Mons, Canal Du Centre and Viesville 5-8 July We planned to explore the boat lifts with my brother Richard (Poo) and his wife Sue. But first a day in the city of Mons. Our first stop was the main square where we looked at the flower market and got a year's good luck by patting the monkeys head with our left hand, and had a look at the town hall garden. We had a look around the lovely church. Also of course the Belfry, which is set on hill in a park. We went up the tower for the view and the museum. We learned that Victor Hugo likened the tower to a huge coffee pot flanked by four smaller teapots below the belly. In the evening we went to a restaurant in town, and then returned to the boat where we enjoyed the sunset from the back deck. On Friday we headed off to Thieu, where we got our bikes out for a ride along the historic canal. As well as seeing the first couple of lifts there was a festival on the banks of the canal. From there we went to Streppy Thieu to see the new Ascenseur, which replaced the old boat lifts. Even though Howard and I had seen it before we were still impressed by it. In the evening the light show was on the old boat lift near us. Sunday morning we set off on our trip (after Howard finished fishing). Firstly through a small lock, then following a boat that we nick-named Jabba-the-Hut, into the ascensceur. We were very close. We passed Jabba-the-hut for the second ascensceur, and were able to get more room between us. Even though the next ascensceur was only about 250 m away, we ended up waiting over an hour before they were ready to take us up the next one. Then we were soon up the last one. It had been a very interesting day. The ascensceurs were built between 1888 and 1917, and used water for their power. They added 30cms of water to the upper basin so that it would push the lower basin up. It was a tiring day, especially for me, as most of the bridges and the basins were not much more than 5m wide. On Monday we had planned to head to Ronquieres and see the inclined plane boat lift. However we saw that it was closed for 2 weeks. We decided to try and moor at the top of it, and go down to the museum and have a look, but the canal was closed and we couldn't get close. So we continued on to Viesville for the night instead. We did have one stop, where we moored outside the supermarket and brought a trolley full of provisions right up to the boat.
1 Comment
Neil and Margaret
10/7/2019 02:53:22 am
Just love looking at your adventures with Sue and Richard. The countryside looks so beautiful. Keep having a great time Neil and Margaret
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