way to Toul to rejoin the other end of the canal.
Coming out of the lock we were onto an arm off the main Moselle
that was used by large commercials to unload coal at the wharves along the arm.
Arriving at the lock at the end of the arm that would take us onto the Moselle
proper we saw the German boat from earlier leaving the lock side mooring and
going in ahead of us. They must have been really pissed off having to wait for us for what
was probably up to an hour but then the wait is understandable as you can imagine
how much water is wasted in the turn of a 185 x 12 metre lock. As we left the
lock the éclusier came down from his control tower and asked if he could take
some pictures of us.
The signs indicating which arch of a bridge to take seem a
little illogical when first encountered. A single yellow diamond indicates two-way
traffic whereas a pair of diamonds indicates one way only. The railway bridge below has two diamonds
showing that we have to go through that arch and boats cannot come through in
the opposite direction; they would be directed through one of the other arches.
Even more confusing at the bridge above is we pass through on the wrong side of the river, downstream boats would be coming through the arch to the right of ours. This is because there had just been a sharp bend in the river and large upstream vessels would want to hug the inside of the bend to avoid the higher flow rate present on the outside.
Liverdun is a most picturesque town perched on a hillside
over the river and we've spent a few glorious days exploring in a previous summer. When we went through today in the dismal weather it did look rather non-descript:
The abandoned stretch of canal used to cross the Moselle at
Liverdun on an aqueduct and then pass through a tunnel under the town. The aqueduct was removed and all that can be
seen nowadays are stone abutments on either bank of the river. This is a old postcard
of Liverdun and the aqueduct:
Having mentioned about the Germans having to wait for us at
a lock to avoid wasting water we went up three locks on the Moselle totally on
our own. Strangely it was the first time
we’ve been on a French river and not seen a single commercial.
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| Entering écluse d’Aigneray |
With light rain all day the views of the hills alongside the river were rather forlorn:
Apart from waiting for 30 minutes, with no reason given, before
being allowed into one lock all the locks were prepared as soon as we radioed
the éclusiers. Karen reckoned that as there were no commercials around, the
delay was because the éclusier was taking his lunch or having a nap as we were
just plaisanciers (pleasure boaters).
Approaching Toul we took a right hand turn off the river and up a lock and back onto the canal de la Marne au Rhin. Coming out of the lock we saw the other end of the canal section that had been abandoned between Nancy and Toul. The original canal opened in 1853 and was 313 kms long making it the longest canal in France. As the canal is now in two sections, clearly shown on this map, it is now referred to as two canals with the same name but suffixed with either east or west:
So we had left the eastern section and were now going to
travel the length of the western side before heading north, a journey we’ve
done a couple of times before. Arriving in
Toul we had to wait for a lift bridge to open. As with many of the locks on
this canal it is triggered when the boat breaks a detector beam that spans the
waterway. I felt a bit guilty after going through the bridge as two red lights
came on indicating that it had gone out of action. The bridge was stuck in the
upright position and I noticed that there were two buses in the queues of
traffic either side. To help assuage any
guilt, in case it was my fault, I rang VNF to report the issue and hopefully they
resolved it remotely from the control centre.
Toul was a heavily fortified town with defences designed in the 17th century by the famous French military engineer, Vauban. Most of these defences are still intact and we passed through a canon emplacement before mooring up for the day alongside some fortifications below the town lock. Obviously, this part of the wall was rebuilt when the canal had to go through it.
On Tuesday we cruised 36 km down two and up five locks and saw two boats, one hired and one private.
Wednesday dawned quite bright although the forecast was for
a cloudy day.
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| Our mooring below the town lock in Toul |
Karen went for an early run around a hill on the northern side of town while I had a less strenuous wander around the town. I know I said a week ago or so that I would try to avoid mentioning my interest in the old electric locos that until the 1970s pulled péniches along the waterways. I can’t help but include a picture in this blog update as there were two of these locos on display at the entrance to the town port.
After breakfast we had a pleasant walk around part of the Toul
fortifications to do some food shopping. Even though we’d been to the supermarket
before we took a different route to one we'd been on previously.
We were surprised as it was exactly the sort of way we would have walked with Buddy
in order to keep him away from the hot pavements in the summer. At one point we
walked under a bridge that led across a moat and through the remains of one of
the city gates:
Once we’d completed our food shopping we retraced our steps,
obviously looking like boaters with backpacks and bags.
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| Narrowboater's walk |
After lunch we set off up the flight of locks through the western end of Toul. This flight usually operates as a chain where the next lock is set automatically whilst the boat is going through the previous lock. This automation can’t have been working properly as an éclusiere saw us through the first two locks and then an éclusier took over for the rest of the flight. He was what we described as a maverick and seemed intent on getting us up the flight as quickly as possible. We didn’t mind as it kept raining every so often and wanted to get to the top to moor up for the day.
He was a bit naughty really as he kept trying to open the
gates for us before the lock was ready which can’t have been good for the mechanism.
He was trying all sorts of other short cuts too but at least he made sure we
were ready in each lock before opening the paddles for us so we felt safe.
Once at the top of the flight we went through a short tunnel
which, unusually for France, was unlit but then we remembered that the éclusier
had told us the traffic lights weren’t working so we should go straight
through. We assumed the lack of lighting
was linked to the unavailability of the traffic lights.
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| Passing through Foug tunnel |
We’ve been through nearly all the canal tunnels in England and Wales and, apart from a couple, they are all unlit which is a bit incongruous bearing in mind how H&S mad our country is. French attitude seems to be the opposite, scant regard to H&S other than in canal tunnels which are generally lit.
Coming out the other side we moored at a place called Lay-St-Rémy, a place we’ve never moored at before as we always had Buddy with us and goats roam free along the bankside.
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| Garish coloured mooring bollards at Lay-St-Rémy |
On Wednesday we cruised 10.5 km up 13 locks and saw no boats.
Thursday 7 May
There was a knocking on the roof about 9.30am so I popped my
head outside and saw two éclusiers. They
wondered if we were moving today as they would need to be with us at the next
set of locks. As those locks were about 17 km away I said we wouldn’t get that
far so wouldn’t need them and off they happily went.
Before setting off we had a walk to Lay-St-Rémy to stretch our legs. Funnily enough when we left the canal to join the road into the village, we passed an information board about the towing locos with a few old pictures of them in use on this stretch of canal.
We walked along each street in the village, of which there weren’t many, but this one we had to investigate:
At the end of rue du Lavoir we found what was once a lavoir
but was now being used to store village effects. The animal trough and two pumps outside
gave the building away plus the fact that it was open to the air at the top of
the side walls.
A lady came out of a house to walk her dog and I asked her
about the lavoir. She was very sad it was closed as she remembered going there
with her mother and grandmother and also used it herself until it was taken out
of operation. She was also sad because there weren’t any plans currently to
renovate it. She had no English but managed to provide this information and
explain she’d lived in the village all her life. We couldn’t be sure of the other things she
told us but at least we understood the lavoir information.
After Monday’s sad reminders of the two World Wars when I walked
along the Meuse we saw this tragic memory of two villagers by the war memorial:
Even though the village was small it still had a school. It was
rather charmingly advertised, complete with an homage to the canal, on the side
of the mairie which also housed the salle des fêtes.
Walking back to the boat we could hear the sound of an
engine and thought we had company but soon realised that it was a weedcutter
clearing the basin next to where we were moored.
We had a lock-free journey to Void without any mishaps,
passing the entrance to the canal de Meuse shortly before crossing the Meuse
itself.
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| No lights at lock because the canal is closed |
We had planned on travelling the length of the Meuse into Belgium
this year but it has been closed at this, the upper end. The idea is that as commercials
rarely use this end, closing it will save water used by people like us and the
scarce supplies be used further downstream where the freight traffic starts.
Arriving in Void we saw there was a fishing competition
going on and went to moor in front of the VNF office next to the large grain silos. Fortunately, Karen was at the front getting
ready to moor up as she saw that the guy on the permanently moored cruiser also had rods
out and she was able to warn me to swerve aside just in time.
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| Moored in Void on Thursday night |
It hadn’t rained all day, but it hadn’t been warm either and once we’d secured the boat we went for a walk around the town. Although we’ve been before, we hadn’t taken pictures of the war memorial or hôtel de ville:
We’d found a lavoir in Void on the previous visit so walked out there again to get another picture for this blog entry.
On Thursday we cruised 16 km through no locks and saw no
boats.
Friday 8 May 2026
After three days with hardly a glimpse of the sun it felt
good to wake up to bright sunshine with a promise of warm weather once again.
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| Morning in Void |
The plan for the day was to get up to the summit of the canal and through a five km long tunnel before mooring up for the day. This meant ascending a flight of 12 locks which operate in a chain where the next lock sets itself whilst we’re going through the previous lock. We used the flight in 2021 and 2022 and in both years found the locks problematical thus needing several calls to VNF. Things obviously haven’t improved as an éclusier now takes boaters through the flight. The upside of this is that the journey is both simpler and quicker with the downside being that we had agree a time to meet at the first lock which we chose as 9.30am.
We were about to set off when a French couple came up to us and
said they’d been told to go up with us and we agreed how we would position ourselves
in the locks through the use of pencilled diagrams! We assembled at the first
lock at 9.15am and in the end had to wait until 11am before starting the ascent.
This was because there had been a problem with one of the locks on the flight
that needed fixing first. At least VNF
kept us informed of progress while we were waiting.
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| Leaving Void |
An éclusier saw us all the way up which meant we got up in record time even though he had to stop for lunch for 20 minutes which he laid out on the bonnet of his van:
At the summit we approached the entrance to Mauvages tunnel. At five km in length, it is the second longest canal tunnel still in use in France. As with an earlier mention of health and safety it came into play here too. We had to wait at the entrance to be handed a gas mask box each and were told not to open them as they were for use only in event of pollution. In a way that was understandable as there were no air vents in the tunnel, but what we couldn’t understand was that the éclusier cycled alongside us the whole way through. At least it was great exercise for him as once we were through he had to cycle back, holding our gas masks, to retrieve his van.
We’d
let the French couple go through first in their cruiser as they travelled a lot faster than a narrowboat and we soon
lost sight of them. We moored up soon after exiting the tunnel by the defunct
buildings that were used for servicing the boat that used to tow trains of barges
through the tunnel.
The
tower (touer) is in a sorry state and had deteriorated even in the four years
since we were last here. On the selfish front it’s a wonderfully quiet and
peaceful mooring for us.
As is our wont we had a walk around the area including
checking the facilities at the first lock on the long descent down to the Marne
valley and then the Seine. We find it
incredible that it’s all downhill from here until Paris, 350 km away. The lock
cottage at the first lock used to house a small VNF office but it was no longer
in use and the building and lockside looked in a sorry state. It used to be a good place to take on water
but that was now out of service too.
There were plenty of butterflies out and about including our
first small blue and grizzled skippers of the year.
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| Grizzled skipper posing for us |
We also saw several small heaths:
On a patch of garlic mustard we found an orange tip egg. The
caterpillars of the orange tip butterfly are cannibalistic so the female only
lays one egg on each plant, usually garlic mustard or cuckoo flower.
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| Orange egg of the orange tip butterfly |
Near our mooring was an old electric towing loco shed and I thought last time we checked it there were two locos in there. Looking inside this time we could only see one so once back at the boat I checked my photos and found that my memory had played tricks on me and that there was only one there previously.
We were pleased the good weather had returned as it meant we could sit outside during the evening, something that we hadn’t been able to do for four days.
On Friday we cruised 18 km, up 12 locks, through one tunnel
and saw one boat.
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