Pont-sur-Yonne to Sens

12 kms, 2 locks

For the first time in many days we had just a short trip today, a little over 2 hours.  As we left the pontoon we noticed that a small cruising barge, which arrived late yesterday, was also preparing to leave so we travelled together in convoy.  There were two locks: the first one had sloping sides and a very small pontoon which we tied to and the barge lay alongside the sloping side, without much problem as far as we could see.

The second lock had one sloping side and one straight vertical side which we could both tie up to as normal.

An ancient Romanesque church

We stopped at the town quay in Sens.  

All on our own for just 5 minutes

It is free with free water and electricity at one end so all the pleasure boats tend to tie up cheek by jowl.

5 minutes after we tied up a hire boat arrived apparently in desperate need of water and his hose was not long enough.  So he says to Ian “Give me your hose”! Hmm, not impressed with his attitude, but what do you do – help out another boater in need. 

Ian went off on his bicycle to look for a Lidl supermarket which he thought was quite some distance, but it was easy to get to.  Our freezer was getting extremely empty – just 2 sausages left (plus a load of ice blocks!,) so his mission was just to buy some meat (chicken, pork chops and sausages for barbecues). 

While he was away I cleaned the decks.  I was pulling up buckets of water from the river, which is really not clean and full of sediment, and the man on the French boat ahead of us said to me “The tap water is free, use it!”  Great idea but the darn charter boat was using our hose – for 2 hours!  We did eventually get it back and finish the job properly.

It was hot again today and in the evening I took a walk into the town. Marvellous.  I was heading for the magnificent cathedral but was taken by the very old houses lining the streets.  

This area was not blown to smithereens during World War One and Two so a lot of the ancient architecture has survived. 

The Cathedral is one of the earliest Gothic cathedrals; work began in 1130 and it was consecrated in 1164. It is 113m long , the nave is 15m wide and 24m high. The tower is 78m.  It is not as high as the later Gothic cathedrals of Reims and Amiens but, according to the information inside the cathedral, it was the master builder of this cathedral who invented the flying buttresses to support the upper storey.

The archbishop's palace alongside the cathedral, now a museum

The courtyard of the archbishop's palace

The Hotel de Ville (Town Hall)

A much older church opposite our mooring

This town is definitely worth a much longer visit so we will be back.