Off the Beaten Path

The French region we are travelling through was, until 2015, known as Franche Comté.  In 2015 it was rejoined with Burgundy, the other half of the historic Kingdom of Burgundy, after a separation that had existed since the 15th century. The region is now called Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. Burgundy (Bourgogne) is recognizable because of its association with wine; Franche-Comté is not so well-known.  Definitely not on the Rick Steves "circuit", we've not heard any American accents in this part of France so far.

As we've continued our cruise "up" the Rhone-Rhine Canal the landscape has been agricultural and/or natural in character. We will encounter manufacturing further east, but so far green and blue are the prevalent colors.

Seeing the Doubs from land on the way to Salans

While we were still in Ranchot on the 22nd, we took some time to bicycle to the village of Salans a few kilometers away to see the 17th century Château de Salans, which is listed as a Monument Historique. It was supposed to be open on the weekend, but the chain across the driveway told us otherwise.

Disappointment in Salans: the gate is chained. It's a good thing
we didn't cycle too far. 

As much of the property as we could see from the gate. Maybe
we'll have better luck on our return trip down the canal later
this summer.

We're trying to keep our cruising days reasonable in length to give us time to explore our stops and possible sites of interest near them. On June 23 we cruised a mere 12 kilometers to a very convenient mooring point just downstream of the village of Osselle. The "point of interest" for us in the area was the Osselle Cave, a few kilometers away and an easy bicycle ride.

Done up in true tourist attraction style, the Osselle Cave was
discovered in the 13th century. The opening was expanded
and tours of the cave began in 1504. In the mid-1700's the dry
parts of the cave were used for entertainments and dinners. During
the French Revolution, priests used the caves to hide from the
Revolutionary Committee.

Our tour group going through one of the
larger cave chambers. The chambers were
carved out by the action of various rivers in the
region. About 9 miles of cave are known; 5 miles
of "dry" chambers and 4 miles of "active network"
where the water is still flowing.

Detail of the stalagmites and stalagtites in the cave. The
formations were similar to what we have seen in the Florida
Caverns State Park in Marianna, Florida.

Cave bear fossils have been found. Fortunately, no live
specimens were to be seen on this trip, only some funny looking
recreations.

Our mooring site near Osselle. Easy in, easy out and adjacent
to the cycling path.

We started our cruising day on June 24 rather early for us. An intense heat wave that is expected to last for several days has moved into the area, and we wanted to do as much of our boating as possible while it was still relatively cool.

The remains of Montferrand-le-Château
 overlooking the Doubs.

The castle was first mentioned in records from 1230. It fell
into disuse as a fortification in the mid-1600's. Over the years
it was dismantled to build homes in the nearby village.

The Thoraise Tunnel. The upstream opening has a
"waterfall" feature that shuts off when its sensors detect
a boat moving through the tunnel.

There were interesting ceiling lights in the tunnel that blinked
on and off. The water feature at the tunnel opening was still
active at this point (but hard to see because of the brightness
outdoors)

The water reflected like glass during this part of the cruise on the
natural Doubs. The landscape is becoming more hilly.

Our destination for the day was the city of Besançon, the capitol of the administrative department of Doubs (and formerly the capitol of the Franche Comté region).

Approaching the city of Besançon, its famous 17th century
Citadel visible on the hilltop.

The city is located in a horseshoe bend in the river Doubs. Boaters have a choice when arriving at Besançon: take the tunnel carved through the rock under the Citadel, or take the "round the bend" route for a city view. "Take the city route" the guidebooks said, "it's very picturesque."  And so we did. It seemed like a good idea until we had to go through the St. Paul marina and lock. It was a tight fit moving through the marina, and the lock turned out to be manual, not automatic. I drew on my memories of operating the manual locks in Ireland in 2002 to deal with the issue, but the physical labor was not a welcome thing on the by-now very hot day.

Lon at the helm while cruising the loop; the Citadel
visible above.

Turning the wheel to open
 (or close) a lock gate door

Pat opening a sluice gate to let water out of the lock chamber.

We are planning to stay in Besançon for a few days. It has quite a few sites of interest, and we're also happy to be "plugged in" to electricity during this heat wave.

Canal at Last

Tuesday, June 18, was the day we finally exchanged river cruising for canal cruising.

Lon enjoys a cup of morning coffee before our last bit of cruising
on the Saône

A few kilometers upriver from St. Jean de Losne we entered the lock to take us into the Canal du Rhône au Rhin. The canal was first envisioned in the mid-1700's as a way to provide a commercial transport link between the Rhine River and the Saône, and from there to the Rhone and the Mediterranean. Construction started at the end of the 18th century, was interrupted by the French Revolution, and was finally completed in 1834.

Preparing to leave the river and enter Lock 75 on the
Rhone-Rhine Canal

The Rhone-Rhine Canal runs through the Doubs River valley. It reaches a high point at 340 meters above sea level, is 236 kilometers long, and has 114 locks. For the first 140 kilometers the route alternates between true canal and stretches of navigation on the Doubs River. After l'Iles-sur-le-Doubs the waterway no longer enters the natural Doubs. The final 15 kilometers, from Mulhouse to Niffer, is canal that was rebuilt as a large-scale waterway that can accommodate the very large barges that ply the Rhine River. Our cruise plan at this point has us travelling as far as Mulhouse before turning around and heading back toward the Saône.

The locks are much smaller on the canal as compared to
the Saône. Smaller boats might have to "double up" in the lock,
but it's doubtful that anyone else could fit safely with us
unless they were very small.

The locks in this section of the canal are
automated. We were issued this device at Lock 75
so that we can signal the locks to set up and
function appropriately for us (filling, opening/closing gates, etc)

The first day we were so thrilled to be back on a canal that we only cruised a few kilometers to the village of  Abergement-de-Ronce.  There we claimed space for the afternoon and overnight at the "halte", a mooring pontoon (dock) put in place specifically for the short-term use of pleasure boaters.

Our mooring in Abergement-la-Ronce (look for the blue
umbrella in the distance). It was a mostly quiet spot, but
nearby church bells pealed on the hour until midnight--and
started up again at 6 a.m. the next morning.

We were back underway on Wednesday, with our destination the town of Dole, 12 kilometers (and 6 locks) upstream.

One of the hazards of canal boating--low bridges. Here Lon
perfects the "C.A.R.I.B. Crouch" to avoid knocking his head.

The city of Dole developed at the site of a fortress built in the 12th century by the Emperor Frederic Barberousse to oversee the river Doubs, and continued its development along the ancient Roman road connecting Chalon-sur-Saone and the city of Besançon. In the 15th century it was a political center under Burgundian rule. Its "golden age" occurred during the 16th and 17th centuries, a period of intense reconstruction and the establishment of universities and religious centers. The French conquered Dole in 1674, after which time it lost its position as capitol of the region.

Our mooring spot in the port of Dole. We had incredible views
of the town

The Eglise (church) Notre-Dame de Dole (1509-1574),
captured against a stormy sky. It is so tall compared to the
other buildings that it can be seen from just about anywhere one
is in Dole. Despite its size it is not a cathedral.

With things to see and do, we spent two nights in Dole. This gave us the time we needed to do the necessary (provisioning, other shopping) and the touristic, including the "Trail of the Perched Cat" (Circuit du Chat Perché) walking tour.

The necessary: Lon carts groceries back to the boat

Historic towns in France mark their walking
trails with symbols embedded in the pavement.
The "chat perche" of Dole is a reference to
the writer Marcel Aymé, who grew up in Dole
and wrote the book "Contes du Chat perché"

Lon  peruses an artist's conception of the "chat" made out
of branches

In the 13th century Dole was a center
of leather production. This is a view down the Canal
des Tanneurs along which many of the tanneries
were located.

It wouldn't be a blog posting with at least one selfie, this one
being taken in a park that overlooks the Canal des Tanneurs

A good perspective of narrow, medieval streets
as seen from the Place aux Fleurs

The Doubs on the outskirts of Dole

The oldest structure in Dole: a remnant arch of the Pont
Roman. Constructed in 1274, it was the first bridge to connect
the city of Dole and the road heading to Italy. It had a 500-year
run before collapsing in 1762. 

In addition to perching cats, Dole is also known for being the birthplace of eminent French scientist Louis Pasteur. Pasteur had accomplishments in several areas of chemistry and biology, but is perhaps best known to the general public as a pioneer in the principles of vaccination (and the inventor of the first vaccines for rabies and anthrax) and as the developer of a process for treating milk and wine to stop bacterial contamination (pasteurization).

Pasteur's birthplace and home for all of
about three years.

The great Louis Pasteur "don't get no respect"
from the local pigeons

Our cruise on Friday, June 21 covered 20 kilometers and 6 locks before we reached the halte at the village of Ranchot, our stop for the evening. Throughout the day the route alternated between stretches of canal and stretches of the natural Doubs. It was a lovely cruise, but the navigation was challenging at points as Lon had to guide an inflexibly straight C.A.R.I.B. III through a couple of narrow, curved "stop locks" (additional locks brought into operation during times of flood on the river.)

Approaching the stop lock in Rochefort-
sur-Nenon

Coming through the curve of the stop lock. Beautiful bluffs
as we enter a section of the natural Doubs.

Ranchot is in an area with several villages of various sizes. They all seem pretty quiet these days, but weren't always so. The neighboring village of Rans has a chateau that was a fortification on the Doubs in the 12th and 13th centuries, and became a point of contention between the French and the Spanish. Rans also had an active iron forging works in the 18th and 19th centuries, but time marches on, industries change, and communities are forced to change as well.

The ruins of the old forge in Rans

We will spend another night in Ranchot and use today for small projects and--later--a bicycle ride to explore what else is in the vicinity.
 

Learning Curve

Because we got a slightly later start to our cruising season than anticipated, the visit of our Dutch friends Carla & Ebe DeJong coincided with these first few days of our cruising. We were very happy to have them aboard, but from a "confidence" perspective, it would have been nice to have had a few days of cruising behind us beforehand to gain familiarity with C.A.R.I.B. III and French cruising in general.

Ebe (at the helm) and Carla enjoying the beautiful weather
we had for our cruising on June 13. The green umbrella
was not long for this world--see learning experience #1 further
down the blog.

As expected, our learning curve was fairly steep as we made our way upriver from Tournus to Chalon-sur-Saone. Some of the things we need to adapt to are:

• C.A.R.I.B. III is much larger and heavier than the trawler we owned in the U.S. (and which we used to do The Great Loop several years ago). This significantly impacts our docking/mooring and how we tie up the boat to get through the waterway locks.
• Our barge has multiple heavy-duty bollards (fitting/post on the deck to which the rope/line may be secured), quite unlike the deck cleats on the trawler. This means that the process for working a line during tying-up procedures is quite different.
• We have 3-strand nylon dock lines instead of braided line. I'm finding it to be less pliable and much heavier, so after a summer of tossing and pulling lines I may have a body-builder physique!   
• The mooring fixtures ashore are also quite different from what we are used to. On C.A.R.I.B. II we could generally stay aboard when coming into a dock or quay because I became adept at tossing lines over cleats or bollards and setting temporary lines to keep us in place. Here we most often encounter large metal rings--or cleats that don't have ends that will retain line--which means that one of us must get off the boat to loop a line through the ring or cleat and bring the end back to the boat.
• When we cruised the Great Loop in C.A.R.I.B. II during 2014-2015, we spent most nights in marinas. That's not going to happen this summer. Most marinas (portes) and haltes (temporary mooring spots with few or no services such as electricity) can't accommodate boats of our size. Fortunately, we are finding that that power set-up aboard makes us quite self-sufficient. And Lon is pursuing his body-builder physique by pounding mooring stakes!

Some individual "learning experiences" of the day:

1. Always, always, always tie down the umbrella on deck. Lon forgot to do it one time and a brief gust of wind lifted it out of its base and dropped it in the river. Too bad we hadn't practiced an "umbrella overboard" drill--we tried to retrieve it, but weren't able to snag it before it sank.

Lesson learned: Lon attaching lines to our new deck umbrella.
At least this one is a little better color coordinated with the boat.

2. Check concrete quays and lock walls for cracks. As we were departing Tournus and pulling in the last mooring line, it snagged in a crack in the quay wall and would not come loose. We had to drop the line, then "re-land" at the quay so that I could get off the boat and retrieve the rope.

Our destination for the day was Chalon-sur-Soane, a city of about 50,000 inhabitants 30 kilometers north of Tournus. We were a little familiar with the town from having stopped there a couple of times last year as we made our way to and from St. Jean de Losne for the pre-buy inspection ("to") and boat collection after purchase ("from"). The 2018 visits were very short--overnight only--so we weren't too unhappy that stormy weather kept us in Chalon on June 14 and 15 and gave us time for shopping and exploring the older parts of town.

A Roman city existed on the site and it was an active town in the Middle Ages. Chalon in the 19th century is best known as the birthplace of photography (1824), attributed to Chalon's most famous resident Nicephore Niepce. Chalon was on the dividing line between Occupied France and Vichy France during WWII.

The Tour de France comes to Chalon on July 12.

The Place de l'Hotel de Ville is decorated for the Tour with
bicycles adorning the metal light poles

Chalon streetscape. The town has many
 several-hundred-year-old buildings.

Lon at the birthplace of inventor
Nicephor Niepce. Niepce also invented a sort of
internal combustion engine called a
pyreolophore.

Napoleon was here! On the U.S. east coast it's George
Washington, on the Mississippi River it's Mark Twain. In France
a visit from Napoleon was apparently one way
 to make your house notable.

Exterior of Cathedrale Saint Vincent. A contemporary
of the Abbey in Tournus, with construction starting
in 1080 and continuing into the 16th C. Like many churches,
it was damaged during the French Revolution (facade destroyed),
but was repaired in 1827.

We attended a Saturday evening concert inside the cathedral.
The program was Mozart's Requiem (k. 626), performed
by the choral group Opus 71 and the orchestra of the
Communaute Urbaine Le Creusot-Montceau les Mines

Happy to be sitting for lunch after a morning
of walking.

French priorities: the wine section in the Carrefor market in
Chalon-sur-Saone

It's a small world: We invited Ron and Jacqueline from Holland
to "raft up" to our boat when they couldn't get a slip in the
adjacent marina (they had stopped by C.A.R.I.B. III because
 we fly the Dutch flag--it's where the boat is registered). It turns out
that Ron's niece is in a walking club with Carla DeJong

Deja vu all over again: CARIB III moored in the same
location as in photos from August 2018.

The Saint-Laurent Bridge by night. The Romans built a
bridge here in 30 B.C. In the 14th century it was crowded with
houses and shops. These were removed in the 18th C. and replaced
with obelisks. The Germans destroyed the bridge in 1944 as they
retreated, and it was completely rebuilt after the war.

The sun finally broke through again on June 16 and we were able to continue our northward trek.

Light winds--lots of sun--couldn't be better.

We had hoped to stop for the evening at the village of Suerre, after about 5 1/2 hours cruising time from Chalon. Unfortunately, the marina would not take reservations for one-night stays and when we arrived there was no space for us on the only dock able to accommodate boats of our size.  We had to make a quick "Plan B" and decided to continue on to St. Jean de Losne. Yet another lesson: Always have a Plan B.

Two hours later we arrived in town with a boating festival going on. Time for Plan C. With no available marinas or quays, and with much trepidation regarding water depth, we nosed into the bank of the Saone just south of town behind two very large barges that appeared to have been in place for quite some time. A man was renovating one of the barges, and between my minimal French and his extreme helpfulness, we had a successful landing and spent a peaceful evening.

Safely tucked against a sloping quay on the Saone.

The reward for a long cruising day: waterfront refreshment
while watching a "boat parade", followed by dinner.

Lon walking through the "Mariner's Fete" in St. Jean de Losne

Ebe and Carla left us this morning, so we are on our own again. After 8 hours of cruising yesterday we decided to stay in St. Jean today to rest up and complete some necessary tasks like grocery shopping. The weather looks good for tomorrow and we are hoping to enter the Canal du Rhone au Rhin a few kilometers north of here.