Internet!!!

 Today was our first day of proper cruising. We set off from Migennes along the Canal du Bourgogne. This canal is 242km long and has 189 locks. Today we managed the 19 km and 6 locks to St Forentin so you can see it's going to take us a while. The canal, which runs through beautiful Burgundy countryside, is no longer used by commercial traffic and doesn't seem to have all that many pleasure boats either - perhaps because of the many locks. We didn't see anyone else all day.

St Florentin lock. Operated 'rather enthusiastically' by les eclusiers madame and monsieur.

 We stopped for lunch at Brienon sur Amancon which I only mention because it has a lovely 'lavoir' or public washing house. Actually it has 2. We went and looked at one and thought 'that doesn't look any more special than any of the many others we've seen elsewhere. Why is it in the tourist guide?' Then we walked into the town in search of baguettes - lunch time so everything closed - and found the 'historic' one.

The Lavoir not in the tourist guide

-and the one that is. View from the roof

-and yes, we found baguettes as well

Apparently this lavoir was shared by women washing clothes, other women washing tripes, and rats which ate the soap ( no doubt it tasted better than the tripe).
The other main event of the day was getting stuck. We'd just arrived at St Florentin and were looking for somewhere to moor when the heavens opened, visiblity went down to near to nothing and we ran into shallows (and weeds) opposite the port and so providing half an hour's entertainment for everyone else sheltering in their boats as we dragged the weed away with boathooks. The port capitaine watched from his doorway and what do you think he did? Yes - shrug.
But we do have the internet! This is probably only of interest to those afloat. Orange have a hotspot here so we've signed up online to 30 days of unlimited access for 19.90 euros. They say they have 30 000 hotspots in France. We'll see.
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