L'Avenir - cruising Europe's inland waterways

Moissac. No idea of significance of outfits. Handing out delicious apple aperitif & cooking barbecue. The canal and the River Tarn at Moissac are separated by a couple of rows of houses, a road and an esplanade - usually a tranquil spot for a stroll. There was nothing tranquil about the area on the weekend of our arrival though. I have never seen so many carnival rides, rifle ranges and sundry other fairground attractions crammed so close together. You had to keep your wits about you for fear of losing them along with our head. How they all fitted in with their enormous trucks and extricated themselves once again after the weekend via the narrow access road I don't know.  A bit like a 3D jigsaw puzzle. The carnival was here as part of the festivities for the Pentecost weekend. Also in town were 8 young women competing for the title of Rosière de France. This isn't a beauty contest; the girls are supposed to be virtuous and hard working but I don't know what the j...

Ten months is a long time to leave a boat - and a blog - untended. Our last two cruising seasons were greatly curtailed but for the best of reasons; the birth of grandchildren. Leaving the littlies on the other side of the world this year is quite a wrench, hopefully we can skype. Thank you to those of you have come back to join us for 2018 - our tenth year on l'Avenir - and welcome aboard to new readers. Arriving and travelling in France in May always takes a little planning due to the number of public holidays but this year has been complicated by strikes (grèves). Strikes and protests are far from an unusual occurrence here but they are usually over and done with in a day or so. Not so this spring. In April the railway workers began three months of rolling strikes and were joined by Air France during May. The railways helpfully published a calendar of strike days which amount to 3 days of strikes per week but you can't find out which services are cancelled unt...