Temporary Residents

From September 16 until our departure for the Amsterdam airport on September 29 we rented a furnished apartment within Nancy's Charles III district, the city's historic commercial core that was created in the 16th century. We were within easy walking distance of the train station, groceries, restaurants, and most neighborhoods in the city. We prefer apartments to hotels for extended stays such as this, because they allow us the flexibility of eating out or staying in for meals, and they generally give us more space to spread out and relax. 

In our first couple of days in Nancy, we revisited parts of the city we'd seen before but never seem to tire of.

Top: the Port de Plaisance of Nancy, nearly emptied at season's end in preparation
for dredging and the installation of new docks.
Middle left: Porte de la Citadelle, built by Charles III in the 17th C to reinforce the city's defenses.
Lower left: The bright lights of the Opera House at Stanislas Square on performance night.
Lower right: "Three Polar Bears", not a wall painting, but a 3-D sculpture made from trash
and meant to convey an environmental message.

We took advantage of a price special running at one of the local movie theaters to attend two movies within three days--"Spiderman" on September 17 and "Pressure" on September 19. We must have been feeling some pent-up desire for the movie theater experience. That, and it was nice to sit for extended periods after days filled with walking.

The weekend of September 19-20 was European Heritage Days 2026. It's an annual event celebrated throughout Europe. We've partaken of events in past years in towns small and large. During this weekend a town or village may open up admission to places not normally available to the public, or provide free admission to city museums, or provide tours to local places of interest. Some events require reservations, which can make it more difficult for non-natives who aren't always aware of what might be on offer. Our participation this year was limited to Saturday, September 19, as we had plans to travel out of the city on Sunday, September 20. Tours conducted in French weren't an option, so we made the day simple and took advantage of free admission to the Museum of Fine Arts on Stanislas Square. It resides in one of the 18th century buildings that line the square, and we'd not yet been there.

Left: The rococo staircase was a work of art as much as the paintings that hung on the walls.
Upper right: Lon doing his due diligence in the galleries. Lots to see, but unfortunately, an
hour in a museum is about our limit.
Lower right: The lower level contained glass collections from the Art Nouveau era of the late
19th century to today. Like the city museum in Metz, the building incorporates remnants of former
constructions of archeological significance. The brick and stone ruins here are not Gallo-Roman,
 but are remains of the city's 15th - 17th century fortifications.

The advantage of being based in a city like Nancy is that it is a railway transportation hub. A "how are you?" email from old friends we knew from our Minnesota days--who now live in Bath, England--mentioned that they were going to be on holiday in Basel, Switzerland at the same time as we were in Nancy. Basel was an inexpensive 3-hours from Nancy by train, so it was a no-brainer to schedule a quick trip to Basel on September 20-21 for a meet-up with Stan and Kitty. We'd been in Basel previously in 2019, so we weren't concerned about sightseeing this time around.

The view from the roof of the beautiful Hotel Maerthof in Basel. We did a bit of walking around
the old city, and crossed the Rhine on Basel's famous non-motorized ferries, but most of our time
was spent chatting over food and drink.

It didn't seem as though it had been four years since our last in-person
visit in England. A warm September evening allowed us to enjoy
dinner outdoors.

Back in Nancy with a week to go before departure gave us the time to relax at the apartment, take some leisurely strolls around the city, and try out a variety of restaurants. We even managed to fit in another movie. During our walks around town, we were amazed by the number of large churches. They weren't cathedrals but seemed similar in size and scale. There was a definite church building boom in the mid-late 1800's.

Upper left: The 19th-C Neo-Gothic Saint Leon Church.
Upper Right: Another Neo-Gothic wonder, Saint Peter's Church.
Bottom: The Sacred Heart Basilica of Nancy, whose construction in the
early 20th century coincided with the Art Nouveau movement.

We concentrated our explorations on Nancy's Art Nouveau legacy. Art Nouveau is an art form that started its development around 1880 and was in high fashion up until the start of World War I. Art Nouveau strove to combine function with the beauty of the natural world. It is recognized in architecture by its flowing curves and ornate metalwork, and the incorporation of floral motifs into furniture, stained glass, glass art, and ceramics. Nancy is the acknowledged capital of the Art Nouveau movement in France and is the home of the Ecole de Nancy, founded in 1901 as an association of artists, industrialists, architects, and craftsmen producing Art Nouveau masterpieces. 

Villa Majorelle, the epitome of Art Nouveau in Nancy. The house was built between 1901 and 1902
for furniture maker Louis Majorelle and his wife. Much of the ironwork and furniture was
designed by Majorelle.

Rue Felix Faure was house after house designed by architect Cesar Pain as Art Nouveau for the middle
 class. Seventeen of the houses were originally intended to house wealthy tourists visiting the nearby
 thermal spa. Most of the residences appeared to be well maintained and are unlikely to still be
affordably priced for the middle class.

Amidst all the well-kept homes was this sad example
of neglect. Perhaps this is a residence in legal limbo
due to strict French inheritance laws, which can 
sometimes leave homes untouched for decades.

More Art Nouveau. At lower left is the garden for the Ecole de Nancy museum. We didn't go into
 the museum because we'd already worn ourselves out by walking through the neighborhood. 

At upper left is the downtown building that houses the Brasserie l'Excelsior
on the ground floor. Built in 1910, the restaurant is one of the iconic
 Art Nouveau destinations in Nancy.

Just when you might think everything in a particular neighborhood is Art Nouveau or newer, you run across an interesting reminder of how old Nancy is.

Surrounded by newer buildings, the round tower is the Commanderie Saint-Jean-du-Vieil-Aitre, a
 vestige of Nancy's medieval defense that dates back to the 12th century. It served as the headquarters
 of Charles III (Charles the Bold) during the Burgundian wars in 1476-77 and was originally part of a
 church that no longer exists.

Sightseeing is all well and good, but we were fortunate enough to also be able to meet up with boaters that we'd come to know during our time at T.S.N.I. Marine. 

Top: John and Martha are Scottish boaters whose classic Dutch barge, The
Green Lion, was moored in front of us at T.S.N.I. We had great fun getting
to know them this past spring, and they were good enough to travel to Nancy 
to join us for lunch at the Brasserie l'Excelsior. Great food and company!
Bottom: Australian friends on the cruiser Mathilda were able to "escape"
 to the Marne au Rhin Est Canal when the locks on the Moselle and those
from T.S.N.I. to the Moselle were briefly opened. They stopped in Nancy for
an evening and contacted us to meet up for drinks and conversation. R to L:
Leslie, Leigh, Leigh's visiting brother Nigel, Lon.

The train travel from Nancy to an airport hotel at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam on September 29 couldn't have been easier. The same can be said for our nonstop flight back to Tampa-St. Petersburg on September 30. We're settling back into Florida well enough but are still waiting for the last payment that is needed to complete the sale process on the boat. We seem to be in an age where banks see possible money-laundering in every international transaction that exceeds a certain amount, and our buyers have run into this situation when trying to make the final payment on C.A.R.I.B. III. We just have to remain patient and trust that their funds will be made available to them soon.

Adieu to C.A.R.I.B. III

We had time in the interim between David and Diane's visit and our final departure from Toul to finally visit the village of Villey-Saint-Etienne. It sits on a bluff high above the Moselle River, about 10 km from Toul. Every time we'd been past it, whether on C.A.R.I.B. III or by train or by bike, we'd seen its ancient-looking towers rising above the trees and would promise ourselves to visit it. September 10 was the day to take to the bicycles and keep that promise.

The Villey site has been occupied since the Bronze Age, but its primary development came in the Middle Ages with the construction of the church of Saint Martin and its defensive bell tower. It's a cute, clean little place, not too far from the village of Liverdun and most likely a bedroom community for the larger cities of Nancy and Toul.

The view from Villey-Saint-Etienne to the Moselle.

Left: What went up must come down. Upper Right: The garden of the local fortified house.
Lower Right: The fortified house, built in the late Middle Ages to control the valley.

We wanted to make a trip to Paris before leaving France but hadn't quite figured out when to do it until Lon's oldest brother Nick and his wife Wendy presented us with the perfect opportunity. They booked a bus tour through Normandy with arrival in Paris on September 12 and wondered if there was a possibility of meeting up with us in Paris before their tour actually started. When they first brought it up to us earlier in the summer, we couldn't be sure if it would work into the schedule of what was happening with the boat sale. By the end of August, however, we were happy to be able to confirm that we could meet them on September 12 for lunch, then we would spend the rest of the day and night in central Paris before returning to Toul on September 13. 

We booked a hotel very near to the Paris Gare de l'Est station, then took the metro out to their hotel on the fringes of the 17th arrondissement. 

Nick and Wendy look amazingly wide awake for having
flown all night from Minnesota. We really enjoyed the visit.

As our time in Paris would be short, the "one new thing" to do while we were there also had to be a rather abbreviated experience. For that, we decided to take an hour to wander through the Banksy Museum, within easy walking distance from our hotel. Banksy is a British street artist who has never been definitively identified. He came to notice in the 1990's with a distinctive style of stenciled graffiti that appeared in many cities throughout the world and used dark humor to make political and social commentary.

Upper left: Israeli-Palestinian conflict conducted via pillow fight.
Upper right: A senior citizen sneezes and loses her dentures.
Lower left: Self-explanatory?
Lower right: Rats were front and center in a number of Banksy's works.

We kept our neighborhood walks within the 9th and 10th arrondissements, so there were no glimpses of the Eiffel Tower or similar landmarks during this trip.

Upper left: Crossing the Saint Martin Canal.
Upper right: Saint-Laurent Church, a composite building with parts from the 12th C to the present.
Lower left: The "Angel Bear" in front of the Gare du Nord station; symbolizing the plight
of the polar bear and the disappearance of habitat under global warming.
Lower center: Another perspective on the Saint Martin Canal.
Lower Right: The historic Follies Bergere music hall and performing arts theater.

We were back in Toul before we knew it and then had two full days to complete our final cleaning and packing. We took the train to Nancy on the 15th to pick up a rental car to make transporting our luggage to the Airbnb apartment in Nancy easier. Dinner that evening was at one of our local Toul favorites, La Fiesta, with boating friends from the shipyard. 

All cleaned up and windows covered for winter.

On September 16 it was time to say "adieu" to the boat and the lifestyle that we've vastly enjoyed over the past several years. (Quick French lesson: Au revoir is the usual form of goodbye in French for standard everyday, temporary goodbyes, where one expects or hopes to see a person--or thing--again. Adieu is reserved for permanent, final farewells, such as the end of a major chapter in life. Adieu is definitely appropriate for this situation.) It wasn't a particularly sad event, probably because it didn't seem quite real. Because the sale wasn't closed yet we could have stayed aboard until we left for Florida, but I'd had my fill of the boatyard. I was really looking forward to a relaxed stay in Nancy and the chance to explore more of a city that we had been impressed with on our previous, shorter visits.