Sens, Pont-sur-Yonne, Montereau-Fault-Yonne FR 28 July - 4 August 2023 Summer seems to have gone away. We had more grey days ahead. We left Villeneuve for Sens on the Friday. It was raining quite heavily for most of the trip. Howard managed to do all the rope work leaving me warm and dry inside. We got a mooring on the quay, where there was free power and water. We had a little ride around in the afternoon. It was very busy in town so we stuck to the route which followed the old town walls. On Saturday morning Howard had a fish, and then we had a visit from a journalist from the local paper and we did an interview in French. We ended up on the front page of the internet edition of the paper. Here is the article: https://www.lyonne.fr/sens-89100/actualites/pour-son-canal-du-nivernais-ses-gougeres-ou-son-calme-les-plaisanciers-apprecient-leur-escale-dans-l-yonne_14350750/ But you can only read it if you subscribe so we asked for a copy and they sent the one they used for the print edition which had a different picture. Photo courtesy of Marc CHARASSON - L'Yonne Républicaine The article published in L'Yonne Républicaine In the afternoon we rented audioguides from the tourist information office. The first one covered the cathedral, which was a major religious centre for France. There was some very impressive stained glass windows. Thomas Becket was an important personage in Sens as he came there after he had a falling out with English King Henry II. And there was also a tomb of the Dauphin (the son of King Louis the XV) who fathered the last 3 kings of France. After we completed that one, we did the audio guide about the city itself. On Sunday we did a tour of the cathedral tower. The tour was in French but that was the only way you could go up the tower. We understood a significant proportion of the information and we enjoyed the wonderful views from the top of the tower. On the way home we stopped at a few other places of interest. In the afternoon, 3 Piper barges turned up. Penny and Tim from Deep Thought, and Wendy and Dave Brown from Otium we knew already from Barge Association rallies, but we hadn't met Julia and Richard from Ettie before. In the evening the 8 of us headed out for a meal in town. Howard, Tim, Penny, Wendy, Dave, Julia, Richard On Monday we headed to Pont-sur-Yonne. The original pont (bridge) was pulled down for better navigation, but a section has been retained which we visited in the afternoon as part of our cycle around the town. There wasn't a lot to see in Pont-sur-Yonne, so in the morning we went for a short bike ride in the local area. In the evening our friend Martyn arrived to spend a week with us. Howard met him at the station. We originally planned to spend only 2 nights at Pont-sur-Yonne, but they were forecasting high winds so we decided to stay an extra day. Howard had a fish in the morning before the rain settled in, and then we spent most of the day on board, sheltered from the wind and driving rain. Howard and Martyn did go to the boulangerie during a break in the weather, but didn't make it back before heavy rain started up again. By Thursday morning (my birthday) the wind had abated enough for us to set sail. I was a bit diappointed to have such a long and difficult day to contend with on my birtday, but at least Howard had booked us a nice restaurant at our destination. We were going to go nearly 30kms and deal with 7 locks, the last three of which had sloping sides and nowhere to securely tie up. We worked out that the best way to manage those locks was for me to "loiter" in the lock. That is drving back and forward to keep the boat in roughly the middle. Howard and Martyn stayed on deck with a boat hook and broom respectively in order to fend off if we had needed it. Luckily we had no other boat with us, which might have been a lot trickier. I was very pleased to get that part of the cruise out of the way. When we got to our destination Montereau-Fault-Yonne at the confluence of the Yonne and the Seine, we found the vistor pontoons completely full. We moored at the silo quay, which wasn't really suitable as it had a fence around it making getting on and off, especially with bikes, really difficult. However we put Howard off with his bike to find us another mooring, and he spotted one around the corner on the Seine, so Martyn and I cruised over there and we moored at what turned out to be a pretty good place, as there was a small straight quay of about 12m jutting out from the sloping quay. In the evening we headed to the restaurant for a lovely meal, a nice end to a stressful day. Friday we were able to get the bikes off for a ride around the town, although we did rush home at the end to avoid the rain storm on the way. And that was the end of our trip on the Yonne for this year, although we do plan to return again next year - hopefully the weather will be better.
1 Comment
Johanna Hersey
9/8/2023 01:37:08 am
J'aime beaucoup les photos prises au crepuscule. Et aussi, félicitations pour votre interview en français.
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