Downstream on the Saone

Tournus

We are now at the confluence of the Saone and Rhone in the lovely city of Lyon. This is as far south as we have yet been and we now have to decide whether to commit to the 300km Rhone cruise to the south or return to central France. We have been here for a few days waiting for a part to be delivered for our air condtioner which naturally gave up the ghost during the heatwave. Being here has been no hardship; Lyon is a great city with loads to see, do and eat but mooring provision at the new port development is much too limited and the stressed harbourmaster is agitating for people to move on. Pressure on spaces isn't helped by one of the two pontoons being taken up by small day boats for hire.
We will be leaving tomorrow. Will it be a left or right turn out of the harbour?
The trip down the Saone has, so far, been very enjoyable. Compared to the hard work of the canal du Centre the river has been a leisurely cruise. There is very little current at this time of year and whilst the weather has still been quite hot there's more of a breeze on the open river. And there's always the option of a dip in the water to cool off - not advisable in the canals.

On one of these dips the skipper discovered we had a rope around the prop and subsequently he spent the day nearly drowning himself whilst cutting it free Goodness knows how long it had been there. It's been a long time since he's been able to take a dive down to take a look.
Often a problem on rivers is the lack of places to moor but we have, up to now, been pleasantly surprised to find pontoons at all the towns. There has been less river traffic than we anticipated and so there's always been space for us although we have been surprised at the numbers of large cruise ships. They usually take up the main quays in the towns.

Bastille Day was, once again, a non event for us. Challon had a great fireworks display apparently but we had left the day before having decided to go on to Tournus. Now Tournus might not be huge but it is quite a tourist destination on account of its beautiful abbey, winding medieval streets and four (yes 4) Michelin starred restaurants but the full extent of the celebrations was a march down the street by the fire brigade. To be fair, they did have flashing blue lights and sirens.

Louhans

From Tournus we took a side trip along the beautiful River Seille to Louhans which has a famous market where the highly prized Bresse chickens are sold. Unfortunately not on the day we were there. This quiet waterway winds through very pretty countryside. There are only 4 locks (brand new apart from the first one) two of which you manually operate yourself which is unusual.

Cuisery - one of France's 'book towns'

Trevoux - on the Saone

We did a quick trip also up the short canal to Pont du Vaux to check out the harbour there and managing to run aground whilst following the arrows to their visitor pontoon. There is good depth in the back harbour though.
Then it was back onto the Saone and on to the excellent port at Macon where we picked up our next crew member fleeing the dismal Scottish summer and sorted out this year's faltering relationship with Monsieur Orange.

Our spare part has just been delivered and unpacked and the air is as blue as the sky. The fitting doesn't match the description on the internet so an adapter will need to be found...