The Road to Auxerre

"The Road to Auxerre" is the theme for this year's DBA boat rally, and indeed, the Yonne River is the last of the "roads" we have travelled to get to Auxerre. Ever since Paris, we have been encountering more and more boats that are making their way to the get-together. It had been mentioned in earlier blog postings that it felt very quiet on the canals this year, and that we'd seen hardly any other pleasure boats. True no more. With two dozen boats--most of them barges similar in size to ours--cruising toward the same destination, and with the French summer holidays now in full swing, the number of boats we encountered as we cruised increased significantly. It then became a matter of trying to anticipate what kind of cruising schedule would both minimize possible delays at locks and maximize our chances of snagging appropriate overnight moorings.

We left Sens just before 9 a.m. (lock opening time) on July 6, no longer in the company of Csvargo (who had departed a day earlier), but with new travel companions from England, Betty and Paul, on a 12-meter motor yacht. It was a good "partnership", and we passed through the locks--whether they had flat sides or sloped sides with pontoons--with no problems and no delays. At the end of the 4-hour cruising day an unoccupied halte nautique awaited us in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne. By the end of the day, there were several more boats behind us.

With only the afternoon to see what the town had to offer, we were at the Tourist Office when they opened at 2 p.m. after the lunch break. We thought to pick up a walking tour map and head out, but what we got was so much more. The Tourist Office apparently shared space and staff with the Musee-Galerie Carnot, and the curator sat us down in an interior courtyard while she cleaned pottery shards from an archeological dig, and gave us a very humorous accounting of the history of Villeneuve. She then invited us to wander the art gallery for a brief period, before rejoining us to continue our personal guided tour and history lesson.

Left: native son, sculptor Emile Peyrot; U/R: "Lu", curator
  of the Carnot Museum and Gallery (and maybe director of the
Tourist Office?); L/R: some of the displays in the Art Gallery.

In a not-open-to-the-public room full of archeological
finds, Lon and I got to hold a fragment of a mammoth tooth.
As a parting gift, we were given a small stone knife
from the Mesolithic era.

In a nutshell, Villeneuve-sur-Yonne was founded as Villeneuve-le-Roi in 1163 by Louis VII of France as a fortified border town at the boundary of Champagne. It was one of the 8 residences of French kings. Significantly, it was in Villeneuve that the idea of France as a nation was codified, when Louis' son Philip Augustus became, in 1190, the first French monarch to call himself "King of France" rather than "King of the Franks." What remains today, among other things, are two of the old fortified city gates, the old ramparts transformed into park-like walking paths, a church which is nearly the size of a cathedral, and the keep of the former royal castle.

The "Sorcerer's Tower", a portion of the old fortifications,
was incorporated into this residence. 

The stone base of the Bonneville Tower, formerly the southwestern
tower of the city walls, now part of a house along the Yonne.

The Big Tower, the castle keep commissioned by King 
Philippe Auguste in 1205.

Interior of the Church of Notre Dame de l'Assomption
(13th-16th centuries). 

The chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas, patron
saint of mariners.

It's a very large church for what is now a rather small town, but
truly reflective of the town's past importance. 

The two remaining fortified gates: Porte de Sens (L) and
Porte de Joigny (R).

It was a hot day, so we only covered about half the walking tour route. We have a perfect excuse to stop for longer when we retrace our route on the Yonne next year.

On July 7 we continued cruising with Paul and Betty as we made our way to the town of Joigny. Just like the day before, we didn't have any competition for the locks when we arrived at them, so the cruise was accomplished about as expeditiously as we could have hoped for. The locks continued to be changeable in ways large and small.

This was an interesting one. On most of the lock gates, the sluices (which let the water in--or out--
of the lock as the case may be) are operated using an electrical control box installed by the gates. In this lock, the eclusier had to manually change the position of levers to open and close the sluices.

Joigny is an older town than Villeneuve, with origins in Neolithic times. It, too, was fortified in the Middle Ages, and is noted for having one of the largest sets of half-timbered houses in Burgundy. We had originally intended to spend two nights in Joigny, but the weather forecast for Sunday was calling for thunderstorms all day, and we thought that it would be better to keep moving and have our "day off" in Gurgy on Sunday. As well, the mooring options for barges weren't great in Joigny, and the number of boats that we were seeing--both barges headed to the rally and vacation hire boats from the Locaboat/LeBoat hire base in Joigny--also made us think that moving on earlier was a better option. We saw what we could of Joigny in the little bit of time we had, and promised ourselves to return next year. We then enjoyed some camaraderie with DBA members who shared our mooring, and finished off the day by dining out to celebrate our 44th wedding anniversary.

On a rather rough quay north of town we were moored adjacent
to CARIB III's "sister ship." Catharina Elisabeth was "birthed" in
1915 at the Czar Peter shipyard in the Netherlands, the same 
shipyard that created our boat in 1928. 

Joigny spreads out on a hill. This view is from a park very
near to where we were moored.

Looking back toward the Locaboat port. Beyond the port, behind
the trees, was our mooring spot.

The Porte du Bois (Wood Gate).

Lon trekking uphill on one of the narrow
streets of Joigny.

Some of the wood carvings on the 16th century timbered
buildings are absolutely fabulous. 

We left Joigny just after 8 a.m. on July 8 as part of a "flotilla" of boats. We were number 3 in a group of what ultimately turned out to be 9 boats that wanted to get through the first lockage of the day: 6 barges ultimately heading toward Auxerre, one 30-meter barge that was not part of the DBA group, Paul and Betty's cruiser, and a vacation rental boat. 

Our view toward the back of the lock from our position in about
 the middle of the first lock of the day.

The second lock of the day was the reason that all of us were so anxious to get through the first lock. Instead of "lockage on demand", the second lock was restricted to 3 passage times each day: 10 a.m., 2 p.m., and 5 p.m. All of our boats got to it in plenty of time for the 10 a.m. passage, but because it was a narrower lock than the first lock, we could no longer all fit at the same time. We went through with 3 other barges and the 2 small boats, and fortunately, the vnf did an additional lockage to allow the 3 remaining barges to pass through after we were done.

Passing the confluence with the Bourgogne Canal.

Leaving the second lock: the first two boats continued with us
to the village of Gurgy, whereas the boat in front of us left
our group at this point to moor on a quiet quay.

There's not much to say about Gurgy, other than that it was a nice, quiet town with well-maintained properties and--important to us on weekends--had a boulangerie where we could buy our weekly pastry. It was a very popular mooring quay, in very good condition and with adjacent kiosks for drinks and food. We had access to power and water there, so it was a great place to hang out for a couple of nights and catch our breath before our final push to Auxerre. As it was populated by several DBA boats, it was also a very social stop for us.

We were at one end of the mooring quay. Boats had to double up
all the way along the quay to accommodate everyone who needed a 
place to stay overnight.

"Leo" was aboard a boat that we invited to raft against us on
July 9 when there was no open space on the quay in Gurgy.
He had been a breeding stud, and his registered name was
"Just a Gigolo." 

Several of the DBAers in Gurgy decided to stay for another day, but we pushed off on July 10 to catch the first of five locks of the day that would take us to Auxerre 10 km "down the road." For the first time in a week we were cruising by ourselves. Aside from a 20-minute wait at the third lock as two boats came downstream, we breezed through the morning and were at the Aquarelle Port in Auxerre before noon. This gave us time to shop for groceries, fill our water tank, and empty our black water tank before heading to the rally location at an Auxerre park on July 11. 

Auxerre at sunset. To the right, CARIB is seen moored under the pedestrian bridge, to the
left is visible the Abbey of Saint-Germain d'Auxerre.

As we headed back from an evening walk to the rally site, we saw the Auxerre
Cathedral backlit by a beautiful orange sky.

The view of the Cathedral out our window this morning.

We are now in position for the rally, rafted on the outside of a 25-meter barge called Matilda. Registration is tomorrow afternoon and our opening reception tomorrow night. We are thrilled beyond measure that another "aspiration" has been achieved.