Canal de Bourgogne - 2004
This change in plans got us back to Roanne about two months earlier than we had expected and we had to meet a friend near Paris in September, so we decided to tackle the 189 locks of the Canal de Bourgogne. From Roanne we travel north to join the Canal du Centre and either head west toward Paris or east toward Chalon. We chose the latter, for the second time this year. The Centre is a lovely stretch of canal, with several towns like Digoin, Paray, Montceau, Chagny and Chalon as pleasant stopping and shopping locales. The canal twists through some fabulous wine country at Santenay and Rully and we are already looking forward to our next inventory replenishment visit.
On arrival at Chalon you enter the Saone River through a rather large lock. We took this in our stride and headed north to St. Jean de Losne, the terminal point of the Bourgogne. With nowhere to moor we headed straight up the canal and stopped at Brazey en Plaine, a journey of nearly 80 km from our starting point of Fragnes. It is fairly easy to put on good miles on the Saone, a gentle river with only two locks between Chalon and St. Jean.
We tootled up the Bourgogne, stopping at Dijon, which was an historic and shopfilled town we had overlooked on a previous visit. A few days of many locks, roughly 20 a day, and we stopped at Vandenesse, the last outpost before the dreaded Pouilly tunnel. This is a lovely spot, overlooked by Chateauneuf and in the heartland of golden wheatfields. We took on the tunnel on a grey but dry day, which is an important consideration in that we have to lower and raise the wheelhouse. We emerged after a couple of tense hours in the 4 km tunnel to a torrential downpour which we had to endure until the wheelhouse was reassembled.
Once through the tunnel we were on the downward side and surfed about 10 locks a day, often in pouring rain. Lock crews travel with you on several sections and are very helpful. We took about two weeks to get to the Yonne River end of the Bourgogne. In all, traffic was light, locks were decent, and towns were pretty and generally well serviced. We had heard that provisioning spots were rare on the Bourgogne but for a barge, with extra storage capacity, this was not an issue.
When we stopped at Joigny, on the Yonne we were, by chance, invited into the house of a fellow who had restored and decorated it with original modern art in each room, serving as both a home and art gallery. I think we will always be amazed at the generosity of time the French give to tourists and travellers. The invitation had been extended because we had stopped to talk to an old lady who pointed out that, in a recent restoration, they had carved the face of the architect into the new woodwork, even to showing his spectacles.
