Rangali Adventures: Nemours to Cepoy/Cepoy to Montargis

Wednesday 21^st evening

Nemours was a lovely old town, we stayed just one night and we are glad we went to have a look around the town as it was very pretty. We found a very well positioned restaurant, it was a Chinese, which wasn’t what we’d planned to eat but it wasn’t bad, the position made up for the average meal. We have a little restaurant book that translates French to English but it didn’t help at all at the Chinese, we asked if they had anything in English and we got given a folder of photographs of all the items of the menu, helped a great deal!

In our guide there is mention of moorings actually in the town, but when we had a look when we went for a walk, there was a small pontoon, but it was all closed off and looked out of use.

Nemours

The Restaurant we went to had a prime position

Our view of Nemours from the restaurant

I have an idea for Kev Christmas present, he already has the flippers!

Thursday 22^nd August

This is going to be a running theme of our trip always wondering if you have the best mooring!! When we left Nemours in the morning not far around the corner from where we had moored was a lovely mooring, perfectly spaced bollards and grass!!! Never mind, we were fine where we were last night. We wouldn’t have been sure if it would have been free the evening before and we were hot and tired and needed to stop so took the first space we saw.

We had a fantastic trip to Cepoy, the canal du Loing is really beautiful. We spent most of the day sharing locks with a French boat, a father and daughter onboard. They were very friendly, lovely people, but very haphazard with their use of ropes, I am glad we were going up in the locks not down.

Locks close from 12-1pm so this was a perfect place to have to stop

We saw quite a few nice moorings along the way, but all too soon after Nemours. (For those taking notes for future trips we thought PK 25.8 just before lock 10, and PK 21 just after lock 9, PK 15.2 after lock 7 and PK 5 after lock 2 looked great places to stop. Souppes sur Loing, we felt wasn’t a very pretty mooring next to a sugar beet factory.

Canal du Loing beautiful

Our mooring at Cepoy was good, just along from two commercials. We could have moved a little further on for water and electric but we only saw this when we went for a walk along the canal to the small town. The Bolangerie was open and so we bought a baguette. We had a beer at the little bar and then spent a relaxing evening on the boat. The lock at Cepoy is the last lock we have to get through for planned lock closures. They are automating all the locks on Canal du Loing, visible signs of work already started, bollards are being put in that will suit the pleasure boats as well as the commercials.

Friday 23^rd August

Canal du Briare

We went a short trip of 6km to Montargis. We left a little late at 10.30am thinking we weren’t far away but it still took us 1 ½ hrs and we’d forgotten that the locks close at 12 noon for an hour so couldn’t get through the last two locks to get to the port du plaisance. So we moored up at PK 54 and then walked along to look at the town. On the way there was a big quay that looked great for mooring to and we ummed and ahhed about moving the boat just as a beautiful hotel boat Renaissance turned up. There was a sign that was hidden that said that this quay was for pre booked boats. Just as well we didn’t move ours there! So we stayed put.

Montargis is a beautiful town and well worth a visit, full of little rivers and lots of bridges covered in flowers. We are staying 2-3 nights. I used Trip advisor for recommendations for restaurants and we found Au Terroir. We enjoyed our meal there, very busy with French, always a good sign. I almost chose a starter without checking in my little book, luckily I checked and found I could have been eating Veal sweetbreads!! Lucky escape!

Saturday 24^th August

Montargis market day, and what a great market it was too. There was one lady there. only selling melons, and we bought two. She was very concerned that we should eat them today and tomorrow, and numbered which one we should eat first! Nice that she knows her product so well.

We visited a beautiful old shop that sells a Montargis specialty, Praline Chocolates, so we had to buy some of them. We also treated ourselves to a small fancy dessert/cake each from a fantastic boulangerie/patisserie, the cakes they sold were works of art.

We’ve spent the afternoon relaxing on the boat, bit of rain at the moment. Kev enjoyed watching F1 qualifying. Out for dinner again tonight. Everything will be closed tomorrow evening and Monday so we are making the most of being in a big town with lots of choice of restaurants.