Rangali Adventures: Tanlay to Lezinnes/Lezinnes to Ravieres/Ravieres to Montbard -Canal de Bourgogne

Monday 11^th May

Tanlay to Lézinnes

9.5km 5 locks 2.5hrs

We had a peaceful cruise through beautiful countryside to arrive at Lézinnes at 11.40am. The lock keeper on lock 87 sold me a lettuce from his garden, he lived in the lock keepers cottage; you can’t get any fresher than that!

The morning had started coolish, but when we went for a walk to find a boulangerie in Lézinnes it had started to warm up, and we realised once we’d walked into the town/village that we definitely had the wrong clothes on for the hot weather; we were sweltering! There are two boulangeries in town, the one near the church was closed (Monday), but we came across another boulangerie that was open. We were struck how smart the village was; most towns and villages we have come across in France have a real shabby feel to most of the properties, but not so in Lézinnes, they all looked very smart and with beautiful gardens.

No facilities here, (for water and use of the rubbish bin
you have to walk to the town hall to get the key)
This mooring is used by hotel boats who have priority but luckily no hotel boats were due,
just further up the canal there are more moorings where we could have moored up.

Quaint boulangerie in Lézinnes

A patient heron we could see from our mooring

I don't think he caught anything this time

Tuesday 12^th May

Lézinnes to Raviéres

19.5km 9 locks 6 hours (including 1 hour for lunch)

Up early again to be at our first lock at 9am 30 minutes away from our mooring.

There’s a very nice Dutch lady lock keeper who lives at lock 82. We bought some excellent homemade marmalade from her last year, so I bought some more. She speaks perfect English and it really shows us how much we miss out by not speaking fluent French to be able to communicate fully with ALL the lock keepers. We can get by with our French but it’s not like having a sociable conversation.

Lock 82 Marmalade and Jams for sale

When we stayed at Raviéres last year we didn’t realize that there was a supermarket, so it was a nice surprise when we stumbled across it.

A hotel barge arrived early evening, and our evening was serenaded by an accordion player onboard the barge; sounds of very French music wafting over the water along with frogs croaking….perfect!

Wednesday 13^th May

Raviéres to Montbard

19km 11 locks 5.5hrs (including 1 hour lunch)

We set off early again 8.30am to be at our first lock for 9am. It was a very hot day, beautiful sunshine, but all the lock keepers were warning of thunderstorms on their way for the evening.

Departing Lezinnes, there is lots of space to moor here with good depth and free electric

Its a beautiful canal

Its a very hot day

Entering lock 74 - only 1.8m climb/descent - most of the locks average around 2.6m on this section
All the locks fill very gently and the bollards are set in the same place for each lock so all very easy.

Our stop for lunch at Buffon - PK96
It would be a great overnight mooring if you know no hotel barges are going to use it.
Its a short step to the Buffon Forge. The museum was closed for lunch

Buffon

We arrived in Montbard at 2.30pm, and there was lots of space to moor up. We plan to stay here a few days now to chillout, also not so good weather is forecast, with strong winds so we’d rather move when the weather improves. We are getting near to the section of the Canal de Bourgogne where there are lots of locks, very close together, climbing the hill up towards Pouilly-en-Auxois and the Pouilly tunnel; so we’d rather have good weather for that section. Better weather is forecast for Saturday so we will start our journey again then.

We are off this morning to the Montbard weekly market today (Friday) where we no doubt will spend a small forturne!