Canal du Nivernais, travel-report 2003: sithe day

In the morning I cycle to Villiers-sur-Yonne to get bread. The bakery is also the local café. An elderly woman looks very thrifty when I ask for 'deux pain'. "Un et demi", she says inquiringly. Apparently my demand for two bread brings the bread supply of the village in danger. I sawon an information sign that there are no more than 200 inhabitants. I try: "Un pain et deux baguettes". After some thoughts she concludes that someone in the village is absent today and so I get the wanted two large breads I wanted.

We navigate on on a beautiful section of the canal and a wonderful landscape in the direction of Clamecy. We pass a turning bridge which is open: Le pont tournant de Villiers. It 's an very old bridge made of wood. The beam are warped. I suddenly realize that a number of narrowing in the canal we passed before are the relicts of the same kind of bridges. This is the last specimen!

We don't manage to reach Clamecy for lunch and so we stop in Chevroches. In earlier days the ships were loaded with bricks here. We are moored in an attractive port where we can tank water. We climb along a little church on the hill the village is built. From a platform we enjoy the beautiful view on the valley.

At one o'clock we navigate to Clamecy. We are approaching this village by a wonderful way with the gothic church tower right in front of us. At the left side of the lock to the river Yonne a small port is situated. We moor here to take a look in the village in the afternoon. In earlier days the canal ran through town. Some rests can still be recognized. Nowadays you have navigate on the Yonne for a few hundred meters.

Nowadays the former canal is a parking place with a fountain in the middle. The children run through it expecting they are so fast they won't get very wet. But there is so much water in it they both have to go back to the boat to get dry clothes. We do some shopping and survey Clamecy afterwards. We roam though the narrow alleys and I buy a book about the Canal du Nivernais.

At five o'clock we navigate on to Coulanges-sur-Yonne. At Basseville huge rocks are rising high above the surrounding flat landscape. The Canal du Nivernais crosses the Yonne here. The waterways guide warns for the strong current but now there is nothing wrong. At one side of the crossing a lockkeepers house is situated, at the other site a kind of toilet cubby-hole. The lockkeeper tells us it's an old shelter for the lockkeeper.

We pass a counterpoise bridge again, opened by Robert and myself. Pepijn steers the boat faultlessly through the narrow opening of the bridge.

We are having Chinese food in the evening. After diner I take my bike and ride to a village further, Surgy. It's a village with a striking white church tower, a stately 'Mairie', a fortified farm with different towers and a watermill fallen into decay.

As I am back the others are playing scrabble. This game is our favorite at the moment. There are some appropriate words on the board: cola, cheese-smell and boat. They had a discussion with my mother about the word 'mayo' (mayonnaise) but the majority approves of it. We are having a wonderful social evening. Robert has bought a bottle of champagne because he is leaving us tomorrow and he allowed the children to buy some sweets in the supermarket. Marga bought a French cheese there but its smell has ruined the atmosphere in the refrigerator. Nevertheless it tastes good.