Decize – Gannay-sur-Loire – Diou – La Croix-Rouge – Briennon – Roanne
Why a race? Well, the plan that generated the previous schedule, unsurprisingly, soon changed after its creation when we decided that we would push on to the city of Roanne as it has excellent train connections to Paris, offered us the chance to enjoy an unplanned canal cruise and would mean we could reconnoitre places to visit on our way there. Roanne is at the end of a ‘blind’ canal (the Canal Roanne à Digoin) and we would have the opportunity to scout the route on the way out and then repeat the canal, with some knowledge of what was interesting once our next guests joined us. The canal is roughly 50 km long, with 10 locks, and boasts one of the deepest locks in France at 7.2m deep (with a couple of 6m locks thrown in). Still on a schedule – although now a bit tighter! All that said, we were very much looking forward to an old friend Jim joining us again (having cruised with us in Belgium in 2016) along with his partner Marianne.
Gannay-sur-Loire
Our next stop was just an intermediate. It was a little under four hours cruising in lovely weather through pleasant countryside and four locks. We haven’t had any particular problem with weed this season and perhaps this is because of new weed cutters in the area, one of which we saw along the way.
The mooring was pleasant and easy to access. The guidebooks suggested that there was a four-hundred-year-old linden tree nearby, one of the few remaining planted in the 16th century by a royal minister named Sully. He arranged for the planting of these trees outside of churches all around France where people were to gather for official pronouncements. Up until recently, it was an imposing part of the nearby village. However, unfortunately, it had been hit by a car a few years ago, rendered unsafe and we understood it was now just a stump protected by some fence. I cycled into the village and then back out and across the other side of the canal – but never managed to sight the ex-multi-centennial ‘Arbre de Sully’. Later research shows that this is what I missed:
Diou
Similarly, Diou was also just a stop along the way and what was, for this season, a long cruise of over six hours. It was a little tricky to get into the mooring as the wooden facing was pretty damaged with spiky bits of metal protruding at several points. We barely stepped off Catharina Elisabeth.
La Croix-Rouge
The next morning, we cruised a short distance towards Digoin but just before heading into the last lock on the Canal latéral à la Loire, we took a right turn into the Canal Roanne à Digoin. The entrance was very wide and the water seemed about to flood over the edge of the canal into the fields. Despite it looking full (and later contacts with locals said that the canal was at its highest in years), it seemed quite shallow. Catharina laboured towards the first of three locks and the depth gauge was giving rubbish readings the entire time which is characteristic when the depth is about 30 cm or less. All the écluses on this canal are operated by lockeepers although the first three have the capacity to work automatically.
How, we can’t imagine. Three of the ten locks are reasonably deep as mentioned above. Given this, it would be impossible to throw a rope up to the bollards from a boat and the climb up a slippery ladder would be asking for accidents. However, with an éclusier to snag the rope with a hook, we transited each of these three deep locks without too much trouble.
Our mooring for the night, after another longish cruise of over six hours, was at a pleasant spot named ‘La Croix-Rouge’ – Red Cross. In passing, the Roanne à Digoin canal runs alongside the River Loire along its entire 56 km, frequently no more than a 100 metres or so away on the left (port) side as we headed towards Roanne. The mooring had both power and water operated by some sort of coin device, €2 for 4 h of power and 2 h of water. We needed neither.
Briennon
After waking up to one of those beautiful misty mornings we set off for Briennon, our last mooring place before the final cruise into Roanne.
Having a long day would set us up for a shortish cruise into Roanne the next day and give us time to have a quick bit of a look around Briennon. We would be able to leave in the afternoon once we had confirmed that Jim and Marianne had arrived in Paris and boarded the train for Roanne. We’d still have plenty of time to meet them at the station when they arrived in the evening.
The canal was quiet, after passing one large cruiser as we entered the canal, we did not see another moving boat on the way to Roanne, although a few were moored at various points. The canal is quite well-serviced with spots providing both power and water and basic facilities. In patches, Catharina seemed to find it a bit hard going but not as bad as the start of the canal. However, I wouldn’t like to try this waterway in a dry summer with a water draft of 1.2 m or more. We also went up our biggest lock so far this season, 7.2 m at Bourg-le-Comte.
The landscape over to the port side was spectacular with hilltop villages
and fields rising up the hillsides of the Loire valley.
Closer to the canal, there were the occasional boats moored, some nice moorings and we waved to a family group travelling the old-fashioned way, probably travelling at about our pace but in the opposite direction!
After a long (over seven hours) but very pleasant cruise we came to our chosen mooring. Just before the town of Briennon, a wild spot with the occasional bollard in the grass, “far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife…”*. Our absolute favourite type of place to stop and one of our favourite moorings for the entire season.
I cycled over to the town to get some bread but there is now very little commerce in Briennon at all. The church was open and the interior was nicely decorated although the paintwork around the walls was a bit tired and patchy.
The statue of Jeanne was however fetching and appropriately situated between the plaques honouring those killed in WWI.
I also had a look at the port/marina and was most unimpressed. There was little space for larger boats (nothing available had we wanted to stay) and it looked a bit unkempt – but I was perhaps looking at it with a jaundiced eye given our perfect mooring half a kilometre upstream. Bread had to be sourced from a short bike ride across the Loire to Pouilly-sous-Charlieu.
After a blissful quiet evening and night, we set off on our half-day excursion as in the afternoon we had to leave, moor in Roanne and meet Jim and Marianne in the evening.
Lisette had discovered there was a museum in the nearby town of Charlieu (reached after passing through Pouilly-sous (‘under’) -Charlieu) with two aspects – the silk industry and its past as a ‘hôtel Dieu’ (a hospital run by the Catholic Church for the poor and needy). The ride was an easy one, 8 km almost entirely on bike paths until we reached Charlieu. Whereupon, because I had entered the wrong information into Apple Maps, we became completely lost. While Lisette did try to get directions from a local, there were too many ‘droits‘, ‘gauches‘, ‘presques‘ and so forth to really help. And the person she asked denied any knowledge of the museums. Anyhow, with some further research, we eventually arrived with just 30 min before it closed for two hours for déjeuner. As we had a boat to catch later in the day and had an incipient plan to bring Jim and Marianne here on our cruise with them, we decided to have a quick reconnoitre. So, we raced through the silk industry section but not the hospital – and decided it was clearly interesting enough to warrant a further, longer visit.
We will cover the two aspects in detail next blog when Lisette writes about our return visit but just to set the scene a bit – something about the silk industry as a taster. The silk industry was very important to this region of France. It had been far and away the most important industry in Lyon beginning in the mid-15th century and had been given a monopoly in the mid-16th century. In the early 19th century, largely due to the disruptions brought on by the Industrial Revolution, there was a series of worker uprisings in Lyon called ‘Canut revolts‘. As a consequence, workers left Lyon and settled in the surrounding regions and silk weaving became the main economic activity in Charlieu. The industry eventually went into decline in the mid-20th century but there are still several weaving houses in the town today.
At the entrance to the silk museum, they highlighted an important tradition, the festival of the Corporation des Tisserands (Weavers) which is held each year around the second Sunday in September. It is part religious (the Nativity of the Virgin) and part secular. In the latter context, at the end of the festival, there is an election of a royal family for the next year. Children are auctioned (not sure of the detailed process) to be appointed as the king, queen, crown prince and princess.
This carries on a tradition of this region that predates the French Revolution.
We cycled back and cast off just after 1 pm. By 5 pm we were moored up in the large but very weedy port of Roanne. We had enough time to have a quick check of the location of the train station and return to Catharina for dinner. Jim and Marianne arrived at about 8 pm and as we had all eaten, after settling them into their room, we had beer and cheeses under the bimini serenaded by the loud croaking of the countless frogs that filled the port.
Race over and successful, we discussed some options for the next week and went off to bed.
* A memorable line from one of Ian’s father’s favourite poems: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Unarguably one of the greatest poems in English literature.
