Saturday, July 31, 2010

The Canal de Bourgogne to Dijon

To Dijon

After a lovely stay in St Jean de Losne, we set off for the Canal de Bourgogne - lock heaven!

There was a bit of fun leaving the home of barging as we had to reverse out of our mooring (barges are not designed to go backwards) do a 270 degree turn in a confined space and exit the port - all with a cast of thousands on all the surrounding boats watching every move! Phew - it went OK!

Our initial destination was the city of Dijon - but this was too far to get in one day so we had a very peaceful stop about halfway.  Then onto Dijon 22 locks later.


It is a wonderful old city and we have a mooring in the port with electricity and water about a 20 min walk (or 1 Euro bus ride) from the city centre. As it turned out we were not actually in the port - but in the basin alongside it - so even though we connected to the electricity and filled up with water they did not charge us! Yeah ha!



We have made the most of our visit as we will be in villages for the next few weeks - trips to the Dijon Market, the large shopping centre at Troison D'Or, and of course a visit to the fine arts museum. It is a lovely old town and we have enjoyed wandering around - with of course the odd lovely lunch along the way.



We are moored up near the lock at the entry to the port - the canal is so quiet - only one boat in today - 2 yesterday.  And about 8 eclusiers to look after the canal up to here. 2 Hotel barges arrived a few days ago, but both are now both empty.


 We continue to be amused by the bird life, Grey lag geese (that hiss at us occasionally), water fowl, a few ducks and even a couple of swans.




No comments:

Post a Comment