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 . . .