Our adventure on the canals of France continues, but not for much longer. Ivan and I will head back to Australia soon but in the meantime we’re enjoying our life here on Laura the boat.
We travelled up the Yonne River from Villeneuve-sur-Yonne to Joigny and celebrated Bastille Day, and then continued until we reached the magnificent city of Auxerre. We did a lot of exploring in Auxerre including a visit to a wine cave storing nine million bottles of cremant. Oh la la! We couldn’t possibly drink them all, but we gave it our best shot.
Joigny
Joigny is a pretty town on the banks of the Yonne River. We stayed there a few days and enjoyed wandering the quaint streets with lots of half-timbered houses built in the 1500 – 1600s.
We visited a museum commemorating the Joigny residents who were part of the French Resistance during WWII. It’s a must-see if you travel to Joigny but bring your handkerchiefs. I cried many a tear looking at photos and memorabilia and reading stories of the brave local heroes who risked and gave their lives. One letter that broke my heart was from an 18 year old son to his parents after he’d been captured by the Germans. He knew he would be executed the next day and his words of love to his family still bring a tear to my eyes.
Joigny Market Day
We LOVED the Joigny Markets where just about every type of fresh and in-season food is available. If you’ve read any of my other blog posts you’ll know how much we enjoy buying our food from a market and Joigny’s was one of the best.
Bastille Day – Vive la France!
Bastille Day is a big occasion in France celebrating the revolution that ended monarchy rule and led to France becoming a republic. But it’s not called Bastille Day in France. It’s called 14 Juillet (14 July). Joigny held a free concert with a local band that played in a park near our boat. It was an excellent night.
A feast with friends
One of the things we absolutely love about living on a boat in France is the social life. There’s plenty of people to meet from around the world who live on boats and we all have shared interests. In Joigny we had lots of fun with our friend Martine who we spent some time with last year. She had her daughter and grand children with her on her boat. We also hung out with our new friends Tim and Liz from Canada who we met in Sens and travelled with for a few days. Laura is just the right size for a dinner party so everybody brought a dish and we had a lovely night.
Auxerre
After Joigny our next major stop was the city of Auxerre. We’d heard Auxerre was pretty amazing but nothing quite prepared us for the beauty of this place. The below picture and video were both taken from the back of our boat in the port. The music is from a barge restaurant nearby.
We spent a few days in Auxerre wandering around the city. We also socialised quite a bit with some Kiwis who had boats in the port. They travel to Auxerre every year and only do a little bit of cruising. The rest of the time they treat their boat like an apartment and spend their summer in Auxerre.
A massive wine cave
About 15km from Auxerre is the Bailly Lapierre wine cave which many of our friends told us about. So we jumped on our bikes and rode along the river until we found it. Wow what a place! It’s a massive cave built into rock on the side of a hill. Because it’s underground the temperature is a constant 15 degrees, which was lovely as the outside temperature was 32 degrees and we’d just ridden up a hill. Here’s Ivan riding into the cave – you can see how massive it is.
The wine that is stored and aged here is Cremant which is basically Champagne that is made and grown outside the Champagne region (so it cannot be called Champagne). It tastes amazing! Our tour cost €15 each and that included a tour of the cave plus two glasses each of cremant and we got to keep the glasses. We bought 8 bottles of cremant, stuffed them in our backpacks and then had to ride 15km back to the boat in 32 degree heat. It was worth it! Definitely put Auxerre and Bailly Lapierre on your “must visit” list if you are coming to France.
Visitors!
Whilst we were in Auxerre some lovely friends Rob and Kate arrived from Australia. We had a great time with them and headed off in the boat to the start of the Burgundy Canal which will be our last canal before we head back to Australia.
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