Barge Date:  07-06-2018

Nancy and Metz

After leaving Verdun, we moved south to the end of the Meuse River and then turned east on the Canal de la Marne au Rhin.  Our last stop on the Meuse was the town of Commercy.  This is the home town of the Madeleine, a small cake that can be done up in any number of ways and was made famous by Marcel Proust in "A la recherche du temps perdu" ("Searching for Lost Time").  The town was enjoyable too. 

This is not Commercy but the stop before, St. Mihiel.  When a boat ties onto another, it is called "rafting on".

Pictures of Commercy:

Made me think of LA. 3 bridges.

Then it is on to Toul, a location that I had hoped to use as our winter mooring. Not to be.

For excitement, this leg of travel has us going through a series of locks that quickly follow one another.  They are automatic locks and we were able to set a pattern of work and movement that allowed each approaching lock to be ready for us and all had us dropping.  If my memory is correct, about 11 locks and all done in a morning.

We tied up in Toul and toured the town.  Small, but nice.  For smaller boats a nice marina.  But there was no reason to remain as I want to get to Nancy to secure a safe tie-up so we can make a return trip to Strasbourg for the residence papers.  Marianne was able to make a phone call and spoke with a person at the Prefecture who seemed to give us hope that we might be able to slip in and get the process going. Here is Toul.

Do you see the stork?

We started in the morning thinking a 2-leg trip to Nancy but locks were few, we were on the Moselle river and travel  could be fast and where we wanted to tie up was not in our favor.  So we ended up just short of Nancy but in a perfect location for re-stocking the galley and getting to a Brico. (not sure I have used this term before;  think of a Lowe's).


Saw this new French innovation in this  parking lot.

Yes, now you can do the wash and not leave the car (almost).

In the morning we moved into one of several lagoons in Nancy but not before we added to our crew. The night before, a lady was taking pictures of our boat and a conversation developed and soon we suggested that Zao join us for the short jaunt. She is French but lives out in the Indian Ocean on the island Reunion.  Thinks it would be fun to have a barge so she got a taste of the good life. 

Nancy is a fine city and the center of it all is Place Stanislas.  It is a very large square bounded by identical architecture with a statue of Stanislas in the middle. It is here that every night a laser light show takes place at about 11PM. We sat at a table with some drinks and mini burgers and watched the show. Very nice and different than the light show we saw last year in Amiens.

Here are some short videos of the light show.  Enlarge to full screen to view better.

We took a train to Strasbourg, picked up some documents sent to the marina and made our play with the prefecture.  It was not as we hoped.  Same large crowd we saw the first of June.  Same disappointment by many.  At one point the security person told people to back off the steps or the police troops would be called. We left for breakfast and returned.  Fewer people, but we were still told that we have to make an appointment online, which has proved so far impossible, and could not be seen otherwise although we now have all the required documents.

Took a picture of the office as proof we were there.  What a system; what a way to run the process.  I am prepared to see what happens in September if it continues to be impossible to make an appointment .

Took the train back to Nancy, saw the light show again, then took another train to Metz which is down the Moselle a short ride.  Also a nice city and perhaps more interesting than Nancy. Crazy street layouts and always had one confused about where you are and how to get somewhere else. I would like to come again with the barge but the present crew did not like the idea.  May return as part of the loop going down the Sarre river into Germany then back south between Germany and Luxembourg and up the Moselle.  Will see.

We are now off to the east again, a section of the canal some people call a very rural, few-cities/town- stretch of water.  We have re-stocked the galley and are ready to go.

NOTE:  For you lucky few that actually read to the bottom and so may be interested, I will have an opportunity to take on crew after Marianne returns in August. If you are interested for a period of several weeks, give me an email and I will see what can be done. Would require you getting to the Strasbourg area for a meet up.  Email is all run together but here I break it up to fool the robots: tim.horchler     @    gmail.com