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| Chatillon sur Loire |
Leaving Chatillon was a difficult business. Several days were needed to scour 7 months of grime from the outside of the boat. A pity that paint doesn't adhere as well as dirt. We now have an embarrassingly patchy deck screaming 'paint me' every time we look at it. L'Avenir may be requiring a bit of an exterior make over but she has a good heart. After de-winterising, her engine kicked into life first time and so far we've had no problems. Mind you, she hasn't exactly been put to the test. We are excelling ourselves this year. So far, we've travelled 11km and passed through one lock. Even by our sloth-like standards that's pretty relaxed progress.
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| Removing dirt (and paint) with the pressure hose at Beaulieu |
We had been ready to leave port by Sunday but suddenly remembered our port captain had the spare boat key. She reminded us (through the window of her boat) that Sundays are days of rest and we'd have to wait until office hours. Now Mondays can be a bit tricky in France - often considered a necessary extension to the weekend - but fortunately for us the 'office' reopened after lunch on Monday ie 2.30pm.
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| Beaulieu Mairie and marketplace |
By the time we eventually got under way it was almost time to think about stopping and since the pretty little village of Beaulieu 7km upstream kindly provides not only a free mooring but free electricity and water we decided we should repay that generosity and support some of the local businesses. Being a Monday, of course, some of them weren't open so we had to spend 2 nights in order to try out the Italian restaurant and compare baguettes and eclairs from the 2 bakeries. Then there was the Wednesday morning market.....
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| Beaulieu mooring |
I mentioned in the last blog post that Chatillon likes murals. Here are a few.
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