St Jean les Deux Jumeaux to Meaux

34 kms, 2 locks

I took my daily constitutional to the bakery, just to find it is closed on Wednesdays.  Oh dear, no fresh baguette today.  How will we survive?

After 5 days of 27^o temps and unrelenting sunshine it was a pleasure to have a cooler day and lots of clouds today.  The forecast even mentioned thunderstorms this afternoon.

We left at 9.20, used our telecommande one last time to enter the lock then had to hand it back to the lock keeper.  Sob.  

The route we took today meandered north, south, east and west for 34 kms and we ended up just 10 km away as the crow flies. It was quite breezy and depending on whether the wind was with us or against us, our jackets went on and off. We passed 2 prospective moorings we had considered stopping at should we have had the time to do the leisurely cruise down the Marne we had planned before we decided I should fly home to do the hand over to our new house sitter.  Both places, Mary-sur-Marne and Germigny-l’Eveque looked tenable and in the heart of small villages (no services).

The clouds are gathering

A boating school, what a lovely place to have it.

Approaching Meaux

A yacht club with a beach

The view from the marina.

At 13.20 we arrived in Meaux.  It costs €7.00 per day which inlcudes 8 hours of electricity and 10 minutes of water.  

Lynn (Ian's sister) and Shaun were arriving in France today to start their 6 month cruise.  Ian followed their flight on a flight tracker app.  Their flight path took them very close to Meaux and we watched as the plane flew past.

Took me too long to get the camera out so I missed it when it was close but there is an aeroplane between the tree and the church tower.

I walked to the station to time how long it will take on Friday morning, to check the time table and find out if I needed to buy a ticket in advance or if the ticket office would be open at 6.00 in the morning.  It opens at 4.30.  It is just a half hour train ride from Paris so I suppose a lot of commuters live here.

Then I went to the laundry to make sure I have some clean clothes to travel home in on Friday.

Ian continued working on the galley floor.

It poured with rain briefly and we had some lightening and thunder, but I hesitate to call it a thunderstorm.

Tourist time tomorrow!

St Jean Les Deux Jumeaux

A lazy day.  I went to the boulangerie (no queue out the door today), cleaned the barbeque and read my book.

Not so lazy for Ian though.  He got up late and did some reading but he also started work on the galley floor.  We are replacing the carpet with flooring strips that are much easier to clean.  But first Ian has to prepare the base boards that the carpet was stuck to, which required quite a lot of scraping to get it all even.  This evening he has started sticking down the new strips, but they have to be cut to fit the numerous access hatches in the floor so the project is not that simple and will take longer than expected.

Meanwhile, Ludo and Juliette, came to say goodbye and presented us with a lot of information about the marinas closer to Paris to give us more options of where Ian could stay when I fly back home.  Genuinely nice people.

Au revoir, Ludo and Juliette

My goodness, 2 commercial barges passed us today.  Easter weekend is officially over

La Ferté-sous-Jouarre to St Jean les Deux Jumeaux

10 kkms, no locks, no bridges

With just a short hop today we took our time to get going.  Ian went for a walk this morning (as he does every morning to get the limbs and joints in working order) and noticed that the Carrefour supermarket was open.  We had a few doubts seeing it is still Easter weekend and we had been warned by a local yesterday that it might not be. That was most fortunate seeing he was running out of red wine.  So off we went to buy wine, milk and a baguette. 

At 10.30 we set off.  We had come into the mooring via the west side of the island but exited via the east side and had the pleasure of cruising past the lovely town of La Ferté with the sun behind us so I got some good pics.

Leaving the pontoon at La Ferté

La Ferté from the east

The geese that attacked me yesterday, looking ever so innocent

This town is famous for producing millstones.  Seems they used the rejects when building the commercial quay. 

This intrigues us.  Seemingly a really good marina but the cleats and the services boxes have been removed so you are not encouraged to stop there.  I wonder what happened.

Not much after an hour later we approached the pontoon at St Jean les Deux Jumeaux (St Jean the Two Twins, interesting name, I did a quick search but could not find the origin).

It is a really good pontoon with free water and electricity (not that we need either) and the boulangerie is just 50m away.  There is also a small grocery store but I did not go into it.

The boulangerie, with a queue into the street

A close up of the tile work outside the boulangerie

I got back to find Ian scrubbing the swim platform.

Not long after that a cruising boat approached the pontoon and Ian went to help them with their lines.  It is a French boat and they have a brief 5 day holiday.  Ian invited then to have a drink on our boat and what lovely people they are.  Ludo and Juliette live aboard their boat at Nogent, near Paris.  Ludo is a scene constructor for major big screen movies (he has just finished working with Wes Anderson, of The Grand Budapest Hotel) and Juliette is a graphic artist for TV documentaries.  Lovely couple.  They gave us lots of information about the marinas close to Paris and Juliette even offered to drive me to Orly airport if we could be at their marina at Nogent on Friday morning.  So kind.  But that is not a good place for Ian to sit out 5 days where he wants to do lots of work on the boat.   It was a very enjoyable evening.  And it was enhanced by our shared experiences of the boat that arrived in La Ferte yesterday. Even though Ian took their lines and we moved our boat so they would have more room on the pontoon they were really unfriendly.  Turns out Ludo and Juliette were in Meaux with them and were taken aback at how cold and unfriendly they were.  They are British; we admitted our boat is registered in the UK but we now fly the Azorean flag (our place of residence) because we are too embarrassed to fly the British flag.

It was another hot day (27^o for the third day in a row).  My tiny air-conditioner (fan that blows a mist) has been doing some overtime.

La Ferté-sous-Jouarre

Easter Sunday.  I expected the town to be very quiet and set out with my camera before it got too warm.  I was surprised to see the Carrefour supermarket at the corner was open as usual on a Sunday morning, so was the boulangerie with a long queue out the door, and there were lots of people heading towards the town square.  I was also going in that direction to take pics of the church, and anything else of interest.

Well, I found there was a farmer’s market in full swing so hurried back to the boat for a shopping back.

Farmer’s markets are trouble – I always end up spending far too much money and buying more stuff than I can fit in the fridge!  And they are not cheap, but then why should they be, they cannot compete with the big chain supermarkets.  I bought some cheese (Brie de Meaux and Bleu d’Auvergne), a piece of Lyonnaise paté which we have never have before, tomatoes, lettuce and green beans. 

Then I joined the queue outside the bakery and bought 2 pastries – it is Easter after all.

On the way back to the boat I was accosted by 2 geese.  They obviously don't like paparazi and gave me a peck on the leg.  I daresay I was encroaching on their territory and there may have been a nesting femail close by.  It hurt a bit, and left a bruise!

Back at the dock another cruising boat was just mooring up.  They had only come 10kms today having stopped above the last lock last night, which is where we are heading tomorrow.

Then I cleaned the windows (outside) with fresh water seeing there is a tap here, and the fenders and hull with river water.  I noticed a few new scratches on the hull from the day we tried to rescue the big barge and pushed into the trees hanging over the canal.

There was a service just beginning in the church and the bells were ringing.

The town hall

The market in the town square

A flower shop on the town square

Another view of the market

The offended geese

Chateau Thierry to La Ferté-sous-Jouarre

40 kms, 4 locks

Yesterday evening, just before sunset, a mother duck settled down for the night with her brood of 6 ducklings right next to the boat.

A quick jaunt to the boulangerie (no pastries) and off we went.

It was a glorious morning, once again.  How could it be mid-winter last week and mid-summer this week? 

We passed some large properties with the houses hidden in tress and grounds stretching down to the river.  This one had a boat at a dock.

Simpler houses with vineyards in the background.

The gatehouse of ....

a grand house.

We are moving out of the vineyard area so I had to take a last photo

We were undecided where to stop.  Tomorrow, Easter Sunday, the locks are closed so we wanted to find an attractive place to spend 2 nights, preferably with water, we don’t need electricity.  Just 12 kms past Chateau Thierry there is a pontoon near the village of Nogent l’Artaud where we stopped to take a look.  The pontoon was good, no services (there used to be but these have been vandalised), and the village was not right up against the river so we pressed on to Nanteuil which is noted in the cruising guide as having a pontoon with services.  Last year we tried to stop there but the pontoon was damaged with most if the wooden platform missing.  We hoped, a year on, that it would have been repaired, but unfortunately not. 

In anticipation of stopping there, and it being a small village, we made a pit stop at Charly which has a huge supermarket close to the river and a long quay where we could tie up while I took a stroll to do some shopping.

30 minutes later we were on our way again and after the brief sojourn at Nantieul we continued on to La Ferté-sous-Jouarre.  

Two little tykes, one rather bashful and the other full of confidence.

As we leave the vineyards behind us the banks of the river become heavily wooded

My goodness, a commercial barge waiting to unload, probably after the Easter weekend.

The pontoons at La Ferté are behind an island.  Approaching from upstream you have to double back into the creek.

We spent a couple of days here last year and really like the mooring and the town.