The 17th Time's the Charm

After weeks of asking a variety of insurance brokers--in both Europe and North America--to find insurance for our barge, we finally had success last week with our 17th application. On May 13 we spoke to a Dutch boat broker that we knew through the Barge Association and asked him for ideas on what we might try. We applied on May14 to a Dutch insurance broker that he recommended, and from whom we received an insurance quote on May 18. The quote was reviewed, signed, and returned by us within an hour. We spent the remainder of this past week on tenterhooks waiting for a policy to be issued and hoping there wouldn't be any unwelcome surprises to scuttle the deal. Not wanting to be left hanging through yet another holiday weekend (Pentecost Sunday and Whit Monday), Lon telephoned the insurance broker's office for a situational update early Friday afternoon. Just after 4 p.m. on Friday we received the best news ever--an email with insurance policy documents attached.  We're now gearing up to start cruising next week. 

Our insurance saga has been, to quote the Beatles, a "long and winding road." It's too much to describe in writing at the moment, but the experience definitely contained some elements of the absurd that will make for a good story over a glass of wine.

While waiting for something to "break", we tried to keep busy and distract ourselves from the anxiety of waiting. 

We attended a choral/orchestral concert in the Toul Cathedral.

We had a "bon voyage" lunch with Australian boaters Joan and
Paul on the day before they departed the Toul marina for
their summer cruise.

The main event, though, was to get off of the boat for two days this week, rent a car, and do some exploring. We decided to head to areas east of Nancy, in the vicinity of the Marne au Rhin Est Canal. That particular canal was in our proposed cruising itinerary for the summer, but our reasoning was that, if the insurance search dragged out much longer, we simply wouldn't have time to cruise those waters and still get to Rotterdam by season's end. So, better to see a bit of it now then to miss out on all of it. We only made plans for a 2-day trip because if the insurance were to come through in the next few days, we would prefer to be back on CARIB and getting ready to cruise. It was all about trying to find that "sweet spot."

We picked up the car near the Nancy railway station late morning on Wednesday, May 20. Our first stop, a mere 30 minutes later, was the town of Luneville. Like the much larger Nancy, Luneville was important historically with respect to the Duchy of Lorraine, a former monarchy independent of France (although located in mainland France). Up until the early 1700's, the ducal court was in Nancy, but when the French invaded Lorraine, Duke Leopold moved the court to the Chateau de Luneville. He enlarged the castle along the lines of Versailles, and it became known as the "Versailles of Lorraine." It remained the residence of the Dukes of Lorraine until the duchy became part of France in 1766.

The front of the chateau complex. It has been in a rebuilding phase for a couple of decades,
following a fire in 2003.
 

The "backyard" view of the chateau. Behind us stretched expansive French gardens.

The view from the central front portico.

The chateau currently houses a museum, but we didn't have the time to see what that was all about. We stopped for lunch, in part to get out of the grey and cool weather, then did a quick walk through what was a very quiet town on that Wednesday.

The Church of Saint James, a baroque building 
completed in 1747. Sadly, it was locked and we were
unable to see its famous "hidden" organ.

But, onward! Our destination for the day was to be the town of Saverne. In between Luneville and there, we made a few very quick stops.

The small canal side village of Lagarde had a lovely little port on the canal, but was also the location of two WWI cemeteries, one French and one German.

The German cemetery was not large, but was still well maintained after over 100 years.

It was our first viewing of the Marne au Rhin Canal Est east of Nancy, and we were impressed by how well-maintained the locks seemed, and the clarity of the weed-free water.

We don't recall the name of this town that we drove through, but the Alsacian storks had taken possession of the tops of five power poles along the road to build their nests. Most of the nests
had little ones. A baby boom in the making.

Our final stop before Saverne was the canal lock at Rechicourt-le-Chateau. The Great Lock, opened in 1965, is considered to be the highest Freycinet gauge lock in France. It replaced a series of 6 locks and has a drop of approximately 50 feet.

Most of the drop is hidden behind the colorful artwork.

Saverne occupies a beautiful site amidst the Vosges mountains. By this time, we had passed from Lorraine into Alsace. The German history here is obvious in the architecture and in the prevalence of the German language and culinary influences. For our one night here, we stayed in a lovely apartment in the center of town. Before our bow thruster repair delays last year kept us in Toul, we had thought that Saverne might have been our site for parking CARIB for the winter. From what we saw in our few hours here we were sorry that we hadn't been able to do that. The town had more energy than we've found in Toul and would have been a lovely place to stay.

The Alsace Rooster.

The Maison Katz, from 1605, is one of the oldest houses in town. It was built by Henri Katz.
The facade is Renaissance German. The modern artwork at right makes sense when one 
considers that "katz" means "cat" in German.

Standing in the marina of Saverne, and looking at the front of the Rohan Palace across the 
water. The Rohan Palace is a former episcopal palace built in the 18th century. If Luneville Chateau was the "Versailles of Lorraine", then this building is the "Versailles of Alsace." We didn't have enough time to visit the museum it contains.

We stopped for an afternoon drink by the canal and its view of the main street of Saverne.

The Church of Notre-Dame of the Nativity. The tower, 
a Romanesque 12th century construction, is one of the
oldest parts of the building.

The port of Saverne. The hire boat base was gearing up for the summer season.

As Saverne is surrounded by a number of castle ruins on the hilltops, we took advantage of having the car to explore some of them on our Thursday return to Toul. A mere 10-minute drive from the heart of Saverne were the ruins of the Haut-Barr Castle, built atop rocks over 1500 feet above the plain. The ruins of the medieval castle date to the 12th century; the most "recent" ruins date to the late 1500's.

The rocks are the first things one sees when arriving
at the castle parking lot. Ruins are visible at various spots
atop the impressive rock piles. It reminded us of
Meteora in Greece, although on a much smaller scale.

The "Devil's Bridge" connects the ruins on two of the rock summits.

We're glad that we can still climb stairs. I wasn't especially fond of the climb, as I could see
through the stairs down to the ground. Lon's climb shows the staircase from a different perspective.

The view from the top.

Looking down, the arch of the entryway and the medieval chapel just beyond. The building at
left, with the half-timbering, is of newer construction and contains a restaurant where we 
enjoyed an amazing Alsatian flammekueche (like a very thin crust pizza).

Inside the interior of the castle grounds.

A short walk away from Castle Haut-Barr were a couple of additional historic sites. The first was a reconstruction of the Chappe Telegraph Tower. This was the site of one of approximately 50 communication towers--the first aerial telegraphy system--that linked Paris and Strasbourg from 1798 to 1852.

A bit further along were the ruins of two medieval castles, the Grand Geroldseck and the Petit Geroldseck. The Grand Geroldseck is one of the oldest castles in the northern Vosges. We were there on a day when volunteers of an association, whose purpose is to maintain the ruins, were working on the site. We were fortunate enough to be able to talk at some length to one of the volunteers and he explained how work was being done and the limits of what they could do.

A view of the cellars of the Grand Geroldseck.

Repairing the wall and making sure that plant material, which would be destructive to the structure,
 is kept at bay.

The multi-story castle keep in the background.

The entrance to the castle grounds.

Our wonderful "guide" and Lon share a laugh. The volunteer was a retired computer science
professional. Significant works have been ongoing on the site since 2014, and the volunteers can only repair things to the extent of what is actually known about the original structure. Since there are many holes in their knowledge, some things will never be able to be fixed. 

The Petit (small) Geroldseck was another few hundred meters from the larger castle. Not much remains today, and there appeared to be no active work being done on that structure.

Our final stop before Toul was at the Saint-Louis-Arviller inclined plane on the canal. A structure from the 1960's, it replaced a series of 17 locks in a section of the canal that traversed the Vosges mountains.  The mechanism consists of a moving tank that holds the boat and is counterbalanced by weights to which it is connected by cables. A boat drives in at the top, moves down the slope of the hill at a 41-degree angle, and drives out at the bottom of the hill. Going up is simply the reverse process. It's interesting for the boaters that get to use it, and it's a local tourist attraction.

The view of the inclined plane from the lower level as the bucket is descending with two boats.

Left: the bucket, into which a boat would drive. Upper Right: the view of the inclined
tracks from above with the basin below. Lower Right: The bucket approaching the basin level.

The wonderful news on Friday followed our return on Thursday. Even though we will be getting a later-than-planned start to our cruising, we believe that we can include the Marne au Rhin Canal Est in our cruising itinerary. We saw a lot to like about the canal and would be sorry to miss the opportunity to take the boat on its waters. Therefore, at the moment, we intend to leave Toul on Tuesday and cruise the Marne au Rhin Canal Est as far as Saverne, stay there for up to a week (to give us time for sightseeing in the area), and then turn around to head to the west and north.  

Status Quo

It's been a frustrating few weeks, to say the least. We've submitted at least 14 or 15 requests for boat insurance and have either been outright rejected or presented with conditions that range from difficult to nearly impossible to meet. We're still waiting on a few responses and will inquire with additional companies, but our way forward is not at all clear at the moment. 

In the meantime, our heating system problem has been fixed--a very good thing, as mornings are rather cool in this part of the world, and especially during the past few days it's been rather lovely to have fully functioning heat. The electrical system issue has been mostly dealt with. We ended up having to order some very expensive batteries but are not convinced that the batteries are the complete solution to the issues. Lon is delving into the mysteries of electricity to satisfy himself that all is truly as well as yard owner Jean Paul would have us believe.

The timeliness of insurer responses and boat maintenance is not helped by the fact that May is "holiday month" in France, with the resultant increases in days that businesses are closed. Friday May 1, Labor Day, is the most significant of the holidays. We took advantage of the beautiful weather that day to distract ourselves from boat problems by cycling just outside of Toul to the Choloy War Cemetery. 

The Choloy War Cemetery was originally created after WWI to bring together in one place French war dead recovered from communal and church cemeteries and other isolated sites in northeastern France. Post-WWII, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission used the cemetery as the burial site for nearly 500 soldiers of the British Commonwealth, mostly airmen, who had been interred at scattered sites in NE France. It also contains sections for Canadian service personnel (and some family members) who died during the Cold War years in the 1950's and 1960's during their deployment to Europe as part of Canada's commitment to NATO.

The French WWI section of the cemetery.

The British Commonwealth section. It contains one WWI soldier; the rest are WWII casualties.

The white crosses are the Canadian service member graves. Those interred here died primarily in
accidents during their deployment. A green fence separates this section from the WWI French
graves beyond.

The community cemetery in Toul, explored during a walk on a different day, had some interesting areas amidst the many "regular" graves of the Toul citizenry. One section contained German soldiers who died during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. A French flag in another area denoted the French military portion of the communal cemetery.

Top: the crosses to the left of the flag and statue comprise the graves of WWI soldiers. 
Bottom left: a mass grave of people who died during the mass deportations from France in WWII.
Bottom right: a memorial and graves of members of the FFI (French Forces of the Interior,
basically, members of the French Resistance during the latter stages of WWII).

We were also lucky enough during the past week to have the opportunity for some socializing. Lon's youngest sister Sarah, in Europe for business-related appointments in London and Germany, worked in a 5-day visit to us (May 5-10) amidst her busy schedule. We had originally hoped to be cruising with her, but the lack of full boat insurance prevented that. However, we still had a lovely visit with her. We mostly stayed around Toul but did manage to take advantage of glorious weather on the Victory (in Europe) Day holiday of Friday, May 8, for an outing via train to Pont-a-Mousson and Nancy.

Sarah loves staircases and had been fascinated by the photos of the staircases in the Abbey in
Pont-a-Mousson that made it into our blog last year. So off we went to give her the opportunity
to see the staircases for herself and photograph them to her heart's content. At left, Lon and I
pose on the first landing of the Atlantes staircase. At right, Sarah works her photographic magic
on the Large Staircase.

Emulating a tree in the Courtyard of Honor at the Abbey.

Left: Lon and Sarah in Place Stanislas, Nancy. Upper Right: By the "Nancy" sign near
the train station. Lower Right: Enjoying lunch al fresco in Place Stanislas.

A few days before Sarah joined us on CARIB, John and Martha, a lovely Scottish couple who own the 18-meter barge moored in front of us in Toul, arrived to spend 10 days on their boat. We'd met them very briefly last fall, but this time around we had the opportunity to get to know them better via docktails and dinners with them and Australian boater friends of theirs. 

Sarah and I chat with John before we head out on a walk.

 When all else fails to raise a smile, we just have to pay attention to "baby season."

One of the larger swan families we've ever seen. Closer to the boat, we have pair of swans with
four little ones. In the evenings the babies hop aboard a parent's back. Cutest thing ever!

Didn't See That Coming

Our travel to Paris via Atlanta on April 14/15 went seamlessly. Any previous concerns about possible delays at the U.S. airports due to TSA issues was wasted worry, as we were through security within 20 minutes of arriving at the Tampa airport--and that included the time to get a bag checked. Both flights departed on time, and we managed to snag the overhead bin space we needed. The only minor issue was that the woman in the seat next to me on the Atlanta-Paris flight had an unfortunate tendency to "manspread" from time-to-time. And though the new European digital Entry/Exit system created some delays in the customs/immigration process, we still managed to get through Immigration quickly enough to catch an earlier train than planned to Toul.

Jet lag or not, we enjoyed our first Happy Hour back on C.A.R.I.B. III

After such a good travel day, it would have been nice had all the boat systems come back online seamlessly. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The heating system wouldn't fire up, so we had to resort to our portable electric heaters to counteract the early morning chill until we could get a plumber (who also deals with heating systems) out to deal with the problem. The heater is working well enough at the moment, but we're waiting on an estimate from the plumber for some additional tweaks to the system. The boat's electrical system is also being a bit "wonky", and we've got someone coming on Wednesday to try to diagnose that issue. We're fine as long as we remain plugged into shore power, but we don't quite trust the system to keep us powered overnight were we to go cruising and have to moor at a site without shore power (as is most often the case for us). 

Our biggest concern right now, however, is something that we didn't see coming. On April 13, the day before our departure to France, we got an email from our boat insurance broker informing us that our boat insurance would be cancelled effective May 4. Underwriting guidelines for the insurance company that took over our policy about a year ago now include a prohibition on insuring boats for owners residing in the U.S. The policy was originally taken out with another company that allowed us to use our port in France as a residential address, but the current insurer does not permit this. I guess we shouldn't have been surprised by the cancellation, as there has been a great deal of discussion in the canal boating community in the past few years about the challenging environment for non-EU boat owners trying to acquire boat insurance and boat registrations. Lon has been busy making inquiries with various insurance brokers, but so far "no" is the only answer we've received. It's a complicated issue and the rules keep changing. Until we can line up a new insurance policy, we will not be able to cruise, regardless of when our mechanical issues are fixed. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, we try to remain optimistic, continue to prepare the boat for an eventual departure from Toul, and enjoy what has been a beautiful stretch of weather here in NE France.

The French waterway folks at the VNF have a new "toy" for dealing with weeds in the
canal. This was our entertainment from CARIB one day last week.

Lions and monkeys and pigs, oh my! The cloister at the Cathedral of Toul has quite a
variety of drain spouts of both mundane and fantastic creatures.

A bike ride to the south and east of Toul on Sunday afternoon, April 26,
took us through parkland and forests near the Moselle River. At top, the
Cathedral of Toul makes its presence known.

The Chalet Beaurivage had a wonderful location overlooking
the Moselle River. Although we stopped for liquid refreshment,
we really must return for what looked to be absolutely fabulous
ice cream sundaes.

A short distance from Chalet Beaurivage, and across the Moselle from the village of
Pierre-la-Treiche, were several entrances to what is known as the Sainte-Reine cave. It's part of
a large network of caves in the area and has been classified as a historical monument since 1910.
 The name is said to derive from a female chieftain (Celtic? Gallo-Roman? Frankish?) whose
 body was hidden there to protect it from her enemies. Although several entrances were
 accessible, any deep explorations of the caverns would require significant time spent
 on hands and knees.

Finally, apropos of nothing but my mind finding connections where none exist, was the following sign.

Is Sexey a "sister city" to the Burgundian town (see below)
 that we encountered in 2023 . . . ?

   

Counting Down the Days

We're not sure how it can be that each "Florida season" seems to pass by more quickly each year. It seems as though we just got to St. Petersburg, but in less than 4 weeks (April 14) we depart for France and 5 1/2 months aboard C.A.R.I.B. III. At the moment, our intent is that this will be our final European cruising season, so our first "go" at a proposed cruising route, shown in the map below, was created with that in mind. 

Our barge spent the winter in the town of Toul (circled in blue on the map above).  Ideally, getting the boat systems up and going, cleaning, and provisioning won't take us more than a couple of weeks. That, and favorable water conditions, will hopefully have us cruising by the beginning of May. We'll depart Toul and head east briefly on the Moselle River to join up with the Canal de la Marne au Rhin Est at Nancy. We'll take that canal as far as Strasbourg, then turn around and head back toward Toul. From Toul we'll work our way west and north in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, with the goal of ending our boating season moored in the Dutch city of Rotterdam with a "For Sale" sign. Our return to Florida is currently scheduled for September 30.

The proposed route includes some canal sections we've been on in previous summers, but it has a lot of new-to-us waterways as well. As always, circumstances can change, and with that, routing may have to change as well. 

Most of our summers have included "end of season" travel somewhere off the boat. Last year it was Kenya and the Netherlands/Luxembourg, the year before it was Greece, and so on. This year we aren't planning an extra trip in August or September. Because of the strong possibility that we'll be prepping the boat for sale, we decided that it would be wiser to keep our time as flexible as possible. We'll go on those other adventures when we're no longer boating for months each year.

Now to get a bit more French vocabulary in hand before we leave . . . 

One New Thing

After our return to France from Kenya, we had three beautiful, summerlike days before rain moved in with a vengeance on September 21.

Relaxing on CARIB after the hours of air and train travel to
get from Kenya to Toul. When the rain system moved in and
refused to move on, it was nice to have a photo to remember
what a sunny and warm day looked like.

It's a good thing we'd completed so many of our outdoor projects before we left for Africa, and used the three "good days" to finalize most of the rest, because our last week in Toul was absolute weather misery. After the dry summer the rain was much needed, but for six solid days it was grey, cloudy, cool, and wet--sometimes very, very wet. Still, we managed to work around the periods of rain--and sometimes through the rain--to run final errands and enjoy a couple of dinners out in Toul. I also managed to finally check out an old cemetery that we'd seen from the train on one of our recent trips. It turned out to be what remained of Toul's Jewish cemetery of the 18th and 19th centuries. Toul used to have a relatively large Jewish population, but no longer. The synagogue in town is a historic monument but is now privately owned and is no longer in use as a center of worship.

The old section of the cemetery with the stones from the 18th and 19th centuries. The railroad
track separates this cemetery from the main city cemetery. There is a newer section to this cemetery
for contemporary use. Unlike the main city cemetery, the gate to the Jewish cemetery was locked.
Any entry would have to be arranged with the local Jewish religious association.

The most significant event of the week was that, on Thursday, September 25, our new bow thruster unit was finally installed. Yes! When we return in the spring, we might actually be able to make a relatively quick start to our cruising--water, weather, and everything else permitting, of course.

The sun finally returned to Toul on Saturday, September 27, the day of our departure. Our boat neighbor at TSNI was kind enough to give us a ride to the train station, and by late afternoon we were in Paris. In our summers in France, we usually include a visit to Paris, even if it's just for a few hours. We love soaking up the atmosphere, and with so much to see and do, we always try to find a way to fit in "one new thing" during that time. This year, our intent was to pay a visit to the recently reopened Notre Dame Cathedral to see what it looked like after the repairs made subsequent to the 2019 fire. As things turned out, we got a "bonus", in that the south tower of the cathedral opened for climbs to the top about a week before we arrived in Paris. I was able to book our free "skip the line" tickets for a September 28 entry into the sanctuary of Notre Dame, as well as buy tickets for a September 29 tower climb. The rest of our short time in the city we left unscheduled, giving us flexibility to visit with our host Jonathan and also meander through some favorite neighborhoods.

Jonathan hosted us on Aleau, the French residence
of Jonathan and Jeannie (who was out of town). They
cruise on Aleau in the summer and spend the fall, winter,
and early spring in Paris at the Port de Arsenal.

 

The port was filling up with boats returning
to their winter moorings at the Arsenal.

A stop in Paris would not be complete without partaking of "Breakfast in America," so that's where we dined on Sunday morning before heading off to Notre Dame Cathedral for our early afternoon visit. My first look at Notre Dame was in January 1976 on my first European trip. I was lucky enough to enter it again--with Lon this time--in September 2018, several months before the fire in mid-April 2019. In both of those visits, the number of other visitors inside at the same time was small, and the church had a real sense of "age" about it (perhaps due to the need for a good cleaning!). We had high hopes for this year's visit, but came away a bit disappointed. The interior was beautiful--light and bright--but that may have diminished the sense of how old Notre Dame actually is (a masterpiece of Gothic architecture constructed between the 12th and 14th centuries). The biggest issue for us, however, was the presence of a large number of people doing the same thing we were. We're not big fans of crowds, and traveling on the barge "off the beaten path" has probably made us spoiled for uncrowded historic and cultural sites.

Left: a 2018 view toward the Notre Dame Cathedral choir.
Right: a similar perspective in 2025.

Left: interior view from the front entry toward the apse and choir.
Right: In the transept, with Joan of Arc at far left and views down a side aisle and the center nave.

Upper: the crowds were heaviest at the entry, as the center nave was
roped off and visitors were directed toward the north aisle.
Bottom: 14th century wood carvings of the life of Christ.

View of the north rose window. Crafted in the mid-13th century, it is the 
 only one of the three rose windows in the cathedral to retain its original
glass, with most of the 13th C glasswork still intact.

Left: the cathedral was reopened to visitors in December 2024, but there is still work going on,
as the scaffold on the back exterior of the building attests.
Right: the front/west facade of the cathedral and the main entrances. The south tower that
we would be climbing on the 29th is the tower to the right in the photo.

After we left the cathedral, we took a slightly roundabout way back to the port. One of the primary cultural sites of Paris is the ultra-modern Pompidou Centre, named in honor of the former President of France who commissioned the building in the 1970's. Among other things, it houses the largest museum for modern art in Europe. Because we're not fans of modern art, we'd never even walked by the building in all of our trips to Paris, but as it is fairly close to Notre Dame it seemed a good time to do so. Had we wanted to see the art our timing would have been horrible, as the building has just closed for a 5-year renovation.

Composed entirely of steel, the Pompidou Centre is an
"inside-out" building, with its structural system, 
mechanical systems, and circulation found on the 
exterior of the building. It was controversial when it opened
 because the architecture does not blend with the
 neighborhood in which it resides.

We were probably more intrigued with the "Stravinsky Fountain" adjacent
to the Pompidou Centre. Dating to 1983, it is lively mix of 16 sculptures
comprised of either colorful resin or metal. The fountain is so named 
because the sculptures are inspired by the music of Igor Stravinsky.

There is nothing better after a day of sightseeing than a relaxing dinner in a casual French bistro.

Monday, September 29--another gorgeous day, this time with a more French twist to breakfast at the Cafe de l'Industrie in the 11th arrondissemont. We got eggs, bacon, fresh-squeezed orange juice, a hot beverage, a baguette, and a kitty cat who had the run of the place (not jumping on tables, just walking around being curious) all for a very reasonable price. Around midday, as we made our way to our tower-climbing appointment at Notre Dame Cathedral, we had time enough to walk slowly through the Ile Saint-Louis, one of two natural islands in the Seine, with a quiet, village-like feel and elegant 17th and 18th century townhouses. We came across the small parish church of Saint Louis-en-l'Ile, originally constructed in the 17th century, but with a current interior that was "modernized" post-Revolution and has a baroque feel. We think we were in the church in a previous visit to Paris, but the memory is hazy and I, at least, had the impression that it may have been undergoing renovation at the time.

The interior of Saint Louis-en-l'Ile was quite spectacular. The most recent major improvement to
the church was the German organ (seen in the photo at right) that was added in 2005.

But on to the main event of our day, visiting the Notre Dame bell towers. After a 6-year closure, the towers were reopened on September 20, concurrent with the 2025 European Heritage Days. Despite the need to climb 424 steps from ground to the belfry of the south tower, it was one of the easier tower climbs we've ever done, due to the chance to take a breather at several points along the route.

A model of the climbing route: enter at "1"; climb to "2", where one can
catch their breath and buy souvenirs, if desired; continue on a stone spiral
staircase to "3", an exhibition room showcasing Notre Dame's history, and
the start of a new double-helix staircase which offers separate spirals for
ascending and descending; up the wooden staircase to "4", for an 
up-close-and-personal look at the chimeras (fantastic creatures) for which
Notre Dame is famous; and the final ascent to "5" at the top, with its
fantastic views over the city of Paris. 

This is the gallery at stop "3", where the double-helix staircase starts. We
had a bit of a wait here (and further up at "4") because there are limits on
how many people can occupy the summit at one time. 

Not the top yet, but still some amazing views from stop "4". The chimeras (gargoyles)
stem from the last half of the 19th century. There are 54 such creatures on Notre Dame. Some of 
the original figures were too badly damaged in the fire to be reinstalled, and were replaced
with replicas, however, the two seen at left appeared to be originals.

Finally! Made it to the top, and Lon doesn't even
look to be out of breath.

Left: looking west down the Seine toward modern La Defense.
Right: looking over the new roof and spire to the east.

More views from the top of the south tower.

On the way back down, the route took us into the south belfry to view the two largest and most famous of Notre Dame's bells, Emmanuel and Marie.

I've no idea which bell is Emmanuel and which is Marie.

From this point, we passed along a new terrace that brought us from the south tower into the north tower. 

Portals were available for viewing the restored 
wooden roof structure, the "forest."  Prior to the fire,
 the roof was made of oak trusses that had been added to the 
cathedral between 1220 and 1240. As such, it was one of
the oldest frameworks in Paris. The new roof is composed 
of oak from trees that were 150-200 years old, 
and installed using medieval techniques.

We enjoyed the tower visit much more than the "regular" Notre Dame visit of the previous day. The number of visitors allowed was greatly restricted in the tower and the views were spectacular. 

After the climb, a stop at Amorino Gelato on
 Ile Saint-Louis, for the best ice cream/gelato
 we've had in quite some time. 

We returned to Aleau to complete our final packing, say "thanks and so long" to Jonathan, and then the mechanics of returning to the U.S. took their usual form: metro to the airport and overnight at a hotel there before our departure on September 30. We had an unfortunate delay out of CDG which caused us to miss our connecting flight in Atlanta, but as there are several flights between Atlanta and Tampa-St. Pete each day, we weren't too late getting home. Our timing was impeccable in at least one respect, in that we managed to get home before the U.S. government shutdown. 

Our attention turns now from Europe and boating to life in the U.S. Our Florida fall/winter activities have already started. We're still dealing with jet lag, of course, but at least we've adjusted enough so that we're sleeping past 3 or 4 a.m. There's been a bit of "sticker shock" at the grocery store. We were unpleasantly surprised to see that an AC unit on the roof had decided to leak into our kitchen recently, so that had to be dealt with, as well as some plumbing fixtures that didn't like being inactive for several months. Annoying, yes, but all minor in the grand scheme of things. (For the moment, we're trying not to think too much about major "grand scheme of things" issues.) We've already given some thought to next season, but not too much, so this blog is now suspended until 2026.