L'Avenir - Cruising Europe's Inland Waterways

Our recent cruise through Paris was rather more exciting than I would have liked. This was to be the second time we'd sailed beneath those famous bridges this year and the third time in total so we were feeling pretty relaxed and looking forward to the experience. I should know better by this time. The Seine approaching Paris that afternoon was fairly busy with commercial ships. I am always surprised at just how many ships and barges load and discharge along the city's quays. Paris is still a thriving working port which is good to see. We shared a couple of the huge Seine locks with some large vessels but that was no problem. They are just in a hurry to be on their way and our rule of thumb on commercial waterways is to keep out of the way. The nearer you get to the city centre the more narrow and congested the river becomes and if you can't keep out of the way you have to try to keep up. Things start to become interesting at the Eiffel Tower which is where the many Bate...

We dropped down through the lock from the Paris Arsenal onto the River Seine just after 9am. Uncharacteristically early for us but the day was forecast to be hot and we wanted to cover some distance to make up for the 10 days our boat had languished in one spot whilst we enjoyed the sights of the city. Waiting for the lock to empty and the gates to open is a bit like waiting in the slightly scruffy and dingy wings of a theatre and then suddenly it’s time; out you sail onto a glittering stage with the most magnificent backdrop of grand buildings and your audience waving from ornate bridges which gleam gold in the sunshine. Not that boats on the Seine are anything unusual of course. Dozens of them plough up and down every day and evening carrying thousands of tourists. There are cargo barges too but smaller private boats are not quite so common. Being reasonably early in the morning meant we more or less had the river to ourselves and whilst the star of the show is the city itse...

When we arrived in Paris we booked into Arsenal Port for 5 days - the number of days we spent here on our last visit 3 years ago. I did add a question mark beside the date of leaving though. We are still here 10 days later! There is just so much to see and do and not all of it new to us. I could happily walk along the banks of the Seine every single day (and night is even better) for, well, years probably. Paris is full of tourists. I was going to say at this time of the year but perhaps it always is. I don't know. Tourists + Beautiful Buildings = Queues. Long ones. So, we didn't revisit the interiors of any of the sights we'd seen before. Queues at Sacre Coeur People watching at Montmartre - surely the busiest spot in Paris We've walked, metro-ed, bussed and cruised. We've been part of the crazy Mexican wave of cheering crowds that accompanyed the Tour de France cyclists as they whizzed several times around the Place de la Concorde and up the Cham...

Le Train Bleu, Paris Here we are once more. 40 hours from door to door via car, 2 buses, 2 planes, 2 trains, a taxi. and now, finally, our boat. I feel exhausted just writing that. Quite a lot of those long hours were spent waiting for connections in airports and railway stations. When, on touchdown in Paris, our pilot cheerfully announced that we'd made good time and arrived early it was good news for everyone- almost - we now had even more than 7 hours to kill before our train to Dijon. Should we leave our bags in left luggage and go sight seeing? When the automatic doors of the airport swished open and we were blasted with freezing wind and rain we decided that no, we had neither the energy nor will to drag our leaden feet anywhere, not even Paris. So, after an hour on the Air France bus ( the memory of last year's rush hour experience on the Metro still brings me out in a cold sweat) we found ourselves in the vast and draughty confines of the Gare de Lyon.We had ...

Every day thousands of tourists cruise along the Seine through Paris on one of the many, huge trip boats; the largest 'bateaux mouches' carry up tp 1400 passengers! Private boats are few and far between so for the two of us to be able to go on our own L'Avenir was a fantastic experience - a definite highlight of our summer. We had been hoping for a sunny day but after several days of the wettest August weather that France has seen in years we were grateful that the rain held off for the hour and a half it took to do the round trip from the port Arsenal up around the Statue of Liberty (yes, there is one) and back. I would have liked to have taken longer but the trip boats travel at speed and it would take a brave or foolhardy person to delay them. Having had a few days of walking around the sights we were by now very familiar with all the landmarks but this time, instead of trekking back and forth across the many bridges we were sailing beneath. Many bridges had excited pe...

 Sorbonne Our first visit to Paris, unbelievably. I'm not sure why we've never come before. There always seemed to be other more exotic sounding destinations. Paris was one of those places whose landmarks I was so used to from films and photographs that I felt I'd seen it all already and it would lack the surprise element I enjoy when travelling. How wrong can you be? There's good reason why you can barely move for tourists here - it is quite lovely. The River Marne which we had been following since just past Reims, joins the Seine outside Paris. The major difference straight away being the change in lock size - suddenly they were enormous and we shared the first couple with a commercial barge for the first time since Belgium. Our mooring is in the Port de Plaisance of the Arsenal which is a great location; one lock off the river, 20 minutes walk along whose banks takes you to Notre Dame Cathedral and only a couple of minutesmore to the metro station at the Place de B...