As we relaxed at the Santenay mooring, it was hard to wrap our heads around the fact that we probably only had three cruising days left in our 2024 season. Our prospective stops would include one more full day on the Canal du Centre. On the second day we would reach the reach the end of the canal and enter into the Saone River just upstream of the city of Chalon-sur-Saone. Day 3 would see us reaching Port Royal in Auxonne, where CARIB III will spend the winter.
As laid out in a blog post on March 23, our prospective cruising route as of the pre-season included a "right turn" when we reached the Saone in order to head south toward Macon, and, perhaps, Lyon. We decided a few weeks ago that, given an upcoming trip to Greece in early September, it might be pushing ourselves too much to try to fit in a cruise on the southern Saone. All summer we'd been keeping a relaxed pace in our cruising. The decision to skip the southern Saone allowed us to relax our pace even further in these final cruising days and extend our stays in our last two stops on the Canal du Centre, Santenay and Fragnes. A concurrent heat wave also had an impact on our decision making.
Santenay is a village of around a thousand inhabitants that lies at the southern end of the area of Burgundy famous for the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes of the Cote de Beaune. Not surprising then, that the business of Santenay is mostly wine, although it also has a thermal spa. Santenay is an "appellation" of Burgundy wine, that is, it is a legally defined and protected geographical indication used to identify where a wine's grapes were grown. Several small-scale hotel boats ply the canals in this area, and Santenay is often part of the itinerary for "wine appreciation" cruises. (We might have encountered more hotel boats during our cruise through this area had it not been for the Paris Olympics, which apparently resulted in heavily booked cruises before and after the event, but not so much during the Olympics. If that was the case, we are grateful for the timing.) Neither of us can lay claim to having particularly discerning palates, but there was something of a "when in Rome . . . " urge to try to understand this aspect of French/Burgundian culture, so we scheduled ourselves for a wine tasting session in Santenay on the afternoon of August 6.
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| Lon heading to assist Ian and Lisette on Catharina Elisabeth with mooring in Santenay. A major biking and walking path ran along the canal. It was busy with lots of passersby curious about our barges. We also had access to a lovely picnic table, shaded from the afternoon sun, that was a natural and comfortable gathering point for aperitifs and dinners. |
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| The port at Chagny. Had we not found space at Santenay, this would have been our alternative. It was in good condition and had lots of room, but it was adjacent to a tile factory and was completely exposed to the sun. Very hot. We were so happy to be in Santenay. |
Chagny is proud of its Sunday market--something we could not judge during our mid-week visit--and its 3-star Michelin restaurant (not on our list of "must-dos".) The on-line tourist guide to the town was more than we wanted to tackle in the increasing heat of the day, and nothing particularly "grabbed us" in our first impressions, so we cut our visit short and headed back to CARIB III for lunch.
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| Our one stop in Chagny was at the Church of St. Martin. The original church was built during the 12th and 13th centuries; its naves date to the 13th century. The Romanesque bell tower is listed as a historic monument. Lower left, a chapel housing a reconstruction of the Lourdes grotto was erected in 1873 in thanks for the healing of the parish priest. |
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| Halfway between Chagny and Santenay lies the wine village of Remigny, where we made a quick stop on the way back to CARIB. Its 11th-12th century church was, unfortunately, not open. |
The heart of Santenay village lay about a kilometer away from our mooring point on the canal. In early afternoon it was too warm to make walking an option for our explorations of Santenay prior to our 3 p.m. wine tasting, but the bicycles worked great--for the most part. The gradual incline to reach the Moulin Sourine was fine, but at the very end the steepness of the road defeated us and we ended up walking the bikes for the short final stretch.
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| The Moulin Sourine was built in the mid-19th century and restored in the 1990's. Originally used to grind flour, it is currently the only working communal windmill in the region. |
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| The town is surrounded by vineyards. The rooftop of the Chateau de Santenay is just visible to the left, the tower of the 19th century church of lower Santenay is visible to the right. |
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| An alternative view of the church as we approach from the east. |
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| Chateau Philippe le Hardi. |
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| The tasting included a short tour of the winemaking quarters, including this look at the former dungeon of the castle. It was followed by a tasting in the courtyard of 5 of the domaine's wines. |
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| Not the most interesting of photos, but the two large trees at the center are listed as "remarkable trees of France." Why? According to tradition, the oriental plane trees were planted in 1599 as a gift from King Henri IV to thank the castle owner of the time. The trees are at the entrance to the bridge that spans the castle moat (now dry). |
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| The village of Chamilly is old, as evidenced by the Church of Saint Peter and St. Paul, with its 12th C Romanesque tower and apse. The nave was added in the 17th or 18th C. |
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| Chateau de Chamilly. The tower at the far left is 14th C, but the bulk of the castle was built in the 17th C by Noel Bouton, a general in the French army and Marquis of Chamilly at the time of Louis XIV. |
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| Upper: Lon purchases beer from LaBAB, which conducted its operations in outbuildings on the castle grounds. It's a separate business entity from the winery. Lower: the former kitchen of the castle, now the wine tasting room. The bottle of cremant that I was purchasing stands on the table. Beautiful label (the cremant has not yet been tasted!). |
Our bike ride to Chamilly had some steep hills that challenged the capacity of our e-bike motors. We were directed to a more bike-friendly return route by the woman who sold the cremant. Google Maps had tried to send us the easier way to begin with, but we didn't trust it. It may be the one time we would have been better off doing what Google Maps suggested.
Much as we'd been enjoying our mooring in Santenay and the company of Ian and Lisette, the next series of descending locks couldn't be put off forever. With 6 lock-free kilometers prior to the first lock of the 11 that we wanted to complete on August 8, we set off just after 8 a.m., hoping to be first at Lock number 24. Alas, our optimism was not rewarded, as we spied a cruiser ahead of us on the canal after we passed through the port at Chagny. That wouldn't have been so bad had another issue not arisen. Lock opening time of 9 a.m. came and went and the lock remained inactive. No eclusier, and my repeated telephone calls to the vnf command center went unanswered, something that had never before been a problem. The boat in front of us turned out to be a hire boat, and the folks aboard had no clue what was needed. After 45 minutes of frustrated waiting, I finally called the number I'd been given in late July specifically for the lock in Montceau. Amazingly enough, that got things going. The lock started preparing to receive the first boat, and within a few minutes a vnf employee arrived. Also to the good, the lock cycled for us as soon as the hire boat departed the lock.
We could have happily done without an additional 45-minute wait due to a lock malfunction at our 4th lock of the day. (We had some sympathy for the poor vnf employee who seemed to be responsible for keeping the 11 locks going. It was a busy day on the canal, so he was working hard.) Once that was sorted, however, we made smooth progress to the long quay at the village of Fragnes-la-Loyere.
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| A former lock house, now a private residence, with an amazing flower garden. |
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| This looked like crop rotation, but we weren't entirely sure. Sunflowers were poking their heads up at random places in the surrounding field of what, we don't know. |
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| Lower: what we saw as we passed by on the canal, just upstream of Fragnes. Upper: we visited the church by bicycle when we were moored in Fragnes. It looks like some efforts are being made to keep it from disintegrating further. The choir and apse are 11th C; the tower is a more recent reconstruction. There were several 19th century gravestones on the property. |
Fragnes was formerly a stop on the Roman road between Chalon-sur-Saone and Beaune. It's located only a few kilometers from the much larger city of Chalon-sur-Saone, which explains its more industrial based economy in the last several decades. Its close proximity to Chalon made it a very convenient place from which to visit that city by bicycle, as, having spent several days in Chalon in 2018 and 2019, we did not wish to cruise there this year.
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| CARIB moored in Fragnes. The building just "above" us housed a French restaurant that was usually busy. In the building to the far left was a great boulangerie that, in addition to tasty bread and pastries, had some awesome hamburgers perfect for reheating and wonderful fruit tarts. |
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| Chalon-sur-Saone is still a stop for larger river cruise boats. |
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| Just in front of the bridge in the photo is the pontoon where large boats like barges are able to moor. A concrete quay along the bank seems designed for short day stops. |
Ian and Lisette on Catherina Elisabeth showed up mid-afternoon on August 9 after a very warm cruising day with some delays, so we were able to trade stories over docktails. All-in-all, our stay in Fragnes was light on sightseeing and heavier on socializing. Sunday August 11 was a particularly pleasant day. On Saturday we were contacted by our nephew Andy, middle son of Lon's younger brother Guy. Andy had been in Europe for work. He and his girlfriend had tacked on a bit of vacation and wanted to drive from Zurich to spend Sunday afternoon with us. Four hours plus of driving each way was above-and-beyond the call of duty for family, but they did it. What a treat to meet Mel and spend time with the both of them.
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| L to R: Lon, Pat, Andy, Mel |
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| Our very own wine tasting on city park property adjacent to the boat quay. The gentleman in the striped shirt was a member of the family that owned Domaine Gaudry, and he'd been passing out pricelists for their wine on Saturday. Ian and Lisette worked with him to schedule a wine tasting on Sunday evening. Lon and I were the sole Americans in a sea of convivial Australian boaters. |
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| We are following Catharina Elisabeth to the deep (10 meters) lock. They were the first boat through at the 9 a.m. opening, and we followed shortly thereafter. |
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| Ian snapped a photo of us exiting the lock. I'm holding an umbrella over Lon and me, as the "guillotine gate" has the unfortunate characteristic of shedding water. |
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| Top: moored in Seurre Bottom: the Seurre waterfront. We had a brief time to walk around town at twilight. Most of the activity, such as it was, was along the water. |
Tuesday, August 13, was our final cruising day of this 2024 season. With the only lock of the day just upstream from our mooring, we were through by 9 a.m. and on our way north.
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| The familiar skyline of St. Jean de Losne came into view by mid-morning. We stopped for fuel at the self-service fuel pontoon (at water's edge, below the church in the photo), and after that pain-in-the-wallet-inducing hour, continued upriver to Port Royal in Auxonne. |
We are currently in a temporary mooring space at Port Royal, but expect to be moved to a more permanent winter mooring spot soon. It may take a few days to get out of the habit of prepping for a cruise, but between boat projects and land travel, our remaining 7 weeks in Europe promise to remain busy.
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