Cruising Stats 2023

It probably shouldn't have surprised us that the end-of-season nerves associated with making sure that everything that needs to be done does get done has removed our urge for last-minute "field trips" this week. So, we're using the available time to get things done in a leisurely and relaxed manner. Using up our remaining groceries with little waste always makes me feel a sense of accomplishment, and we're enjoying dinners at local restaurants to fill in the culinary gaps.

Last night's dinner was crepes on the terrace of Creperie du Pont. We could see
 this intrepid cat using the open window for a bird's eye view of its surroundings.

We're not unhappy about getting back to Florida, but we will miss the view from the boat.

Herewith, some statistics from our 2023 cruising season:

We started cruising on May 3, 2023, from Port Cergy, west of Paris. After completing nearly a full circle to the north and east of Paris, we arrived in Paris the first week of June and spent 3 weeks there. Time in Paris included a Seine River cruise. We left Paris on June 27 and arrived in the city of Auxerre (a little over 100 miles to the SE of Paris as the bird flies, 126 miles by boat) on July 10. A short, maintenance-aborted cruise on the Nivernais Canal and an afternoon cruise out of Auxerre with family were the only cruising we did from mid-July until now. In hindsight, it would have been nice to have cruised a bit more during the latter part of the summer, but a number of factors--such as intense heat waves intermixed with periods of rain--worked against that. All in all, however, it was a great summer and we met the major milestones we'd hoped for prior to the start of the season--with nary a "Plan B" in sight.

Number of cruising days: 38

Total engine hours: 144.1

Distance cruised: 735 km (441 miles)

132 locks

1 swing bridge

3 tunnels

Saturday will be a busy day, with loads of laundry to wash and a final cleaning of the boat. We're spending Saturday night in a local hotel so that we don't leave the boat with "slept-in" sheets for 6 months. After the final tasks of Sunday morning we'll be on a train to Paris Sunday afternoon, and will spend a couple of days in central Paris before heading to an airport hotel on October 3 in preparation for departure back to the U.S. the next day.

Field Trip Time

One of the effects of having had the boat painted last year has been the substantial diminishment of time needed for end-of-season work projects. In 2019 we spent days and days repairing and prepping and repainting the roof of the salon. Last year--and this year--paint touch-ups have needed to be done to cover up small scrapes that are a natural result of cruising, but the effort required is nothing compared to what would be required had we still needed to repaint the entire exterior of C.A.R.I.B. III. We've been happy to turn the available time into a few "field trips".

On Thursday, September 14, an hour on the bicycles got us to the village of Pontigny, about 20 km to the northeast of Auxerre. Pontigny is the site of the largest intact church of the Cistercian monastic order in France. It is a remnant of the abbey that used to exist there, but which was mostly destroyed during the French Revolution. 

At 108 meters long, the 12th century Romanesque-Gothic church dominates the skyline of
the village of Pontigny. It is a stop along one of the pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela,
and was a place of sanctuary from 1165-1166 for the exiled Thomas Beckett, Archbishop of Canterbury.

The abbey church. 

Left: the 17th century organ is undergoing repair.
Right: Lon in a side aisle of the interior. The white stone interior is mostly unadorned, and the
light this provides enhances the sense of the immensity of the church. Austere, but lovely.

Left: Dividing the front part of the nave from the rear of the church.
Right: The worship area in the front of the church.

On our way to Pontigny we had a brief, but amusing, encounter.

In the middle of a field was this fenced-off area for free-range chickens. When I approached
to take a photo, the chickens must have thought I was coming to feed them, because they starting
running toward the fence--all the while clucking softly. They were adorable.

We had one other slight detour on this day. On the way to Pontigny we saw a sign for "Pont Romain" (Roman Bridge) posted by the church in the village of Rouvray. It sounded intriguing, but with no distance given, we didn't want to risk ending up 30 kilometers out of our way, so we continued on to Pontigny. On the way back to Auxerre we took a slightly different route, and encountered another "Pont Romain" sign, this time by the former train station of Rouvray-Venouse.

Signs that tantalized us with possibilities.

This time we took the bait, and headed off down a road bisecting a farmer's field. Our "bravery" was rewarded about a kilometer or so later.

We think this was the object of our search, but darned if
I can locate any info about it. It is probably too small to have
excited the kind of interest that would lead to published articles.

The next day, September 15, we stayed closer to Auxerre. Although our destination was only a 4-kilometer bike ride away, the hills along the route made it a more challenging ride. The "Monument to the Shot of Egriselles-Venoy" is located in a former French firing range that was used in WWII by the occupying Germans to shoot resistance fighters that they had arrested and sentenced to death. In total there were 43 victims over the years of 1942 to 1944. 

The tree trunk to the right is a concrete replacement for 
the vestiges of one of the original three trees on the site to which
the condemned were tied before being shot. The real tree
used to stand there, but was vandalized and burned in 2018.

We had a good view of Auxerre from the hilltop as we
made our way back to port.

The weekend of September 16-17 was a busy one in Auxerre. It was "European Heritage Days" in Europe (and, therefore, throughout France), with its attendant program of free admissions to many museums and historic sites. Saturday was also the celebration in Auxerre of the 800th anniversary of the granting of a charter of emancipation to the citizens of the city. With the charter of 1223, inheritances would no longer be taxed and seized, serfdom was abolished, and residents could come and go freely out of the city. 

Medieval city for a day: A lady on horseback and her knight escorts, musicians roamed the 
streets, sword fights, playing with fire.

There were a few places we'd wanted to visit as part of the Heritage Days, but most required advance reservations, and as we were in Norway when the program was announced, we weren't able to contact the tourist office early enough to reserve spaces. Nevertheless, there were a few interesting things we were able to see: the Romanesque crypt of Auxerre's cathedral; the house of poetess Marie Noel, and the former medieval prison tower by the abbey. 

The crypt in the Cathedral of Saint Stephen is not a burial vault, but a small church under the choir of the cathedral. It was built from 1023 to 1030 and served as a base for the original Romanesque cathedral. The crypt was retained when that first cathedral was razed to make way for the current Gothic cathedral.

The central nave.

Lon stands in one of the side passages, waiting
to serve as our tour guide.

The "Trinity" chapel at the east end of the crypt retains some amazing frescos.
 Left: the chapel and the frescos adorning it.
Upper Right: A fresco of Christ in Majesty (13th C.) Lower Right: The triumphal coming
of Christ (11th C.)

We also visited the home of the poet Marie Noel. It is currently administered by a group that also has interests in the natural sciences--which maybe explains why they have the item below displayed in the entryway. 

Ewwww! Poor foxes--I remember that one of my grandmothers
had a fox stole. This is worse.

Sunday was more of the same, but in the morning, a party came to the port.

A group of owners of classic Volkswagens was in town and made a brief stop at the port. We
(CARIB in lower right of photo) had a front row seat to this collection of vans, "Beetles", and
 dune buggies. To avoid bruising, the game of "slug bug" was suspended for the duration of the visit.

In the afternoon, we had a quick peek inside the last remaining medieval tower of the fortifications that had surrounded the Abbey Saint Germain. It was used as a prison up to the revolutionary period. An adjacent building hosted an exhibition regarding the visit to Auxerre by Buffalo Bill in 1905.

Left: prison tower interior, separate floors no longer exist.
Right: Tower and city wall.

                          

Our final "field trip" took place on Tuesday, September 19, to the small medieval town of Avallon. We chose to go there because it was relatively easy to get to on the train, and it sounded as though it had retained some of its historic charm. We'd never heard of it before we started looking for possible "day out of Auxerre sites." It turned out to be a lovely day.

Avallon is situated on a granite spur that overlooks several valleys. This gave it an important military role for several centuries, the first fortifications appearing in the 9th and 10th centuries. Approximately half of its ramparts, the oldest parts of which date to the 15th and 16th centuries, survive. The "good old days" it was not. Like many places in France--and elsewhere, for that matter--rulers came and went, the rise of various movements caused the town to be burned and plundered from time to time, and the inhabitants were ofttimes massacred or died from plague. Good old days, indeed.

Avallon's main street, and the clock tower from 1456.

The Collegiate Church of Saint-Lazare. Most of the current
structure is 12th C. Originally a "Notre Dame", the current name
comes from a donation from one of the Dukes of Burgundy of part
of Saint Lazare's skull. The church was an important pilgrimage
 site, as Saint Lazare was said to have the power
to heal leprosy. 

Looking toward the choir of the church, the oldest
existing part of the structure. Unusually for the churches
we've been in, the interior floor is "stepped down" from
back to front, as it follows the natural elevation of the
granite on which it is built.

Some large remnants of the old frescoes remain, but are
badly in need of renovation (which is currently taking place
in the church).

Walking the pathway which winds between two
levels of fortification walls.

I was enjoying the sun and the overlook with its view
of the Morvan forest to the south.

Miscellaneous Avallon. Just one comment: in the upper left
is a statute dedicated to Vauban, the genius military engineer
of Louis XIV. Vauban was born close to Avallon, and the town
 has chosen to honor him in a variety of ways.

The "Hostellerie de la Poste" is notable--not for its
architectural beauty, not for its age (1707), not for its
gastronomy, but because . . . Napoleon slept here! (In
 1815, on his return from exile in Elba, he spent a night,
 and appeared several times on the balcony above the gates).

The French often allow pets in restaurants. Usually it's dogs, 
but this was the first time I'd seen someone bring their cat on a 
leash. The cat had done really well walking on the leash on the
approach to the restaurant, but wasn't too crazy about all of the
people on the terrace--or the dog at the table next to us--so the
owner had to pick up his huge Norwegian Forest Cat in order
to enter l'Horloge (which had great food, by the way).

The remainder of our week continued to be pretty low-key, with the usual day-to-day and winter prep activities. The end of the week was stormy and rainy, so we did what we could indoors. Next week--our last week on the boat--will likely be more of the same, although if time and energy levels permit, we may try for one more "field trip" before leaving Burgundy until sometime next April.

Norway #3: A Polar Perspective

While we might have hoped for a nice sunny day to explore Trondheim, we counted our blessings that, grey as it was, the rain mostly held off for our walk around town on Sunday, September 3. Our hotel was in the port neighborhood, which put us within a 15-minute walk of the city center, and an additional 10–15-minute walk got us to the charming former working-class neighborhood of Bakklandet as well as the late 17th century Kristiansted Fortress.

Trondheim is the third largest city in Norway, with a population of just over 200,000. It's a technology center for the country, and is also a renowned center of Scandinavian gastronomy. Apparently, the Norse of centuries past couldn't make up their minds where they wanted their national capitol to be, because Trondheim served as such for about two centuries, from shortly after its founding by the Viking King Olav Tryggvason in 997 until 1217, when Bergen took over the honors (and after Bergen came Oslo, and then Copenhagen, and then finally Oslo again). And, like seemingly every other city in Norway, destructive city fires have had a huge impact on the current appearance and layout of Trondheim. 

As it was a Sunday morning, and the famous Nidaros Cathedral would not be open to visitors until the afternoon, we decided to start our tour by heading to the furthest of the locations we wanted to visit, the Kristiansten festning (fortress). 

Our route took us by this Sunday morning market adjacent to the
Nidelva River and its colorful wooden warehouses.

The Old Town Bridge, an 1861 reconstruction of a bridge first
built in 1681. It crosses the Nidelva River to connect central
Trondheim with the Bakklandet neighborhood.

The historic wharf buildings lining the Nidelva, as viewed from the Old 
Town Bridge. The Bakklandet neighborhood is on the right side
 of the photo. The oldest of the wharf buildings dates to the 18th century.

Perhaps the grey skies and the fact that it wasn't yet noon
kept the cobbled streets of Bakklandet so quiet during our 
initial passage.

The defensive tower of Kristiansten Fortress, located on top of
a hill east of central Trondheim. Built in the 1680's to protect the
city after the city fire of 1681. The fortress was the official place
of execution of condemned traitors and war criminals following
the legal proceedings in Norway after WWII. We wanted to visit
the museum here, but alas, it was closed for the season.

It was quite a hike up the hill to get to the fortress. Scooters are very popular in Norway, but
 apparently the hill to the fortress is where scooter (batteries) go to die.

We made our way back down the hill to Bakklandet, then waited out a brief rain shower with lunch in the quaint wine bar NB6. Other tourists and the citizens of Trondheim had woken up by that time, because the streets were noticeably busier as we made our way to the Nidaros Cathedral.

The Nidaros Cathedral is likely the most visited tourist attraction in Trondheim. It is an active Church of Norway cathedral built over the burial site of Viking King Olav II, who became the patron saint of Norway. Construction started in 1030 and continued until about 1300, although there have been subsequent periods when additions and renovations were made. It is the northernmost medieval cathedral in the world, and has traditionally been used for the coronation (these days, consecration) of Norse royalty. The basic entry fee for the cathedral was about 12 dollars U.S., so given the number of visitors it's not surprising that there is enough money coming in to fund the work that keeps obvious deterioration at bay. It is quite unlike so many of the incredible churches we've seen in France that struggle to keep ahead of damp and decay, but then, most of them don't charge admission fees.

Approaching the Nidaros Cathedral. 

To the right, a portion of the west facade of the cathedral. To
the left, the modern tourist center for the cathedral that sells
the tickets and souvenirs that help to keep the cathedral funded.

The west facade of the cathedral. As far as I could tell,
there's not a single head missing from the statuary. To be fair,
the sculptures are restorations from 1905-1983, and although
somewhat based on historical records and a 17th century print,
one source states that there is an element of "guesswork
and/or fantasy," including the Archangel Michael with the
face of Bob Dylan.

The rose window above the west entrance to the cathedral.

A tour guide with a captive audience in the nave
of the cathedral. What the guide is wearing looks like
every choir robe I've ever seen in a Lutheran church.

The smaller, but definitely more ornate, of the cathedral's two
organs. The main organ was commissioned in 1930 and has
thousands of pipes. This baroque organ was built in the late 1730's.

Because we rarely meet a church tower we didn't
want to climb, we funded the cathedral a bit more
by paying to climb one of the towers. This was our view
just before entering the spiral staircase of the tower
for the 2nd leg of the climb.

The 200+ steps up an incredibly narrow winding staircase 
(that nearly gave me an anxiety attack from claustrophobia)
 gave us this view of the Archbishop's Palace (at left).  The
 palace is one of the largest medieval stone structures in
 Scandinavia, and its oldest walls date back to the 1300s.

The quickest way to a city overview is a church tower climb. Looking east, we can see the fortress tower we saw earlier in the day (the white building at the center top of the photo).

Looking north toward the city center and beyond to the harbor and Trondheim Fjord.

Not everything interesting is up high. The cathedral crypt houses
the largest collection of medieval gravestones in Norway.

After the cathedral visit we were definitely in "it's been a long day and it's time to head back to the hotel to rest up before our early morning train to Mo i Rana" territory.

A wet walk through central Trondheim on the way back to the hotel.

An easy 10-minute walk on Monday morning, September 4, took us from our hotel to the Trondheim train station for our 398 km/239 mile/6 hr 39 min trip to the town of Mo i Rana, which is about 50 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

Because the train trip was so long, we opted for the "premium" 
experience: more leg room, fewer fellow passengers, unlimited
water-coffee-tea-hot chocolate, and an interesting couple
of open-face sandwiches for "breakfast".

The scenery was again a beautiful combination of mountains, water, and farms and villages here and there. We were, of course, moved to take another several hundred photos during the trip, but as it all looked very similar to our previous photos, there's no need to post them here. It was a mostly overcast day, but the rain held off until were very nearly at Mo i Rana, so at least we weren't looking at scenery through rain-streaked windows the whole day. We wished the rain had held off a bit longer, because our walk from train station to hotel, although short, was a wet one--and the windy conditions made it impractical to use our umbrella. 

Mo i Rana translates as "Mo in Rana", and the town was named after the old church (from 1724) parish, which in turn took its name from the old "Mo" farm on which the Mo church was built. "Rana" is the name of the municipality and comes from an Old Norse term for the "quick" or "fast" water of the nearby Ranfjord. Current day "Mo" is not a town that a tourist would typically visit if they didn't have former family connections to the area. It was a small village in the 1700's, started to gain some trading prominence in the 1860's when wholesale merchant L.A. Meyer opened a trade center in Mo, but really changed with the advent of large-scale iron mining in the early 1900's and steel production in the 1950's. An industrial city was born. 

From the local history museum come these photos
of old Mo. The top photo shows the farm and what
existed of homes at the waterfront/port. The bottom
shows the old Mo church.

The Mo Church, circled in blue, and its current surroundings
(photo from the Rana Museum).

The view from our hotel room shows a sprawling Mo, with ski jumps
on the mountainside and with blocky and utilitarian modern
 construction--and a bit of rainbow beauty over the adjacent fjord.

Bottom line, my Norwegian relatives who left this area in the 1880's knew a very different Mo. Then again, they didn't actually live in Mo itself, but on a farm called Auster Almlia that was located in the Dunderland Valley along the Ranelva River, nearly 25 miles to the northeast of Mo. This particular branch of the family tree is that of one of my great-grandmothers, my mom's grandmother (on her mother's side) Malene Nelson. Malene's great-grandfather Ola Nissa was the first recorded family member to lease the Almlia farm; his lease began in 1782. His son Per Andreas Olsa leased the farm starting in 1808; Per's son--Malene's father--Haagen Pedersen (Haka Persa) leased the farm from 1851 until he left for the U.S. in 1888. Malene had emigrated to the U.S. earlier, although the dates in various documents that I've seen don't agree as to whether it was 1881, 1882, or 1888. Malene was one of ten children. All ultimately emigrated to the U.S. at varying times in the 1880's, as did her parents; one brother later moved to Canada in 1918.

We picked up our rental car on Tuesday, September 5, in order to drive out to the location of the old farm. I knew that the farm still existed and was now owned by an artisan-silversmith called Øyvind Stjernen. 

The road out to Almlia was upgraded about 10 years ago and driving was a breeze. The river
kept coming in and out of view and mountains were all around. Beautiful--and
scarcely populated.

The entry to the farm. At top, from the highway approach Mr. Stjernen had
noted that his business was "open" from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. At bottom, 
the driveway leading into the property.

We parked by the log building with the sod roof. It turned out
to be a combination workshop-sales floor-cafe for "Stjernen
Art and Silver." Although the building looked old, Mr. Stjernen
told us that he had constructed the building; it was not
original to the farm.

Lon ended up knocking on the door of the house on the property in order to find the owner/proprietor. What followed was a wonderful hour or so of fascinating conversation.

Øyvind invited us into his home, which is the only original remaining
building of the farm and dates back to the 1700's. He bought the property
in 1977 and raised a family there, earning his living with his art (and
with which he is still active).

In renovating the property, he stripped off the outer finish layers
in the living room, bringing it back to the original wood planks.
This uncovered "1888" painted on the wall and he kept it
as a piece of history. Whether it was painted by one of my relatives
 before they emigrated that year we'll never know,
 but it was fascinating to consider. 

The exterior of the farmhouse. The small room at the far left was
added by Øyvind; the rest of the house's "footprint" is as it was when my
great-grandmother would have lived there.

Some of Øyvind's handiwork on display and for sale in the 
upper level of the log building.

Lon gives attention to the very appreciative resident dog.

The cat also loved attention.

Øyvind was quite a collector of antiques pertinent
to life in former times, and was happy to talk about
some of it with Lon and me.

An interesting photo from Øyvind's collection of curiosities. It was
taken by a man of some fame in Norway, Ole Tobias
 Olsen, a teacher and minister in the area, who became known
 as the "father" of the railway between the towns of
 Trondheim and Bodo (north of the Arctic Circle). Dated 1865-1875, 
it shows Almlia--circled in blue. It would be fascinating to know
who the men in the photo were--relatives of mine, perhaps? 

Øyvind talked about having been visited by another relative of the family many years ago; an elderly man who spoke in old-fashioned Norwegian, but he didn't have a name to give us.  Another topic was the WWII era, when the Germans established several concentration camps in the Dunderland Valley, filled mainly with Polish and Russian POWs who were forced to provide slave labor for building the Nordland railway line from Trondheim. Conditions were brutal and many perished. Several monuments have been installed in various locations in the region to commemorate these dead.

All good things must come to an end, and we left Øyvind in late morning so that he could get back to his work. It was a very rewarding stop for me, and we were so grateful to him for his gracious welcome. As it was still early in the day, we decided to head for the Arctic Circle Center. We had already planned to cross the Arctic Circle by train on September 6 to finish our Norway trip in the town of Bodø, from where we would fly back to France. After all, we couldn't get this close and not cross the Arctic Circle. But the Center was only another 30 minutes drive from the farm, so why not?

The Arctic Circle Center is in the mountains above the
tree line.

When the Arctic Circle Center was built in 1990 it was believed to lie directly on the Arctic Circle, the latitude above which the sun never sets at the Summer Solstice and the sun never rises above the horizon at the Winter Solstice. However, while the latitude line marked "Arctic Circle" on a map doesn't change, the magnetic north pole is always changing, which in turn affects the actual location of the Arctic Circle. The "Circle" is, in fact, moving north by about 14 meters every year, so even though our visit to the Center didn't actually get us to the "true" Arctic Circle, we pretended it did for the sake of the day. Besides, we knew that our train trip the following day would get us another 90 km north, well beyond what was needed for an authentic Arctic Circle crossing.

It was cold at that altitude, but the "I crossed the Arctic
Circle" t-shirts in the gift shop made it all worthwhile.

There were hundreds of "stacked stones" in the vicinity of the
Center. I haven't found a good explanation for why--maybe
crossing the Arctic Circle is a spiritual experience for many
 who stop here.

On the return to Mo it was nice to get to a lower altitude.

What I love about seeing foreign languages through "English"
eyes--I have to trust that the sign is referring to a place and
not a person.

Our train was scheduled to leave Mo i Rana around 8 a.m. on Wednesday, September 6. A 3-hour ride would get us to Bodø and leave us the afternoon to get a flavor of the city before flying out the next morning. At least that was the "plan" before "the perfect storm" came into play. Combine (1) a train not parked by the train station waiting area, (2) a second train arriving on the same track just a few minutes before our departure time and marked "Bodø" rather than with its true destination, and (3) the lack of useful and understandable announcements in English, and what did we end up with? A train that left for Bodø without us. To say we were not happy campers would be an understatement. We were just lucky that we didn't end up going to Trondheim on the 2nd train. The rail company was not forthcoming with a refund, so we had to purchase new tickets for the 2:30 p.m. train to Bodø. Cue Plan B: Rather than having time to explore Bodø, we reconfigured our day around Mo i Rana. We returned to our hotel, and they had no problem with us storing our luggage and using them as a base, both to wait for the rain to pass and for a walk around town. 

The old Mo church, getting a facelift for its 300th anniversary
in 2024.

The Russian Memorial at Mo Church. This
section of the graveyard also contains the graves
of 8 Commonwealth soldiers from the Scots 
Guards, who died during the German invasion
of Norway in Spring 1940.

We met "Stig" when we were trying to find a way into the 
church. He was a local photographer who had been hired to 
take some interior shots. He couldn't get the entry system to
work, but we did spend some minutes having a nice conversation
with him about Mo and seeking family history in Norway.

Freezing on the waterfront.

View toward the Molhomen neighborhood, where Mo
originally centered. We spent some time at the Rana Museum there.

Old, but restored, houses in Molhomen.

We caught the 2:30 p.m. train without problems, officially crossed the Arctic Circle--and beyond--and enjoyed the always-beautiful mountain and water scenery before pulling into Bodø a little before 6 p.m. Our impression of the town as we walked to the hotel was one of modernity. It has been named as one of three European Capitals of Culture for 2024 and the opening ceremony in February will be held outdoors--I think we'll have to pass on attending that. We were sorry that we didn't get a chance to explore even a little bit of the town, but such is life. The next morning we were on an early flight from Bodø to Bergen and from there to Paris. With smooth train connections we were back on the boat by 7 p.m., where the congenial New Zealanders (and one American) in the boat rafted to C.A.R.I.B. took pity on us and invited us to share dinner with them that evening. Several very hot days later it is finally cooling down and feeling more like fall. 

Norway impressed us--with its beautiful landscapes, interesting towns, friendly people with an excellent command of English, and the most amazing breakfast buffets we have ever seen. The highlight, though, was the visit to the Almlia farm. We've always found something special in making those family connections. The Floridian in us thinks it's best not to talk about the weather.

Now, though, it's time to shift gears for our final three weeks in France. We're already working on some small boat projects, and this weekend Auxerre will be a lively place to be, as the European Heritage Days overlap with the 800th commemoration of the "emancipation" of the city to a more representative government. Cue the medieval festival!