L'Avenir - cruising Europe's inland waterways

We're at Lay Saint Remy tonight ready to traverse the Foug tunnel tomorrow morning. This one is a mere 866m long. Unlike the Mauvages tunnel you can see right through to the exit from the entrance. We've been this way before and not so long ago but what a difference a few weeks makes. We have the canal virtually to ourselves. Today we saw only 3 boats one of which was the first hire boat we've seen in...well, weeks. It's perfect cruising; peaceful, beautiful weather and a whole day (a short one admittedly) without locks. The biggest decision of the day - the only one in fact - was whether we'd like this morning's baguette 'bien cuite' (well cooked) or not. Toul tomorrow. The wildflowers are beginning to fade

Void, Lorraine, France It may have taken a little time for summer to really start in this part of the world but then we had a weekend of 38/40 C to remind us to 'be careful what you wish for'. We were in the new port of Chalons en Champagne -a town which really merited much further exploration than the air conditioned supermarket but not at those temperatures. 'But you're from Australia, you should be used to this,' people said. Yes indeed - but we generally don't go out in it. At least I don't. Going outside, however, was preferable to cooking inside our steel boat where the heat was very definitely at slow roast levels. From Chalons we went to Vitry le Francois which is at the crossroads of the Canal du Marne au Rhin and the Canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne (which we went up and down last year). We had been told that Vitry wasn't worth visiting and when we arrived at the miniscule port opposite a boatyard lined with decrepit, barely- floating ba...

We  have had a couple of 'whose idea was this?' moments recently. Usually, life afloat is a pretty relaxed affair. Decisions about destinations can be pondered over and put off for weeks sometimes and need to be made (or changed) only on arrival at a junction in the waterway. Even then we've been known to toss a euro.We've come to several of those junctions recently. We've had to think about where we might leave the boat this winter and even (and this will be a first) where we might cruise to next year. Suddenly, 'we've got plenty of time left' has become 'we've only got.....' So, we're turning south once again, albeit in meandering (no, not dithering) fashion. Leaving Sedan, we turned onto the Canal des Ardennes which we've been on before and I've no particular desire to see again. It's very pretty but we had a couple of 'incidents'. Leaving Chesne, one of the few stopping places and on the canal summit, you ar...

We haven't had much luck at Sedan in the past - or the present in fact. This time some unfortunate boater had sideswiped the pontoons at the moorings and now they are unusable. There is a convenient enough wall on the opposite side of the river but the adjoining large carpark was full of caravans large and small and very large trucks. No problem - we secured ourselves to a convenient boulder, hammered in a couple of pins and got down to the business of  lunch. Then we took a closer look. This seemed to be a serious encampment. Floodlights, generators, awnings - a frites (chips) van. And, hoses snaking their way from the caravans over the wall and down to the river - only not quite... We decided to move. Out of the frying pan, so to speak. So, we didn't get to see if the citadel roof had been repaired since our last visit but I expect it has. We moved on to a pontoon a few km outside the city. Looked lovely. Quiet farmland, dusty track leading to a village about a km awa...

Verdun’s story has been told by many and much more eloquently than I could ever attempt. If you don’t know it then you should find out. If you have the chance to visit then you should. Unlike most fields of battle the ‘Red Zone’ above the city has not been ploughed up and returned to smooth farmland. Almost one hundred years has passed and although the ground has now been reclaimed by forest and grass, it still clearly shows the utter devastation caused by the millions of wartime shells. The zone includes a number of 'villages detruit' - destroyed villages. They have never been rebuilt except that each now has a church. There are no inhabitants but each village has a mayor. 85% of the city of Verdun was also destroyed but it was meticulously restored over a ten year period after the war. From the top of the Ossiary at Douamont, Verdun. The remains of over 130 000 unidentified soldiers lie here. We spent 5 days in Verdun as there was much to see and reflect u...