Wednesday
6th May
St
Florentine to Flogny-sur-Amançon
12km
7 locks 3½ hrs
We
woke up this morning to find ourselves not aground any longer but happily floating, so we decided to move on. As there were no phone numbers on view at the
lock at St Florentine to arrange our first lock about 3km away, we kept a the
look out for a VNF man/woman on his/her moped. Around 11am we finally flagged an eclusier down who was riding his moped past us on the canal path, and we arranged to be at our
first lock at 1pm, after his lunch.
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| Leaving St Florentine |
It
was quite shallow in stretches along the canal, but nothing to cause us any
problems, and we had a great trip to Flogny where we moored up around 4pm. The mooring at Flogny looked a little worse
for wear, see photos of a collapsed concrete bank. We checked how stable it was and nothing wobbled
so we moored along side; in some ways it was quite handy, as the concrete bank
pushed us out further into the canal where it was deeper, so no worries of
going aground this time!
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| The bollards were secure, but such a shame that the wall looks like it will end up in the canal in the not too distant future |
We
walked into Flogny to go the lovely butchers that we visited last year and we
bought a whole load of different meat, the boulangerie and supermarket were closed all
day, so we must remember if we come this way again that they are closed on
Wednesdays. The butcher becomes a depot
du pain on Wednesdays so we could have got a baguette if we needed one.
Thursday
7th May
Flogny
to Tanlay
22km
10 locks 7 hrs (including 1 hour lunch)
We
had arranged to be at our first lock at 9am, so we left Flogny at 8.30am. There were some lovely long stretches of
canal with no locks, and the depth was really good.
We
had lunch in lock 94 as we managed to get through lock 93 before 12 noon, when
the lock keepers go for their lunch. We
had another easy trip, arriving at Tanlay around 3.30pm.
We
did a little shopping as we thought the supermarket and bakers maybe closed
tomorrow as its VE Day, but they said they’d be open in the morning.
We
had a great pizza at the port restaurant and went to bed wondering who would be
in government the next morning?
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| Tanlay |
Friday
8th and Saturday 9th May
Tanlay
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| We had another walk around the grounds of Tanlay Chateau, we came here last year |
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| A french cat playing peekaboo! |
We had two lazyish two days on the boat, with a few comings and goings with hire boats, and on Saturday afternoon a cruiser arrived with a very friendly couple from Australia, John and
Elizabeth, with whom we enjoyed a few glasses of wine.
As we came along the canal from Tonnerre to Tanlay we had noticed advertising
boards for a company called Vititours (www.chablis-vititours.fr - tel 06.11. 47. 82. 98.) and we taken note of the
website. They had great reviews on Tripadvisor so we decided to book a morning wine
tour to Chablis for Sunday.
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| Sign for Vititours at one of the locks |
Sunday
10th May
Tanlay
(and wine tour to Chablis by minibus)
John
and Elizabeth joined us on our tour and we had a really interesting morning in
Chablis with a very knowledgeable chap called Frank Chrétien. He spoke excellent English and really
explained well the differences between the 4 Appellation’s: Petit Chablis,
Chablis, Chablis Premier Crus and Chablis Grand Crus. He drove us to a high viewing spot to see the town of Chablis and all the different domains and explained why some were better
than others, all very interesting. Frank
dropped us off in the town to give us 20 minutes to look around the Sunday Market. It was really busy, and we
managed to spend another small fortune on more French cheeses! Frank then took us to a wine producer called
Domaine Vocoret et Fils where we tasted the four different Chablis wines and we
purchased some Chablis to take back to the boat.
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| Franck who runs Vititours Thank you Frank for a great tour |
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| Over looking Chablis |
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| Leaves are starting to grow |
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| Our first wine of the day! |
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| Pictures of how they keep the Grand Crus vines warm when there is a frost |
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| Another way of protecting the vines is to cover them in water as this prevents the vine going lower than 0 degrees C, so the buds are not damaged by the frost....You might be able to see the icicles |
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| Chablis Sunday Market |
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| A resumé of 2014 Chablis, it wasn't a great year but not as bad as it could have been! |
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| We are still standing after our wine tasting! or is that Kev holding me up? |
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