Lionel ...d'Antan

Barge Date: 07-11-2021

Plombieres-les-Dijon

Had a fine stay in Dijon. The mooring was good; quiet and just a few other boats traveling. A small cruiser with a Swiss family on board. Hans and Maria, their daughter and 2 grand kids. They too are traveling up the Burgundy and we traveled with them through five locks. Using the bow camera I am very comfortable getting up close to the lock door. Plenty of room for the cruiser.

Lots of weeds in the water and you can feel the drag on the boat; the weeds prevent the water from flowing easily to the prop. We have been told that further up the canal the weed situation is much better. On the trip to Dijon the lock workers seemed to be aggressive with the water coming into the lock. Not a problem for us but wonder how they would have done it if the boat had been smaller. The workers on this second leg with two boats in the lock seemed to be less aggressive with the water.

We stopped for the day in Plombieres-les-Dijon which is just north of Dijon. A small, compact village but seeming to have a plan for how they are growing. Nice to see the architectural changes from the very old to more current.

The port is a nice setting and is dominated by a charter cruise company called Elegant Waterways - https://www.elegantwaterways.com/- owned by a couple from Colorado. We spoke with the operator, a British fellow, and learned a bit about the business. Almost all cruises are booked by Americans. You book the entire barge for about $60,000 per six days. Eight passengers and a crew of 6. His secret to success, he told us, is to not offer any options. They plan everything and that is the way it is. Sounds about right. And the Americans are easy to work with, he says.

We had a nice dinner at a port side restaurant and beat the crowd coming in later for the European Cup match between UK and Italy.

Down by the lock is a monument to King Louis XVIII and Pope Pius VII. They met here in 1816 as France attempted to heal relations with the Vatican. I have been reading about Napoleon but more to come about this soon. He had something to do with the relationship to the Vatican across Europe.

We will push on tomorrow and will stop for the last grocery store in some distance. The cruise operator says this is a beautiful canal and to look forward to it. He also mentioned that the machine used to remove weeds broke last year and is only now being fixed. Great.

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