On Our Own Again

We said "adieu" and "bon voyage" to Frank yesterday at the rail station in the town of Charmes. He was on his way to Switzerland for a few days so that he--as the family's great investigator of its Polish and Ukrainian genealogy--could spend some time discussing family history and reviewing pertinent photos and documents with a distant relative. After we got through the shallow stretch of the Canal des Vosges, we were able to relax our pace through the next several days until we got to Charmes, where trains north to the city of Nancy are common and would therefore be an appropriate location from which Frank could begin his rail journey to Switzerland.

A last bit of cousinly camaraderie while waiting for Frank's train to arrive.

We celebrated accomplishing the stretch of 14 "down" locks on June 13 by going out to dinner at "Pizzeria Le Capri", adjacent to the next lock downstream of us and just a short stroll from our mooring location.

Left: Relaxation after a busy cruising day--and relief to be through the shallowest stretch.
The food--pizza and pasta--was absolutely delicious.
Right: The lock was immediately adjacent to the restaurant, a real convenience given
our energy levels (low, very low) after the multitude of locks and the warm temperatures.

Our June 14 cruise to the town of Thaon was very short, and within 2 hours we had completed 5 kilometers and 5 locks and were moored at a halte fluvial near a campground and a city park. It was immediately evident during our cruise to Thaon is that we were no longer in a mostly natural stretch of canal. The region around Epinal is industrialized, and that has spread to encompass the nearby villages, including Thaon.

One of the businesses in the area is the mining of aggregate. Some
of the lakes that we can see adjacent to the canal are former
gravel pits.

Remnants of habitation in Thaon stretch back a millennium, but it's all fragmentary, and throughout most of its history the village was simply a tiny outpost of civilization in the region that often changed hands according to the political winds and usually suffered destruction when it did. The heritage buildings that do exist as part of a city walking tour date back, at most, to the industrial era of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The most striking building in the village is known as The Rotunda. In the early 20th century, it was the social center for the workers at the textile factory BTT. It is currently government owned, contains a theater with over 800 seats, and in conjunction with the city of Epinal, has become the Cultural Center of Southern Lorraine. 

Top: The Rotunda; Lower Left: War Memorial
Bottom Right: the parish church of Saint-Brice

Perhaps Thaon's biggest claim to fame was that it was the location of a cafe operated by a famous French bearded lady, Clementine Delait, and her husband Paul, a local baker in Thaon. Born in 1865, she shaved until 1900, when she went "full beard" to win a bet. The novelty of it all was great for attracting customers. For a time, she toured Europe, and was said to have attracted large crowds in Paris and London.

The most unusual bit of village history: The Cafe of the Bearded Woman.

While not a hotbed of ancient historical sites or events, Thaon-les-Vosges provided a welcome respite from cruising for us on Sunday. It had a supermarket that, while not particularly large, was good enough for the restocking that needed to be done. The promised thunderstorms came through on Saturday night/Sunday morning; the initial round at 3 a.m. was rather loud and the amount of wind made us glad that we had four lines attached to shore. Rain continued off and on through the day on Sunday, so it was great to be moored and not feel as though we had to move on that day. 

The aftermath of the storm was this downed tree in the adjacent
park. It took down a power line, which had the effect of disabling
Lock 19 (behind us). 

The lack of much boat traffic on the canal had continued. On Saturday night a small sailboat pulled onto the quay behind us, its operator exhausted after a long day of single-handed cruising through the heat and multiple "up" locks. We invited him over to share our docktails, and as the weather and a "dead" lock kept him in port on Sunday, we repeated the experience that day as well. 

As we were preparing ourselves to depart Thaon on Monday morning, June 16, a commercial boat passed us heading downstream. We had read that between locks 17 and 21 we would have to be on the lookout for barges hauling gravel Monday through Friday. As we had already transited locks 17, 18, and 19 on Saturday--good timing on our part, as doing so avoided commercial traffic--we only had to be concerned about getting through our current pound (the area of the canal between two locks) and the next. 

Our timing at the locks was pretty good. We triggered the lock prep mechanism at Lock 20
just prior to a gravel barge on the other side of the lock that wanted "up." We had to wait
a few minutes at lock 21 for this guy to ascend, but it only delayed us a few minutes. More interesting
was the effect when he passed us--because of his weight and momentum, he pulled water with him
as he passed, which had the effect of lowering the overall water level and we scraped bottom briefly.

It was a short cruising day on 18th to a mooring at the twin villages of Nomexy (on the left bank of the canal) and Chatel-sur-Moselles (on the right bank). We weren't in a particular hurry to move on, so we stayed on the quay for 2 nights, giving us another day of "rest" away from cruising and time to explore the two villages.

Nomexy, like Thaon, has ancient origins, and like Thaon, wasn't able to maintain much evidence of those origins. An abbey and its mill existed there in the 13th century, but of the abbey only a few ruins of a tower remain on a farm outside of town. Nomexy was heavily damaged in WWII, so most of the buildings are of more modern construction. Like Thaon, it had an industrial past and present. 

The local Nomexy cemetery had a section for its WWI dead, most lost during
the Battle of the Marne in September 1914.

The church, Eglise Saints-Calixte-et-Julien.

The main town square, with the mayor's office at left.

A group of local youth used the canal as their local "swimming hole."
On both days we were there, they asked to use CARIB as a jumping
(it really wasn't diving) platform. It wasn't the jumping that was so
brave, it was that they were willing to go into that murky water.

The main attraction of the stop came on Tuesday, June 17, when we walked across the bridge to the neighboring village of Chatel-sur-Moselle. It was a renowned stronghold of the Lorraine region in the Middle Ages. Founded in 1072 with a relatively simple castle keep and surrounding wall, it was modified often in the subsequent centuries in response to changing ownership and to protect against the evolution in armaments. During the Thirty Years' War in the 1600's, it came under siege nine times, but never fell. It finally met its end in 1671, when it was captured and ordered dismantled by Louis XIV. For centuries it lay buried. Capuchin monks settled on it for a time, beginning in the 18th C. In the early 1970's an association was created to begin clearing the ruins and over the decades it has developed into the site it is today. It has fascinating surface ruins, but to access the three subterranean levels, one needs to be part of a guided tour. We were fortunate to be able to arrange one. Even better, our guide, Thomas, spoke English and we essentially had a private tour. He was an engaging young man with a wonderful sense of humor. 

Pointing the way to the main fortress site.

Upper: a small section of the above-ground foundations
Lower: our "Gang of Three"

The museum had a number of models to demonstrate the 
layout during various construction eras.

Left: Pat, Lon, and our awesome guide Thomas.
Upper right: a well accessible from an underground chamber.
Lower right: 20th C. stairs were constructed to allow for
movement through the underground levels.

Not all of the development overlaying the fortress could
be undone. The painted lines in the street show where
various buildings and walls previously existed. The 
colors indicate when that portion of the fortress was built, for
example, yellow = 11th-12th century.

Thomas and Lon between the 11th/12th century fortress walls
(at left) and later 15th century walls and a dry moat (right).

In general, the present-day village of Chatel-sur-Moselle contains only a few remnants of older construction, but it suffered over 80% destruction in WWII, so most of the buildings are post-war constructs. The 15th C. church was damaged, but retained many of its original elements. It was locked when we got there, but we were able to obtain the keys from the mayor's office and were able to have a quick look around.

L'Eglise Saint-Laurent and an 18th C. wood polychrome Saint Anne.

It was time to move again on June 18. Frank was scheduled to travel to Switzerland on the 20th, so we wanted to make sure we had enough time to see what Charmes had to offer before he left us. The water levels had been good during our cruising days, and that continued on the 18th. We were still not seeing much other boat traffic; one, maybe two boats per day at most. Today we were away from the boat for about an hour around midday, but in our time on the boat we've not seen any pleasure boat traffic pass. 

We are moored in Charmes on a quay by a camping car park.
The campers nearest us may not have been too happy that
 we blocked their view of the water.

Charmes began as the site of a castle and fortifications in the 11th century, but it hasn't, for the most part, been a happy history for the town. Plague, famine, pillaging, massacres, burning the town. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. The town finally had a period of prosperity in the 18th century when it was part of France, but the dismal cycle began again during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. Prussian occupation, town burned, citizens killed. Charmes battle in WWI, citizens killed. In 1944, the retreating Germans burned the town and deported 160 citizens to concentration camps. Most buildings are of modern construction, but some older remnants do remain that survived the carnage over the years.

A bit of the 11th century castle ramparts provides a backdrop for the rose garden.

To the left is the surviving portion of the Maison du
Chaldron, where in 1633 the Cardinal Richelieu and 
Charles IV signed a treaty which marked the beginning
of the unification of France and the Lorraine Region.

The interior of the Church of Saint Nicholas.
Left: The Chapel of Saint John and the Holy Sepulchre from 1516 is also known as the "chapel
of deportees", due to the commemorative plaque on the wall and stained glass windows.
Right: Chapel of Savigny from 1537, classed as a Historic Monument, contains stained glass
from 1493 and a 1538 baptismal font, among other treasures.

The Church of Saint Nicholas was finished it 1493. The bell
tower was rebuilt after having been bombed in WWII, but most
 of the rest of the church retained its older constructions.

The War Memorial. At the base is a plaque from the
U.S. Army 75th Division to acknowledge friendship
between the United States and Charmes.

Reminders of Charmes' industrial past.

The Moselle River has been running nearly parallel with the
canal since the Epinal area. It's easy to see why a canal was
needed to make water transportation possible.

The first two days here with Frank were all about sightseeing and enjoying meals out at local restaurants (thanks, Frank!). Since his departure, we've been doing the "fun" stuff like laundry and grocery shopping. We are now preparing to depart Charmes tomorrow, June 22. We estimate two more cruising days until we reach the end of the Canal des Vosges and enter a new waterway.

Beauty and the Beast(s)

Since leaving Corre on June 7, we have cruised during seven consecutive days and are now moored at about the halfway point of the Canal des Vosges, just a few kilometers outside of Epinal. There is a branch canal that we could take to a marina in Epinal, but as we were in Epinal last week by car, we have decided to forego that particular pleasure.

The Canal des Vosges is the southern branch of what used to be called the Canal de l'Est (canal of the east). The construction of the canal had been under consideration for many years, but after the French lost the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 and a new French-German border was set up to the west of the Alsace region, the need for a new waterway to provide for the north-south flow of goods through France became critical. The Canal de l'Est was built from 1874-1887, running 245 miles (394 km) from the Belgian border in the north to the Petite Saone River in the south. The northern section canalized the Meuse River, and the southern section canalized the Moselle River. In 2003, the northern and southern sections were renamed: the northern section became the Canal de la Meuse and the southern section became the Canal des Vosges. 

We don't usually cruise seven days in a row, and truth be told, I was ready for a "day off" a couple of days ago. Sometimes it's nice just to stay in place and not have to go through the morning cruise prep routine. We've been mostly keeping to cruising days of 3-4 hours--and occasionally less--and it's a good thing, because the cruising on the Canal des Vosges has been rather physically demanding. A couple of illustrations show why this has been true.

The following chart shows the elevation changes on our proposed route this year. At the far left is our departure from Port Royal in Auxonne. The purple line shows where we were as of this morning--at the summit of the Canal des Vosges.

The gradual rise at left is the 20-some locks we passed through on the Petite Saone River. And
the steep slope is when we really started climbing on this "Beast" of a canal stretch: 46 "up"
locks over 55 kilometers, with an average rise of 3 meters/lock.

This is what getting the boat tied up in a
 3-meter-deep lock looks like. I had to step up
 on the lower roof and s-t-r-e-t-c-h to get the
 loop of the line over the bollard on the lock wall.
It was a better option than climbing a slimy ladder.
The number of locks per day ranged from 6 to 10.
I think I may be an inch taller at this point. 

The main reason why we have cruised so many days in a row is that we were concerned about the water depth in the canal. The winter was wet, but it's been a relatively dry spring--not completely rain-free, but not enough rain to keep the reservoir feeding the Canal des Vosges as full as it should be. As a result, the guaranteed depth in the higher reaches of the canal is now listed as 1.6 meters. As the summer temperatures rise, the evaporation will increase, and so will the chances that the vnf may have to shut down navigation on the canal due to lack of water resources. It's happened before. We thought it would be wise to get through this stretch while we still could.

Upper: tough going as we entered the summit pound at Girancourt,
with shallow water and trees encroaching on the canal. We
 were lucky we didn't meet another boat in this stretch.
Lower left: we left a trail of stirred up mud behind us as we
cruised the summit pound yesterday, a sure sign of shallow water.
Lower right: the low water left the backside of the Bouzey pontoon
on dry land. We had originally thought we might moor there. Nope.

In addition to low water issues keeping us on the move, it was also the case that, with one exception, the lower section of the Canal des Vosges doesn't have much in the way of population centers i.e., sightseeing. Our mooring stops were either in quite small villages or completely out in nature. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as the cruising landscape put the "Beauty" into the week even as we dealt with the "Beastly" number of locks and low water (and some fishermen, let's not forget the fishermen). Tying up by lunchtime in a quiet village or canal side picnic area made for restful afternoons, but it didn't necessarily make us wish to spend multiple days in any particular place.

Our first two days were spent in and out of rain. Good for the canal, not quite as pleasant for us. Still, the first day's cruise to the very quiet village of Selles--a boatman's village until the end of the 19th century--was pleasant enough. With just over 200 inhabitants, it's probably not surprising that we saw hardly a soul as we walked around town during a break in the rain. The village had the basics:

The Church of the Assumption of Our Lady in Selles
(not open).

Renovated housing (upper) and preservation of
a few historic dates (of unknown significance).

Evidence of businesses that no longer exist (clockwise from
upper left): a hardware vendor; unknown; a butcher and
purveyor of cold cuts; and an auto repair shop.

Frank walks toward CARIB.

We may be in the foothills of the Vosges "mountains", but
it's still largely farm country. And the winters get cold, so 
everywhere you look there are piles of firewood.

Our second cruising day was probably the most difficult for us. It was still grey and rainy, which put all of us in a slightly "down" frame of mind. One stretch of the canal was very shallow and had trees encroaching from one side, so of course, Murphy's Law being what it is, that is the stretch where we met another boat. (In general, we didn't see much boat traffic during our cruising). CARIB had to move toward one side of the canal, and the scraping sounds on the hull as we slid over rocks on the canal bottom were not pleasant. That was followed shortly by two fishermen (it was a Sunday, so fishermen were out in force) who had their fishing poles deployed and who stubbornly refused to pick them up and reel in their lines. They seemed to think that CARIB should quickly and easily maneuver into the trees so that they could leave their lines out. One of the lines ended up getting caught on something under our hull. The fisherman managed to get it back, but no bribes were going to be paid by us that day for the results of their overinflated sense of entitlement.

Ah, but the sun finally came out as we cruised into Fontenoy-le-Chateau, our stop for the day, improving our spirits greatly.

The red "ici" (here) sign lets us know it's time to activate our
 remote control device (telecommande) for the last lock prior
to mooring in Fontenoy-le-Chateau.

Fontenoy was a fortified town from at least the 10th century up until the town and its castle were burned by French and Swedish troops in 1635. Close on the heels of the destruction of the Thirty Year's War was a plague epidemic that killed two-thirds of the inhabitants. Prior to the destruction, the town was a significant trading center. Afterwards, it took until the middle of the 18th century to rebuild the town to prosperity. Forges, nail works, tile works, quarries and more were active in Fontenoy. Its decline to the quiet town it is today began during the First World War.

The neighborhood "laundromats": a small lavoir
(upper) by the port and a spread out lavoir close
to the church.

Upper: Saint-Mansuy church (15th-16th C)
Lower: An embroidery museum. From 1850, 
Fontenoy was a center of "white embroidery" 
and had over 500 artisans employed in the trade.

Left: the 19th C city hall. Upper right: a fresco of Julie-Victoire
Daubié, who in 1841 was the first French woman to receive a
Baccalaureate degree. Lower right: our mooring in Fontenoy.

 

A panorama of what remains of the Fontenoy Castle that was destroyed in 1635.

Lon walks toward the oldest part of the castle. The
indeterminate lump at the top of the photo is the 
donjon (sounds like "dungeon", but is actually
 equivalent to the castle keep), which dates to the
 late 10th C. Efforts are underway to preserve what is left.

Lon and I were under watchful eyes as we wandered the
castle grounds.

Like any self-respecting fortified castle, it occupied the highest
point in the area. Here is the view over the church and town.

The sun has stayed out since Sunday as the temperatures have gradually risen. We were in the thick of a mostly natural landscape with a few villages sprinkled in for good measure. After reaching the summit of the canal yesterday, we find ourselves in a more populated area.

Sightings of other boats have been rare most days; one or two
at the most. Monday was the exception, when we met at least a
half dozen boats coming downstream. Perhaps this was due to
the absence of rain after a dreary weekend.

Another rare sight--a lovely canal side chateau.

Frank and Lon on CARIB's flybridge.

La Manufacture Royale, an 18th C industrial manufacturing
site involved in tin smithing. It is a classified Historic Monument
open for tours, but unfortunately for us, there was no mooring to
be had in the area that would have allowed us a stop for a visit.

Our nature moorings, quiet and dark at night.

This is what 5 a.m. looked like from the boat in Forges d'Uzemain.

Upper: a lock in a peaceful setting.
Lower: a path was cut for the canal through rock.

A very unusual sight--this commercial barge passed us at our
La Colosse mooring on their way to the Netherlands.
 

This lock side cutie barked and barked as we entered the lock--
but he/she only wanted to be petted.

Today we finished the challenges of the very shallow part of the Canal des Vosges with a 14-lock marathon descent down the "Chaine de Golbey." Because today's high temperature was forecast to be in the low 90's F. (low 30's C), we got an early start from a mooring that was relatively close to the first lock. One click of the telecommande and then the remaining locks were programmed to sequence for us without needing to activate anything. Aside from a 30-minute delay at Lock 9 due to a malfunction, we made good time and were moored near the bottom side of the 14th lock by noon.

Here I am tending the lock line as we descend in
one of today's locks. Two additional locks can be
seen beyond. If we had to do 14 locks on a blazing
hot day, at least we were going down. Much easier
than up--no more stretching!

We'll be cruising again tomorrow to try to get to the next town before the predicted storms of Sunday--and a day "in port" for us.