L'Avenir - Cruising Europe's Inland Waterways

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...

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...