Final Blog for 2011

Dear Family and Friends

After 825.1 kms and 246 locks later, we are ready to come home. Mind you, home is a moving target – literally - as we will still be on the move for the next 24 months. So I guess home is where we lay our head at any given moment.    

Auxerre was everything we had hoped and more.  The views from the mooring were amazing. As I lay in bed, I looked out the aft cabin window and there was l’Abbaye de Saint-Germain outlined against the evening sky, beautifully lit to show off it’s amazing architecture. As if that wasn’t enough we also had a front row view of the Tour St Jean, la cathédrale Saint-Étienne and l’élgise  Saint-Pierre-en-Vallée. Under the Abbaye is an amazing crypt which shows the barrel-vaulted naves dating back to the Carolingian times and a deep burial vault where Saint Germain was enshrined. The 15^th century clock tower (La tour de l’Horlage) shows the movements of the sun and moon on one side and the hours on the other. The half-timbered houses are in amazing condition partly because the town centre has been classified as a protected area.

Auxerre Abbey and Tower

Not exactly to standard housing code!!

So there we were thinking we had this whole cruising business down pat. Phil has been handling the boat really well with only a very few bumps here and there. My job is to throw the ropes, jump off the boat to secure us to the bollards or cleats and navigate. So it came as a surprise when a lady lockkeeper started yelling at me in one of the locks. I couldn’t understand what she was on about - as far as I was concerned all was well – I had secured the boat as Phil taught me. Another boater translated and after discontinuing my rude gestures with the one hand I placed the rope as she directed. Oops – I see what she means. This is a better way to place the rope so that I could hold the boat much easier against the surge of water as the lock fills up. Who knew? The Captain doesn’t know everything! Quite a revelation for both of us.

However...... if you use the same technique when descending the lock and the ropes are wet , they can easily become jammed. By the time one gets the rope free from the cleat, the boat is about a foot above the water level and drops back down with an almighty splash. I won’t reveal who the idiot was that resulted in this dangerous situation but I can promise that she’s never going to do that again!!!!

The Canal de Nivernais is as pretty and pleasing as everything we’ve read and been told. The countryside opens up so we can see the fields and forests. There are amazing chateaus, and little villages - even an amazing fortified farm built probably in the 15^th century. Some of the walls around the farm fields are crumbling but the farm buildings are in amazing condition.

First glimpse of the Canal du Nivernais

Chateau for 2 ??!! Owned by a doctor and his wife.

Field of beautiful sunflowers

Burgundian architecture

We have eaten at two Michelin recommended restaurants. In Accolay – a little village that doesn’t even have an épicerie – has this wonderful restaurant with great food. They seated us in the garden – lovely. In our enthusiasm we shared a full bottle of wine between us. The walk home wasn’t exactly steady and I didn’t dare close my eyes until I’d sobered up – the world was spinning. The second was in Clamecy. We were wandering the town looking for a place to eat and saw this little tiny restaurant with a great gardened terrace. It only seats 20 people and they already had reservations for 19 but they took pity on us and let us in. Once again great food and really good local wine, which we shared with the New Zealanders and Aussies at the next table. The walk back to the boat was much steadier!

Michelin star restaurant in Clamecy

Ancient community wash house

Mooring along the canal for lunch near Vaux

 It has been the best cruising year to date. That being said, we are looking forward to getting home – reconnecting with family and friends. I will be in Nanaimo from the 9^th to the 15^th of August - my Mom’s funeral is on the 11^th. Dad is not doing well – his cancer has spread and he fell and broke his hip but amazingly he fights on to recover.  We’ve rented a lovely condo in Edmonton with a view over the river valley and Phil is keen to get back to NAIT for the fall semester. So that’s all for this year! See you next May when we begin our cruise to the south of France. Yippee!

Love to all – Captain Doesn’t Know Everything and the Matelot (French for deckhand extraordinaire)

Just Hanging Around

Dear Family and Friends

What an interesting few weeks! Aunt Jean and Uncle Owen got a very good sense of the joys and minor difficulties that are part of cruising. It was hard to leave Moret-sur-Loing – what a beautiful little village – but we wanted to take them to Auxerre if possible before they had to get back to Paris to fly home.

At Montereau-Fault-Yonne we left the Seine and joined the Yonne River which joins the Canal du Nivernais at Auxerre. Sens was a lovely city (despite the lack of promised water at the mooring) and surprising architecture. I had always associated half-timbered (Tudor) houses with England but they are predominant in France as well in towns and villages that would have been established in the same century.  There was a whole street of these buildings that have kept their character on the upper floors but now house shops on the bottom floor.

Beautiful “Tudor” buildings with shops below

 It was at Sens that we were able to introduce Jean and Owen to crepes. Actually it was galettes which are savoury crepes made from buckwheat. Crepes refer to the sweet dessert with ice cream or other toppings. Galettes have all kinds of fillings from salmon (fresh or smoked), eggs, cheese, beef or pork – name your preference. We were so full from lunch that we had a very Canadian supper – peanut butter and jam on baguettes!

The bonus in Sens was seeing the Canadian flag flying from a lovely big boat. Two Montrealers live full time on their boat in France and travel as their fancy takes them. They have a good size boat with all mod-coms including heat, air conditioning and washing machine!!

The Montrealers

Amazingly the very next day we met another Canadian family in Joigny who had rented a boat for 10 days. Typical Canadian family. The parents were from Scarborough, one son and wife from Winnipeg and one son from Vancouver. He left a day early to get home for a Canucks game –sadly in vain. From the past few years when we have seen only 3 Canadians, we now see them more frequently. Some are boat owners and some are renters. We are now in an area with more canals branching off the rivers - canals of Bourgogne, Nivernais, Loing, Briare, etc are attractive wine-growing areas to visit. In fact yesterday, in Brienon-sur-Armançon we met 2 Toronto couples (one of whom was elderly and handicapped) who arrived to cruise for the next 10 days (one way) along the Canal de Bourgogne. Phil and I were a little concerned as they have no experience with cruising and the wind is currently pretty wicked. Rental boats are light (not heavy steel) and get pushed around by the wind which can be hard to handle especially in the locks. We are unashamedly proud of how well we now handle the boat in all conditions! And of course we had 2 extra pair of hands to help with ropes!

Jean took a turn at the wheel

Enjoying the French countryside

Joigny was a great moorage (no promised showers of course!) and a great town. Built on a hillside, the layers of roofs remind us of Tuscan hilltop villages.

Joigny from the moorage

More half-timbered houses leaning into the alleys (or ruelles as they are called) and 3 wonderful churches. We marvelled that such a small town could support three churches one of which was pretty magisterial. We found a brasserie with a very funny landlord that where we had afternoon drinks and then lunch the next day. I ordered a local sausage that tasted very good until I looked down and saw what was obviously the tip of a nose – hairs and all. While I courageously controlled the urge to heave, I tucked the rest of it under a lettuce leaf so I wouldn’t have to look at it. I shudder just writing about it!

The carvings on this Joigny house were amazing

Lunch with Jean and Owen in Joigny

Our funny brasserie host (just kidding)

Sadly Joigny was also where we had to say good-bye to Jean and Owen as they caught the train back to Paris to fly home. We didn’t make it to Auxerre with them but maybe they’ll come back another year and visit it. In the meantime when we finally get there we’ll share photos of what they missed. We expect it to be a highlight of this year’s cruising from everything we seen and read.

That’s not to say that we haven’t had our adventures these past weeks. Soon after leaving Pont à Bar, Phil noticed that the light on the battery charger wasn’t lit. We weren’t too worried as we were pretty much moving every day which means the battery is charging as we cruise.  As mentioned in the last blog, Phil and Simon discovered that it was fried. Now what to do? We then phoned Simon Evans who owns the boatyard where Calypso will spend the winter and he will order us a new one. In the meantime we are just hanging around waiting until he tells us that it is time to go back to Migennes to have it installed.

We thought that as long as Migennes was at the entrance to the Canal de Bourgogne, we might as well venture down it. Plan A for 2011 had us going down the Bourgogne until we discovered it was 242 kms with 189 locks! No thanks – this is supposed to be fun not hard work! We met an Australian couple who came from the other end. They said it was fun at first but then it was a case of ‘when will it end?’ They also cautioned us about the low water mark and the resulting weed problem. Their prop and bow thrusters were so fouled, it took them an hour to go 200 metres! We should have listened!!

Entrance to the Canal de Bourgogne

Brienon-sur-Armançon was our first stop and we were moored alongside the bowling (petanque) pitch. It was fun watching them play. Like curling on steroids. Some of the players were very good.

Playing petanque (or boulles)

Then we headed for St Florentin. The quai was full so we had to reverse in at the end of the mooring area. Sadly, it was full of weeds. The prop and bow thrusters got so jammed with weeds that we actually had to be hauled in using ropes to position us. Not fun!!! But we did meet a lovely couple from Portland, Oregon who have a similar boat and have been doing this for 11 years. They have cruised most of France and were a fount of information. We decided that this was as far as we were willing to go on the Bourgogne so we decided to go back the way we came. As you can guess, getting out of the weeds was a horror story. The props wouldn’t respond and the bow thruster was jammed. After almost running ashore again, Phil managed to get us free and we were off. I’m sure it’s beautiful but we weren’t prepared to get into serious trouble by trying to go further.

See – I told you the water level is down (St Florentin)

So we headed back to Brienon, stayed a few days and now we are back in Joigny. Joigny not only is a pretty town but it has a McDonald’s for free wifi and a big supermarket across the street.  Our next stop is Auxerre where we will wait to hear from Simon that the battery charger has arrived. After that we might go part way down the Nivernais but we won’t get far as we’ll really only have three more weeks of cruising before we head to Paris for a week and them home. Wow, where has the time gone?

Love to all –Captain Skinny (as in he’s lost 25 pounds from worry) and the Not-So-Skinny First Mate

Paris and Moret-sur-Loing

Dear Family and Friends

It has been an interesting week to say the least! We left Nogent-sur-Marne on the 31^st of May and joined the Seine River to make our way to Paris. The Seine is incredibly busy with peniches (barges) travelling at speeds much greater than we travel so we had to deal with the turbulence. It didn’t help that it was also quite windy so my mal de mer was acting up. Thank goodness we made it to the Arsenal marina when we did!

Calypso moored at the Arsenal

The Monument to the Bastille – built where it formerly stood

The Arsenal is in the 4^th arrondissement - very convenient to all the major sites and the métro was on our doorsteps. We were in berth #95 so that gives you an idea of how big it is – over 100 boats at any given time. The neatest thing though is that there are boaters from everywhere – UK, Germany, Holland, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, The Channel Islands (Guernsey) and of course – drum roll please – Canada. As usual ours was the only Canadian flag to be seen! In the ‘it’s a small world ‘ sense, we met a couple from Guernsey who are friends of the brother of our Windy Poplars neighbours the Meinke’s. Awesome!

My Aunt Jean and Uncle Owen (my Mom’s brother) from near Toronto arrived on June 1^st to cruise with us for a week. We stayed in Paris for a few days to give them a chance to recover from jet lag and sightsee. That’s when the trouble started. What we didn’t realize is that it was a week that included a national holiday (Ascension Thursday) and midterm break for both British and then European students. Everywhere we went there were unbelievable lineups so we have many, many pictures of the outside of tourist attractions but the only one we really went into was Sacré Coeur in Montmartre. We walked our little butts off the first day as I had forgotten how far it was from the Eiffel Tower to Musee d’Orsay. We walked 12 MILES that day – talk about pooped. Notre Dame was very close to the mooring so that was an easy visit, we took both the Batobus (water taxi) and the métro to others.

Montmartre’s Sacré Coeur– insanely busy (Phil and Owen are there somewhere)

Artists of Montmartre – Place du Tertre

As we were waiting to take the funicular up to Sacré Coeur sadly my purse was picked and I lost over 200 euros. The good news was that our passports were not taken.  Luckily it was only the food money that was stolen. The beer money was safely tucked in Phil’s wallet! Then later that day my uncle’s pocket was picked but he only lost 100 euros. Our Paris experience was somewhat dampened by both the money loss and our inability to avoid millions of other tourists. The most mind blowing experience though was to go out on a Saturday morning to get groceries and not a store was open! We couldn’t believe it! Can you imagine going shopping in Canada on a Saturday morning and finding nothing open – not on your life! Luckily we had enough canned goods to fall back on until we could get to a store the next day – although finding stores open on a Sunday is challenging in itself.

Famous landmark – Chinagora Hotel at the confluence of the Seine and the Marne

Our first day out from Paris was interesting. As you can imagine the Seine shores are lined with industrial sites – not very pretty. But after about 4 hours we were once again seeing green banks and some lovely villages. Cruising past the Forests of Fontainebleau was gorgeous.

Beautiful houses all along the Forest of Fontainebleau

The trouble came when we wanted to moor for the night. Several supposed moorages didn’t exist as promised (sound familiar?)  so we went much further than we really wanted to. But all that fell by the wayside when we arrived in Moret-sur-Loing. What a stunning little village! Remnants of a medieval fort – parts of the wall and the portal gates remain. The church is 12^th century and lots of houses are either ancient stone or tudor style half timbered black/brown and white. The painter Sisley lived here and he used Moret as a subject for many of his paintings. I think we can say that this is the most spectacular village we have ever visited!

St Mammès - Jousting on the water – someone is going to get wet

Moret-sur-Loing - Beautiful building housing the shop of the famous candy

Gorgeous little alleyways

Sisely painted here

Good thing we are enjoying it so much as we are here for several days longer than planned. Guess who’s on strike? Yup, the lock keepers on the Seine! In order to get to the Yonne River and Auxerre, we need to pass through just one more lock on the Seine. If it lasts much longer we may have to change our plans – AGAIN – and head down the canals of the centre – a series of 3 different canals that run one into the other. But we’ll wait until Wednesday evening before we make that decision.

As always we’ve been meeting boaters from many countries - that really is the best part of this whole experience. A nice Australian family arrived today just as a lovely couple from Plymouth left. Steve spent most of one afternoon helping Phil find the fault with our battery charger only to discover that it was fried. Oh well – we’ll have to get a new one when we get to a centre large enough to have a chandlery and a good boat mechanic. We still don’t know why the battery powered lights in the salon don’t work but we usually try to get a moorage with electricity so it’s not a disaster. Phil gets a little stressed by all the things that go wrong but realistically boats are just a another problem waiting to happen. It’s part of the charm of cruising!!

Thanking Steve (with wife Anne) for all his help with Champagne and strawberries (Clockwise from the left– Jean, Phil, Anne, Owen and Steve)

But, hey, we are in France! Baguettes are my new best friend, my aunt and uncle are wonderful company and seem to be enjoying themselves regardless and the weather has been superb. We finally got our first day of rain and we’ve been here for over a month. Phil’s birthday is today so we’ll go the patisserie and buy a gateau. Moret is also the home of a very special candy – Sucre d’Orge – a 300 year old recipe developed by nuns of the Prieure de Notre-Dame des Anges order. Good stuff!

Dining al fresco in Melun

We are looking forward to getting to Auxerre as we’ve heard so much about it and then heading down the Canal du Nivernais. More stories to follow!! Stay tuned.

Love to all – The Captain and the ex-Tourist Guide (I managed to resign just before being fired!)

France 2011 - Weeks 3 & 4

Dear Family and Friends

OK, so here’s the scoop. Have you heard of a book called ‘40,000,000 Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong’? Well, I ’m here to tell you “Oh yes, they can!!!” And if you have the time, I’ll tell you why.

Firstly they don’t know how to spell.
As an example, I was in the épicerie looking for rice. I asked the clerk in my very best French – “Ou est le riz?” – which I assumed was pronounced reezz. She looked at me very strangely so I used the universal language of pantomime.  In my best Charade mode I measured out a cup of reezz, added 2 cups of water, put the pot on the stove, put the reezz in the bowl and cleverly whipped out my chopsticks and began eating from my reezz bowl.  Understanding dawned as she exclaimed “Ah, ree!” Ree???  Seriously, why do the French put letters  - like a perfectly good zed - at the end of a word if they don’t want you to use them?????

This .............                                                                                         

                                                                                 becomes this!

Secondly, what do they have against working for a full day – morning to evening?
Why do they take 2 hours off in the middle of the day just when I’m ready to go shopping. Zut alors! Very frustrating. And God forbid that they should actually show up for work on Mondays. That would be grounds for another strike for sure. So if we actually want to cook on the boat Sunday and Monday, we have to fill the fridge on Saturday but only between the hours of 9 to 12 and 2 to 6.

Spring has sprung – the cygnets are here!

Thirdly – and the most frustrating – why do they advertise services that they don’t actually provide?
Prime example. On Monday, 23^rd of May we set off from our very lovely mooring in La Ferté sous Jouarre. Great village, fabulous market on the Sunday morning, good shops. We enjoyed it so much we stayed for 2 days. The day was beautiful – sunny, bright blue sky and warm. After a very short cruise – about 12kms – we arrived at Saint Jean les Deux Jumeaux. Gorgeous little village with a brand new dock which advertised water and electricity. Oops, no electricity and no water. No problem we’ll go another 25kms to Meaux – that’s a very large town with full services. Which may have been true if you were arriving on the 26^th of May and not the 23^rd. The  marina was actually closed so obviously no electricity! We saw a notice on the board that the town council were trying to decide how to charge boaters for electricity. It obviously made perfect sense to them not to continue providing any at all until they sorted out the problem (Maybe a nightly moorage charge like other marinas? Far too complicated for these guys!). We decided to moor for one night anyway and risk a ticket. Let’s see them try to collect that fee!

Oh well! It’s our anniversary let’s go out to supper. Rats! It’s Monday. The only thing open was an Italian restaurant (presumably because Italians aren’t French) which wasn’t Edmonton’s Royal Pizza by any means but what the heck. We were in France – how bad can it be?

Our fall back meal – they make lovely omelettes!

The other bugbear that’s obviously not their fault but can be slightly annoying is to pull up to a beautiful little village expecting to walk into the main street to have lunch and finding that the village has absolutely no stores or shops other than a boulangerie – a baguette might be heavenly but when you are hungry and there’s no filling, it lacks a certain je ne sais croix! I guess the French economy isn’t doing well as there are just hundreds of closed small, owner-run businesses. The French economy is probably running on the union-led state employees.

Sadly, you can fire a canon ball down the main street of this little village.

Now that I’ve taken the mickey out of Frenchmen and have risked offending Francophiles everywhere, I must also admit that we’ve met wonderful people who have been very helpful. The Capitaine and his lovely assistant here in Nogent couldn’t be more accommodating and are quite tolerant of our efforts to communicate in French. We do quite well most of the time but there are still occasions requiring vocabulary that we don’t yet have.

And before you get the idea that it’s all bad, be assured we are still having a wonderful time. Cruising down the Marne was just beautiful!! Lovely wide open river, very very little traffic, and gorgeous scenery. We must be ahead of the summer boaters as we hardly meet anyone on the water. We have gone days without meeting another boat. When we were in La Ferté sous Juarre, there were 4 boats! I was ready to organize a cruising convention! One Australian, one Dutchman (very grumpy), one German and the Canadians – us!!

La Ferté used to be the world’s largest supplier of millstones

Tiny villages all along the Marne and miles of vineyards on the hillsides

We also moored up in Epernay for three days. Both Epernay and Reims (pronounced Rance – like dance – see what I mean??) are in the heart of the Champagne country. All along the river were miles and miles of vineyards. Quite spectacular, although the lack of rain must be worrying for the growers. We took a tour of a champagne house – La Castellane – and found it fascinating. There are 6 kms of underground caves, special lighting so as not to affect the wine. Workers drive through the tunnels on little forklifts to get from one end to the other as they transport either filled bottles ready for storage or supplies to make and bottle the wine. We had a tasting at the end of the tour and we purchased a bottle which was supposed to have been for our anniversary but we’ll wait for another time to open it! The brut was too dry, the demi-sec was too sweet so like Goldilocks we bought a rosé.

La Castellane Champagne House – I climbed up the tower. Phil was too hung over!!!

The weather (until today the 26^th) has been just beautiful. We are currently mooring at Nogent-sur-Marne - just 12kms outside Paris. Because we kept finding marinas with no facilities (despite what was advertised) we cruised for fewer days than planned. We wanted to go to Paris but when we phoned for reservations, the port at Arsenal – which is at the foot of the Bastille – was full. Thankfully we had made reservations for the planned date of arrival, the 31^st of May, so we’ll be there for 4 days while we pick up my aunt and uncle who are coming for a visit. We can hardly wait – our first visitors!

Nogent calls itself ‘Paris l’Est’ with firm grounds for so doing. The buildings and architecture remind me so much of Paris. It is truly beautiful and for once the marina is full service – even has laundry machines as well as WIFI – which of course they pronounce weefee. I have taken a ton of pictures of houses and apartments. Truly lovely. We are a good hike straight up a hill into the town centre so there’s a health benefit as well!

Beautiful Nogent-sur-Marne

We have been on the water for almost a month and with only a few hiccups have enjoyed it immensely. Phil has really improved his driving and parking skills and I have yet to fall into the water. My rope skills are much improved and in a brief moment of euphoria I actually considered learning how to dock the boat. Thankfully it was a brief moment. Let’s not jinx anything now. We’ve spent time really organizing the boat and getting rid of stuff we’ll never use. Our favourite pastime is to put something out beside the garbage can and watch to see who comes along to take their new found treasure home. We can hardly wait to continue the journey!

Much love to all – The Captain and Mrs. Roper

France - first 2 weeks!

Salut à tous

Nous avons arriver au France! And the adventure continues.... 

We arrived in Charleville Mézierès in good time to pick up a few groceries as the next day was May 1^st – France’s version of Labour Day where everything is closed tighter than a drum. We grabbed a cab and were driven to the boatyard. So far so good. Oops – Sharlene you idiot, you left your purse in the taxi!!! Not only did it have both passports, my credit cards and all our Euro dollars but we failed to notice the name of the cab company. Merde, merde, merde!!!! The young lady in the boatyard office began calling all the cabs in the yellow pages and luckily we made contact with our taxi driver and he quickly returned with my purse. A 30 euro cab fare became a 50 euro fare, but merçi beaucoup, I had my purse back. As you can imagine Phil now watches me like a hawk – it’s going to be a long summer!

More bad news – for whatever reason (as I had emailed Cedric with the date of our arrival), Calypso was not in the water and as mentioned nothing will happen now until after the May 1^st holiday. More merde! That means I have to climb a 6 foot ladder to get on and off the boat which isn’t too bad in and of itself but it means no toilet or shower! Seriously sucks! Tinkling in a bucket in the middle of the night is hardly glamorous but necessary. No way was I going down that ladder when half asleep.

We stayed in Pont à Bar for several days getting unpacked, organized and cleaning the boat after the winter storage. A British couple, Fergie and Audrey Hewer, whom we had met last year were there and very kindly drove us around to the shops so we could re-provision. By the Thursday we were ready to set off – finally we were to get underway. Well almost.... Phil had noticed that the bow thruster wasn’t working very well and I said that the toilet wasn’t flushing as well as it did last year. Phil and Cedric looked the boat over and discovered that one of the batteries was quite low. Cedric drove into Sedan to get a new one, quickly installed it and we left in glorious sunshine – surely a good sign!

 Almost in the water!

We had the canal to ourselves, if you didn’t count the herons and a million song birds serenading us as we cruised along at a wicked (NOT) 6 km per hour. We made it to Le Chesne our stop for the night. We got to bed early to prepare for a busy day ahead – a series of 27 locks that drops us over 300 metres over about 10 kms. We did really well helped along by the fact that we were going downstream so each lock we entered was already set and all we had to do was drive in, set the ropes, pull the activation pole and hang on as the water emptied from the lock. Seriously, we now have this nailed!! 

 Leaving Pont a Bar

 And we're off - down the Canal des Ardennes

Our first tunnel of 2011

Merde encore! In between lock 18 and 19 the engine alarm began to scream in a very urgent high pitch. Phil quickly shut the motor off and began looking for the cause. All systems looked normal. Afraid to do serious damage to the motor if we started it up again, we called Cedric and he said he’d be there about 5:00PM.  He and a helper showed up, checked all the usual suspects and found nothing. His best guess was that a plastic bag may have been caught in the water intake which is vital for cooling the engine (Jeez, you’d almost think I knew what I was talking about!) and that once we’d stopped the bag probably dropped off into the canal again. Have I told you how dirty the canals are? They are a minefield of floating rubbish - not at all like the clean canals of Holland. It was now too late to continue the next 10 locks in the series so we stayed put until the next morning.

 Le Chesne at sunset

We continued on our way and arrived in Rethel on Saturday where we stayed for 2 nights to recuperate from all the excitement! There were 2 other British couples – Colin and Linda, Chris and Paula who live on beautiful barges – so we had some lovely company and splurged by going out to dinner twice. The first was planned, the second occurred as a result of drinking too much wine before supper and not being sober enough to cook! We were sorry to leave such nice company. But we have a schedule and as Jamie says – “gotta make time!” 

The next 2 days went really well if you don’t include finding no place to eat lunch at the 2 villages we stopped at and the fact that a miserable sodding barge (we hates barges we do) drove us up onto the rocky sides of the canal and left a big scratch down the side of the boat. Merde is my new favourite word! Poor little Calypso – more paint to be added to her other bruises. After that adventure Phil and I decided that we would stop being so ‘Canadian’ (aka nice) and not give them so much room from now on. We’ll take our allotted space and to hell with them – they can move over. The canals may be narrow in spots but if everyone is considerate there is enough room for 2 boats to pass regardless of their size.

We are now in Reims for 3 nights – it is a lovely city with some great buildings. It was once as important a city as Paris and the cathedral of Saint Rémi is outstanding. The stained glass windows are superb including one designed by Marc Chagall.

It's all about the food!

Phil and I both got haircuts, the laundry is done and the larder is full. We are ready to head to Paris but not before going through a 2 kilometre (!!!!) tunnel. More adventures likely to follow!

Much love to all – Captain Phil and the Ropemanperson

London

Hello to All  

The 2011 Coss Cruise has started off with a bang – several in fact! But let’s start at the beginning.

The flight to London was fine – Air Transat was better than we expected. Leg room was good but the seats were a little narrow.  Definitely an incentive to lose some weight over the summer (any excuse is good – pick one of several!) We arrived so early in the morning we had to amuse ourselves while waiting to get into the self-catering flat. A good old fashioned English breakfast did the trick. We took the Gatwick Express (an aboveground train) to Victoria Station and checked the bags so that we could wander around. At £8 a bag (X 4) it was almost cheaper to rent a room for the day. Oh well – nobody said travel was cheap. 

The first thing we did was head off to the Visit Britain office to pick up our pre-ordered London Passes. It got us into a great variety of sites ‘free’. While there we also purchased a London Oyster travel card which gave us access to tubes, buses and trains in Zones 1 and 2. What a great time saver that was – no hunting around for change every time you get on a bus or the tube.  We wandered some more in the Westminster area noting all the preparations for the Big Event – miles of cables for the media littered the streets.

 Just a sample of the many temporary studios

Looks like a good place for a kiss!

It was time to catch a cab to 29 Berkeley Street – our home for the week. It might have been that I was tired, jet lagged or just plain grumpy but my initial reaction to the flat was not good. Once again, Sharlene, beware of pictures on the internet. However we`ve booked several places using the same agency prior to this and had really enjoyed our Cotswold cottage, Italian villa etc. Maybe my expectations for a £100 a night accommodation in central London were a little ambitious but the quality of furnishings was not up to Coss standards – which let`s face it - aren`t that high!! 

The flat however was in a very central location, 2 blocks from Marble Arch and in an interesting Lebanese/Middle Eastern neighbourhood. The smells emanating from the shops as we walked by were tantalizing and we made sure we got at least one meal while we were there. Phil had the mixed grill and I had lamb chops followed by baklava – scrumptious. There was also a pub right across the street which became our ‘local’. We got to know the girls there several of whom were from former Russian controlled countries. Now that they are independent countries and part of the EU they can travel fairly freely to go to school or work for short periods. 

 Our "local"

The second day was mostly spent scouting the neighbourhood, picking up essentials for breakfasts and some suppers as we usually eat lunch out.  The next day we headed out – I finally got to the Tate Britain after our 4^th visit to London. We did the Victoria and Albert again for a special exhibition of Romantic Period art called Beauty. The Churchill War Rooms were very interesting and I loved St Paul’s which I hadn’t visited before  - even made it to the Whispering Gallery some 300 feet up. My vertigo doesn’t allow me to look down but I was glad I climbed those 500 steps!!!! 

Sadly I felt a cold coming on and by Thursday it was full blown so I thought I’d better stick close to home to try and head it off. We did walk over to Hyde Park to scout out our location for the next day’s big event – the Royal Wedding. We also had to cancel meeting Jeff and Jessie’s brand new baby daughter but they certainly didn’t need a visitor who was sick. The Coss luck reared its ugly head again and by the time I woke up on Friday, I couldn’t breathe and was too sick to move. So there I was –on the couch in my pyjamas watching the wedding on a little 17” TV screen, not even HD. Grrr. All that expense for nada. Our Canadian flags stayed in our bags, but heh – maybe I can pull them out for France’s Bastille Day. Let’s see – a Canadian flag on France’s most patriotic day  - what do you think - a hanging or guillotine offense?

Nevertheless, roll with the punches Cosses – get ready for the next part of the adventure as we board the EuroStar to cross through the chunnel to Paris, grab a local train to Charleville Mézierès and a cab to Pont à Bar where Calypso awaits our return!!!

Love to all – the Adventurous but Unlucky Cosses