Almost There

We are in the Netherlands!

Our current location in Maastricht, the Netherlands. One more
cruising day to get to the boat yard in Maasbracht.

Yesterday we knew we were going to need a longer-than-normal cruising day to get from Huy, Belgium to Maastricht in the Netherlands, but we didn't expect it to be quite as long as it turned out to be. Eight hours became ten-and-a-half because we needed 3 hours just to get through the large Lanaye lock at the border of Belgium and the Netherlands. A combination of lots of commercial barge traffic and the Lanaye lock using only the largest of its four chambers created a nightmare of a slowdown. The lock keepers played the equivalent of "boat tetris" to try to maximize the number of boats that could be accommodated during each fill/empty cycle, but because we understood neither spoken Dutch nor French it took us one lock cycle to observe the process and figure out what was going on.

The drop in the Lanaye lock is over 13 meters (40+ feet). The cruiser
in the photo is dwarfed by the lock walls.

How to play "boat tetris"--barges to the left wall, barges to the right wall, and a barge squeezing
into the middle.  Commercial boats get priority over pleasure boaters
and load the lock first. We were happy that we didn't have to pair up with one of the "big boys."

Riding the water down.

The lock gate is open and they're off! Going, going . . . 

. . . gone! The two boats to the right in the photo are waiting
to enter the lock. We waited to depart until after the turbulence
 created by the commercial boats had subsided a little bit. 

Up until Lanaye we'd had a great cruising day. There was no wind when we left Huy, so Lon was able to finesse CARIB III out of the port without having to resort to the use of lines to help us turn. The previously predicted rain did not materialize until we encountered a few showers late in the day. 

The scenery wasn't as nice today as it has been most other days
this summer. The industrial side of Belgium was definitely on display.

The ruined 19th C church of Ombret-Rawsa. How it became
ruined is an unanswered question.

One of the bridges of Liege, Belgium. In a different year we might
 have been able to spend a few days exploring this fairly large city.

This wide body of water is a canal--the Albert Canal. It was opened
in 1937 to provide a route for large commercial barges between
Antwerp and Liege. A navigable section of the Meuse/Maas River
that parallels the canal for about 12 kilometers north of Liege is used
by pleasure boats, but we opted to stay on the canal.

After our "Linger in Lanaye" we were thrilled to get Maastricht in our sights, finally go through the lock at the entry to the T'Bassin marina in the old port of Maastricht, and tie up for the evening.

The Sint-Servaasbrug, the stone arches on the left forming a bridge dating from the 13th century. 

We're experiencing language and culture shock after the
"all French, all the time" of France and the Wallonia region of Belgium,
 but the number of bicycles is a good reminder to us that we're now in 
the Netherlands. That, and the fact that most of the locals we've
encountered have spoken English.

We are staying in Maastricht for at least 4 nights. Whether we actually leave Tuesday for Maasbracht will depend on what we're able to work out with the boat yard next week as they reopen after a long August holiday. 

Another Town, Another Citadel

We're not purposely seeking out citadels in the towns we're visiting, it's just that they seem to be rather difficult to avoid. Politics, geography, topography, and the technology of war in the Middle Ages all combined to promote the building of fortifications in strategic locations along the Meuse River. Givet and Dinant were already mentioned as sites for hilltop forts. Now we can include Namur and Huy as towns boasting citadels of their own. 

Commercial boats moored on the Meuse, the Citadel of
Namur on the hill in the background.

The citadel overlooking the town of Huy. 

The weather was rather dreary when we left Dinant on Monday, August 23. It's been an unfortunate truth that getting a maximum of two days in a row of good weather seems to be the norm this July and August. 

Gray and wet weather notwithstanding, the smiles of Ebe and Lon
 show that a less-than-perfect weather day on the water can still be more
enjoyable than a day spent elsewhere.

 The landscape between Dinant and Namur remained hilly, beautiful, and full of surprises.

Most building is still done "between rock and water"--unless, of
course, someone manages to get something built on the top of the hill.

A clever concrete replica of a river barge.
We think it's a residence, but as we could only see it in passing,
we're not completely certain.

And the chateaux just keep a'comin' . . . 

We moored in Namur at the city marina, under the watchful eye of the citadel. Namur is a government town, the capitol of the French-speaking Belgian region of Wallonia. It sits at the confluence of the Sambre and Meuse rivers, which helps to account for its strategic importance throughout its history. Of course, being of "strategic importance" means that you're fought over, change hands multiple times, and usually suffer great damage as a result. For Namur that was true in the Middle Ages and it was true in the two World Wars of the last century.

Current-day Namur has an old town that allows for pleasant strolling and shopping, but its biggest tourist attraction is its citadel. Like most forts of this type, it has been rebuilt and remodeled several times since it was first established. Most of the existing citadel can be credited to the Dutch, who had control of Namur at various times before Belgian independence in the 1800's. The late 1600's saw some contributions from French military expert Vauban. 

The citadel can be accessed via a strenuous climb, or via 
cable cars. We opted for cable cars up, walking down.  

There were great views of the town from the cable car . . . 

. . . and from various points on the citadel grounds. The boats
seen to the left in the photo are in the small boat section of
the city port. CARIB III was moored on the opposite bank of
the river, and not visible from this vantage point.

One small part of the citadel interior.

We got one of "two good weather days" on August 24 for our sightseeing in Namur, and that turned into a lovely evening when we had a farewell dinner with Ebe and Carla at a restaurant overlooking the Sambre River. 

The great weather stretched into the next day as well, as we made our way to Huy. Commercial barges are definitely more numerous now, and we went through our first 200-meter-long lock.

We are about 2/3 of the way into the lock. Depending on the sizes
 of boats using the lock in any given empty/fill cycle, it is possible
 for a gate to be deployed across the midpoint of the lock so as to
decrease the amount of water needing to be emptied (and filled).

There are more commercial boats to be seen downstream of Namur,
both parked and moving. There is also more industry visible
along the shore.

Carla and Ebe cruised with us until we moored at the Royal Yacht Club de Huy, and then left after lunch to catch the first of the trains that would take them home to the Netherlands. We had originally planned to stay only one night, but decided it might be nice to spend a day in Huy to do some minor chores and have a little R&R.

The RYCH is a nice facility, but it is probably a bit on the small side for us. A working bow thruster would have made the docking easier. It is not an easy entrance/exit between marina and river, so we may have to do some "magic" with our lines to smooth our passage when we leave tomorrow morning.

CARIB III moored at the RYCH. We took the boat into the basin
at the foreground of the photo earlier today and got the boat turned
so that we don't have to back out on our exit. It may look like plenty
of space for us to maneuver, but that is the deception of a wide-angle lens.

We spent a few hours today walking through the older part of Huy. Though nothing visible  remains of its origins during the Roman era, it has a large church that was built in several phases from the 12th to the 14th centuries (and subsequently repaired a number of times after sieges and other attacks on the city), and has managed to retain some of its Gothic and Renaissance buildings. The current Huy citadel was constructed in the early 1800's by the Dutch over the ruins of previous versions of the fort, and was used as a detention center by the Germans in WWII. Huy's cable car to its citadel is not functioning, so we decided that our visits to the citadels in Dinant and Namur had been a sufficient number of citadels for one week.

Yes, it's August, but we still need jackets.

The 18th century Town Hall in the Grand Place
(the main market square).

Another perspective on the Grand Place, with one of the "four
wonders of Huy", the Li Bassinia fountain from 1406.
 It was a great spot for lunch.

We are hoping to put in a slightly longer cruising day tomorrow and get as far as Maastricht in the Netherlands. But, as always, "we shall see".

Between Water and Rock

Between water and rock. That would be an apt description for most of the towns and villages we've encountered during our cruising on the Meuse the past few days. The landscape has been quite beautiful: a winding river valley between the high, green hills of the Ardennes, and towns which squeeze themselves into the small amount of flat space at rivers edge and up the lower reaches of the surrounding hills.

The portion of the village of Montherme that fits into a "boucle"
(loop) of the Meuse. We took the photo from a vantage point above the portion of town on
the opposite side of the river.

Fumay, another village in a loop of the Meuse, with one section of buildings at river's edge,
and other buildings (including the church) on the higher ground.

A pedestrian path in Fumay winds its way up the
hill toward the church. You'd better be in decent
physical shape if you want to live in these towns.

Givet, our last overnight stop in France on August 20. A fortified town "back in the day", 
its citadel (partly designed by 17th century expert Vauban) is perched on a hilltop overlooking Givet.

Leaving a lock on the French Meuse. The pictures can't really capture how tall the hills seem
when you're below them on the river.

Evidence of previous floods on the Meuse at this lock-side
building: a pole with dates and the level of the flood waters
in the indicated years.

Lon has been doing an awesome job of piloting the boat without a bow thruster. What has also helped--and it's fortunate timing--is the size of the locks has been bigger since we left Verdun. Prior to Verdun the locks were 38.5 meters long and a bit over 5 meters wide. After Verdun the locks were 47 meters long and about 6 meters wide. It has been to our advantage not to have the tight fit of the smaller locks.

And now for the really good news--we left France yesterday and entered Belgium! The locks have grown again. They're currently 100 meters long and about 12 meters wide, but the drop is still similar (2-3 meters) to what we've been dealing with all summer. The locks will get longer and wider again after Namur as we continue deeper into Belgium.  The locks are now staffed, so we no longer need a "Telecommande for Dummies" or similar automated device. We have to notify each lock via vhf radio of our approach when we are 10 or 15 minutes away. I have a standard announcement prepared, and so far I've made myself understood, but my French is not nearly good enough to understand any special instructions a lock keeper might try to give me in return.

The Meuse in Belgium--at least in our one day of experience on these waters--is much busier with recreational boats than was the Meuse in France. But as in France, the scenery along the river can be stunningly beautiful.

Bigger locks mean bigger boats. We shared a lock with the
barge on the left, and met the "monster" commercial
 barge (on the right) as we exited.

Again, the photo doesn't do the landscape justice, but one can
get some idea of scale by comparing barge to rock face.

There were a number of rock climbers, including this
intrepid soul, on the rock face on the sunny Saturday (Aug 21).

This part of the Meuse was a waterway with several
 chateaux, including the Chateau de Freyr.

We stopped for the evening in Dinant, also a town squeezed between river and rocks. Dinant is a holiday town and was "hopping" on Saturday. Like so many of the towns located at strategic spots in the river valley, its history is rife with tales of war and destruction, but this weekend it was filled with people just trying to have fun.

Our view of Dinant from our mooring: La Citadelle (another "Vauban
was here" fortification) on the top of the rock at left; the cathedral near photo center.

View onto the cathedral from the Citadelle. The
Citadelle was accessed either by climbing 400+ stairs
or by taking a cable car. It was much restored and
a little Disneyesque, but interesting nonetheless. 

There were painted saxophones all over
 town, designed to be representative
 of different countries. Adolphe Sax, 
the inventor of the saxophone, was born
in Dinant in 1814.

The U.S. saxophone with a 
New Orleans theme.

On August 23, 1914, the invading German army
killed 674 civilians of Dinant at various locations
around the town. Lon is standing inside a memorial
to those civilians. Along with the death of 10% of
the population, about 2/3 of the town was burned
 and razed during this period.

About 2 km downriver from Dinant is the 
medieval town of Bouvignes-sur-Meuse. The   
ruins of the 12th century Crevecoeur fortress  
overlook the town and the Meuse.

On a day with off-and-on rain, we were able to walk to the
ruins during a dry spell (well, mostly dry).  This is the 
downriver view from Crevecoeur.

                         

Bouvignes in the foreground, Dinant in the distance.

We have been joined in Dinant by friends from
the Netherlands, Ebe and Carla de Jong. They will
be spending a few days with us. Anyone
with eagle eyes should be able to spot CARIB III
just to the right of Carla's knee (photo taken at
the Citadelle).  

Tomorrow is another cruising day and our intended destination is the city of Namur. 

Days of Am(e)usement

Well, it was nice while it lasted. After Vilosnes-Haraumont we managed to have summer for 3 more days, which gave us 2 beautiful cruising days and a pleasant "stop" day in Sedan. This was followed by yesterday's "back to October" gray skies, cool temperatures, and intermittent rain showers as we cruised to Charleville-Mezieres.

After the near-perfection of our cruise on August 12, we had a few "Friday-the-13th" glitches the following day: a 45-minute wait for the vnf at our first lock of the day; a malfunctioning second lock of the day (whose recalcitrant exit doors--probably due to heavy weed in the lock--kept us trapped for about 20 minutes); and a disappointingly unavailable halte fluvial in the town of Stenay, which put us on an old quai for the night. Minor issues in the scheme of things, and it was followed by a problem-free cruise to Sedan on the 14th.

The recent flooding deposited signs and logs in unhelpful places.

It's not uncommon to see old military bunkers left standing
in random locations.

A resident of Vilosnes put a modern-day covid spin on a few of the
creatures in his rock-garden menagerie.

Our unanticipated, but ultimately pleasant, mooring in Stenay. 

The town of Stenay was, to our eyes, relatively non-descript and quiet. It had been one of France's heavily fortified towns on the Meuse River since the early 1600's, but no longer shows much evidence of those fortifications. In WWI it was the headquarters of the German 5th Army during its attacks on Verdun. But the last American battle in World War I, the Battle of Stenay, provides in microcosm a perfect example of the needless waste of lives in that war.

On November 11, 1918, with the Armistice only hours away, US Army General William Wright, commander of the 89th Infantry Division, ordered his troops to capture Stenay. The attack was ordered, not because Stenay had any particular military value at that point, but because Wright wanted his men to have access to the public bathing facilities and was not certain that his troops would have that access were the Germans allowed to be in Stenay after the Armistice took effect. The Germans were still heavily armed and held the high ground, and the battle was a furious one. It started about 8 a.m. that morning and ended at the start of the Armistice, 11 a.m. During those 3 hours the 89th suffered 365 casualties, 61 killed and 304 wounded. The number of German casualties is unknown. The Americans could simply have waited a few hours and then walked, without shots fired, into the town. Wright was relieved of command the next day, but was never really disciplined for his pointless quest for "a wash and a shave." (Tragically, this was not the only Allied military action that was ordered during the final hours before the Armistice took effect.) 

Next stop: Sedan. Although to an English speaker it sounds like a style of car, Sedan was, in fact, another fortified town along the Meuse. It was an independent principality up until 1642, when it was annexed by France and became part of the defense system of France's northeastern border. The main point of interest for us in the town was its castle, whose construction started in 1424. Once they started building they just kept going. . . and going. . . and going. Because the castle additions and renovations did not involve systematically demolishing the earlier construction work, the end result was a fortified castle that, at over 35,000 meters squared, is the largest in Europe.

Lon is dwarfed by one section of the fortified Castle of Sedan.

Free entry to the castle courtyard.

A viewpoint from within the castle courtyard. The 
building with the small windows is now a luxury hotel.

A stone plaque denoting the birthplace in the castle of
Marshal Turenne, who during his lifetime (1611-1675) was
considered a great military hero in France.

The Palais de Princes (Princes'  Palace) was constructed in 1613 as
a more modern and comfortable home for the royalty of Sedan.

Sedan's role in more recent military history is somewhat dismal. It is known for the First and Second Battles of Sedan. The First Battle of Sedan in 1870 was a decisive defeat of the French Army by the German Army in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. After World War I the French believed that the Germans would never attempt to invade France again through the difficult terrain of the Ardennes, and left relatively weak defenses around Sedan. Apparently the Germans didn't agree with the French assessment, because during the period of May 12-15, 1940, the Germans were able to capture Sedan and its bridges in the Second Battle of Sedan, thereby allowing Germany to pour men and materiel westward across the Meuse into France, and thus facilitating France's rapid defeat.

Sedan is currently part of a French urban renewal program and, although there are run-down areas, we thought that the center of town was pleasant.

A Tale of Two Cities. . . or at least one in transition. The
building to the left, The House of the Big Dog, has been
renovated. The boarded-up windows to the right are a part
of the building that belonged to a 17th century military
academy (later a cloth manufactory).

We have spent the full day today in the town of Charleville-Mezieres. We had not originally planned to do so, but as we approached our last lock of the day yesterday the bow thruster on the boat failed, so a maintenance day was needed.

Charleville-Mezieres resulted from the merger in 1965-66 of six towns and villages along the Meuse, with the name coming from the largest two towns. Mezieres is the oldest of the towns, with a history that goes back more than a millenium. Charleville is considered to be a Renaissance "new city", a town planned and established by nobleman Charles de Gonzague and whose history goes back "only" to the early 1600's. Both cities suffered significant damage during the World Wars, but have rebuilt themselves beautifully, Charleville in particular. We were amazed by the number of shops in the center of town, and the amount of pedestrian traffic on a weekday.

Charleville has an absolutely beautiful town center, the
Place Ducale. It is fitted out for summer with all sorts of 
"beachy" and family-friendly activities. 

A French version of mini-golf was set up in the square, beach
volleyball is visible to the left.

The city hall of Mezieres from the 1920's, built to replace a
structure damaged in the First World War.

The 13th C Burgundy Gate, remains of the Mezieres city
 fortifications of that period.

The Catholic basilica in Mezieres was constructed
over a century, from 1499 to 1615. Its original
stained-glass windows did not survive the wars
of the last 200 years. The church now contains
68 contemporary windows created from 1954-1979
by Rene Durrbach, a friend of Picasso, and is
a unique collection of its kind in Europe.

As we prepare to continue our cruise tomorrow, we do so with good news/bad news. The good news is that while we were here we were able to get a local pharmacy to work some computer magic and convert each of our CDC vaccination cards into an "EU Digital Covid Certificate", which should facilitate our entry into local restaurants and tourist attractions as well as our entry into Belgium and the Netherlands. Also good news is that Lon was able to diagnose the bow thruster problem, but the bad news is that he wasn't able to find the part he needs to fix the problem. So Lon gets to go back to cruising "the old-fashioned way" for a while. He had to do it in 2019, so we know he's capable.