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.

Making "Sens" of Things

We had company on July 2 at our "wild" mooring (a quay, but no bollards or rings, so Lon had to drive mooring stakes for our lines) in Montereau-fault-Yonne. The lovely folks on the barge Csavargo, also members of the barge association we belong to, are, like us, headed to the rally in Auxerre. We first met them (briefly) last year in Compiegne, then re-introduced ourselves when they ended up in the Arsenal in Paris for a couple of days. We met again several days later at the mooring in Moret-sur-Loing. Over docktails on July 2 we realized that our cruising schedules would align on July 3 and 4, so we cruised in tandem on those days.

Our July 3 cruise to Pont-sur-Yonne included a rainy morning.
It's been a while since I've needed the heavy-duty rain gear.
Here we are sharing a lock with Csavargo.

The first three locks on the Yonne were a challenge, as all the lock walls were sloping sides and there were no floating pontoons to make tying to the bollards, and the ride up in the lock, any easier. Fortunately, the vnf staff were prepared to grab our lines to assist us in getting tied to the bollards at the top of the lock wall; it was then up to us to figure out how to ride the rising water in the locks without scraping our hull too much on the lock walls. Fortunately, all of the subsequent Yonne locks either had at least one straight side or had floating pontoons to moor to. When a floating pontoon was the option, there was usually only one, so in those cases Csavargo would tie up to the pontoon and we would tie up to the side of Csavargo. Never a dull moment!

Our stop for that day was the small town of Pont-sur-Yonne (literally, "bridge on the Yonne"). The town had two nice mooring pontoons across the street from a boules (a game similar to bocce) court. A quick stroll through this medieval town revealed the requisite collection of historic monuments (one of the oldest gothic churches in France, remnants of the old town fortifications, timbered houses), but not a whole lot was going on except for a few boules games. Janos and Rachel and Lon and I played a quick game of boules, retired to the back of CARIB for docktails, then called it an evening.

View up the Yonne from Pont-sur-Yonne. The photo was taken from the "new" bridge; the 
structure about center photo contains the remnant arches of the old 17th C stone bridge, which had to be replaced because the small arches were a hazard to river traffic.

The July 4 cruise to the city of Sens was relatively short, but not without its moments of excitement.

We didn't encounter much commercial traffic on the Yonne, so it
was truly "Murphy's Law" that we would encounter this big boy
on the narrowest part of the waterway, a diversion canal that
had taken us off the Yonne for a few kilometers. We were stopped
against the side of the canal to allow the barge to pass us.

Sens is another city whose roots go back to Roman times, and was a prestigious religious center in the Middle Ages. St. Stephen's Cathedral (in French, Saint-Etienne) in Sens was the first of the great Gothic cathedrals, dating from around 1135, and was built on the foundations of an earlier church. It was the model for other famous Gothic cathedrals, such as those at Chartres, Amiens, and Canterbury (in England). The importance of Sens diminished after Paris was elevated to an archdiocese in 1622. 

The exterior of the cathedral. With only one tower, it seemed
a little "lopsided" to me, but the north tower was removed
during renovations in the mid-1800's and not replaced.

The interior of the cathedral. Not as soaring as some cathedrals,
but as it was the first cathedral of its kind, it was left to the
builders of future cathedrals to reach for higher heights.

As in the church in Meaux, the resident stone saints surrounding
the exterior door have "lost their heads".

The Cathedral was the location where Louis IX (later St. Louis) was married to Marguerite de Provence in 1234. It's also the burial site of the Dauphin, son of Louis XV and father of Louis XVI. He died before his father, and thus never became king. He was one of the few French royals not to be buried in the Basilica of Saint-Denis near Paris, although his heart is buried there.

The monument for the Dauphin and his wife.

The former Archbishop's Palace, the age of its various
wings ranging from the 13th C to the 18th C.

The central town retains much of its medieval character, with narrow streets and timbered houses throughout.

The central square of Sens, the late 19th century covered market at the center of the photo.
An Italian restaurant on the square (the building near center photo with red coloring) made
for a lovely location for dinner with other boaters on the evening of July 4. No fireworks, though,
for American Independence Day.

The Grande Rue of Sens.

St. Maurice Church on the banks of the Yonne opposite
the city center. It was built during the latter part of the 
12th C, reworked in the 16th and 17th centuries, 
and served those who worked as fishermen and bargemen.

The fabulously ornate Town Hall (Hotel de Ville) from 1904.

These 13th C walls and tower incorporate at their base the
only remaining bits of the 3rd century Roman walls that
used to encircle the town.

Abraham's House was built in the 16th C for a tanner.
Its corner post bears the intricately carved "Jesse's Tree", 
representing the Virgin and eight kings of Israel.

We're not always museum afficionados--most times we enjoy just doing walking tours around a town--but we were really impressed with the Sens Museum. Spread over four levels in the former Archbishop's Palace, it lays out the culture and heritage of Sens from: Prehistoric and Celtic artifacts; the Roman period of the first through third centuries; paintings and sculpture from the past 500 years; and last--but definitely not least--items from the Cathedral treasury. The latter is one of the richest treasury collections displayed in France.

The oldest of the archeological finds from the region.

Pat in the lower level, with some of the Roman displays. 
Several Roman mosaics were reconstructed on the floor.
 To the right is a reconstructed facade of the Roman public baths,
 with original pieces placed in the appropriate locations within
 the new plaster "wall".

Lon and one of the beautiful Roman mosaics.

The interior architecture of the museum was nearly as
interesting as the displays. Lon is taking a brief break in
the lower level among its Roman artifacts.

A large part of the Roman displays was dedicated to
a collection of Roman family tomb monuments.

The Jardin de l'Orangerie was once the archbishop's
private garden. This is the view from a window in
one of the upper floor galleries of the Palace/Museum.

18th C sculptures in the former ceremonial gallery of the
archbishops.

Lon in one of the rooms with the displays from the Cathedral's
treasury. 

A few of the treasures from the treasury: (top) a carved ivory
reliquary casket from the 12th C; (lower left) The Coronation
of the Virgin, a 15th C tapestry; (lower right) the vestments
that belonged to the 12th C Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas
Becket. Becket's disagreements with King Henry II led to his
self-exile to Sens from 1164 to 1170. When he was restored to
the position of Archbishop and returned to England, he was
murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by four knights of Henry II.
Whether the murder was ordered by Henry
 remains an open question.

Next year we will be traveling back through this area and will definitely be stopping again at Sens. One day, and a partial, was not nearly enough time to see everything we wanted to see.

Our mooring in Sens. We're just to the left of the center and behind us are the barges
of others headed to Auxerre.

Conspicuous Consumption

One of the reasons that we stayed for two nights in Melun--besides stretching out our cruise time so that we don't arrive in Auxerre too early--was to be able to visit the Chateau de Vaux-le-Vicomte just a few kilometers outside of Melun. The chateau was the creation of three artisans of the mid-1600's engaged by Nicolas Fouquet, the superintendent of finances to Louis XIV.

The original property owned by Fouquet had a small chateau; however, Monsieur Fouquet had grand ambitions and extravagant taste. When all was said and done, three villages had been purchased and destroyed to obtain enough land for the enlarged chateau and gardens. Built between 1658 and 1661, it is one of the largest castles in France and became an inspiration for the Palace of Versailles. Unfortunately for Fouquet, he didn't have much time to enjoy what had been created for him. He had hoped to impress Louis XIV with the grandeur--in fact, part of the chateau was constructed with rooms specifically for the king--but a too-lavish celebration to honor the King on August 17, 1661, and court intrigues led by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, convinced Louis that the home was constructed with misappropriated public funds. Fouquet was replaced in his position by Colbert, who later had Fouquet arrested for embezzlement as well as treason. 

Fouquet's subsequent trial dragged on for nearly three years. Found guilty of embezzlement, the presiding judges voted for banishment rather than death, but Louis XIV used his pardoning power to change the sentence to life imprisonment. This was the only time in French history a Monarch used his pardoning power to worsen a sentence. Fouquet died in Pignerol prison in the Alps in 1680.

 

The front of the chateau. It barely escaped destruction during
the French Revolution, but managed to remain intact until
 cooler heads prevailed in the late-1790's. It is currently the
largest private estate listed as a Historical Monument in France.

View of the back of the chateau, with a portion of the gardens.

Standing at the bottom of the back steps, with the sweep of the
center lawn/formal gardens behind us. The woodsy areas to each
side are also part of the estate.

View from the 2nd floor balcony in one wing of the chateau,
overlooking the front lawn and the stables.

If it's Louis XIV era decorating--and especially if designed to
impress the king himself--you know that paintings and gold 
are going to be everywhere.

The dining room.

The king's bedroom.

The rooms are decorated with authentic 17th C
furnishings, as though Nicolas Fouquet and
his family were living there. 

Decorated panels on the shutters of
an interior window.

After visiting Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte, we felt better about not visiting the Palace of Versailles when we were in Paris. There were considerably less visitors than we would have encountered in Versailles. We did have to deal with several tour groups of schoolchildren, but thankfully, they only created a bottleneck at the end of our tour inside the chateau.

The weather has continued to stay dry and not too hot, so our cruising days have been very pleasant. The Seine continues to be green, quiet, and a world away from the riots that have been occurring in cities and towns in France the past few days.

There are stretches with absolutely stunning houses.

 

Most of the locks on the Seine have had two chambers, so we have
rarely had to wait for a lock passage and at the most we've shared a
lock with another pleasure boat. However, the small chamber of 
Lock 2 was under construction, so we had a small delay while 
waiting to share the lock with another pleasure barge and this 
commercial barge that pulled in next to us.

For our stop on Friday we turned onto the Canal de Loing for about 1 kilometer to reach the halte nautique in the town of Moret-sur-Loing. For several centuries in the Middle Ages it was a fortified royal town, and while most of the ramparts are long gone, it has retained two of its Medieval entry gates, its church, the keep of the 12th C. castle (where Nicolas Fouquet was locked up after his arrest, under the watchful eye of Musketeer d'Artagnan), and in its town center, the typical narrow and winding streets of a Medieval town. Moret-sur-Loing was also the home of Alfred Sisley, a well-known impressionist painter.

The Gate of Burgundy, the east gate into the town. The old
timbered building to the right of the gate housed a restaurant
with delicious crepes.

View of Notre-Dame-de-la-Nativite church
(12th-13th C) as seen through a portal of one of the old
 mills on the Loing River.

Looking down the main street of Moret-sur-Loing from the
Burgundy Gate toward the Samois Gate, the western entry
into the old town.

The Graciot Mill on the Loing River, formerly used in the
tanning process, now an arts center.

The church's Renaissance organ, among the
oldest in France.

The Francis I facade, dating from 1527, was originally located
on the main street of Moret-sur-Loing. In the 1800's it was
purchased by a cavalry colonel who dismantled it and moved it
to Paris so that it could become the facade of a townhouse for
his mistress. It was purchased by the town of Moret-sur-Loing and
returned to the town in 1955, where it was rebuilt in the 
courtyard of the town hall.

The skyline of the town from the Pre de Pins park on the banks of the Loing. Sisley painted 
several canvases from vantage points in the park (as well as elsewhere in the town).

Today we continued cruising, completing our time on the Seine River and starting up the Yonne River, the last waterway on our way to Auxerre. We didn't spend any time exploring our overnight stop in Montereau-fault-Yonne, not because it wouldn't have been worthwhile, but the mooring quay wasn't in the optimum location for us to do so without expending more energy than we wanted to. Hopefully, we will be able to correct that next spring, when we anticipate returning this way during the 2024 cruising season.