Nancy to Strasbourg

Jun 10

So ever eastwards with time to spare to get to the Rally.  Nancy, other than the centre, was a bit grotty but nice big supermarkets on our route out (a full refuel of food, gas and diesel - Peter's arms are stretching as all the refuels so far this year have been by jerrican).

Trundled from rural mooring to rural mooring until Lagarde (a hire base) where we tied up for a few days and improved the takings of the bar/restaurant in the village - the best crepes to date and the worst omelette! We hired a rattly 2CV from the hirebase to investigate - Angie drove as she had 'prior experience' with a 2CV gearchange (!).

The villages were fairly useless as we moved east (poor alimentation's where they existed, the bars all seemed shut and in some cases no boulangeries - quel horreur).  We overnighted at Niderviller before the excitement of the Niderviller tunnels and the Arviller Plane next morning. One of the minor tunnels:

The Arviller plane was exciting and/or fun in that it was our first plane incline and we weren't quite sure what to expect - in the event no sweat..

Arviller Plane

Onward to Lutzelbourg - an attractive village a bit like Monschau in Germany (prices to match) - spent a fortune on delicacies in the Epicerie. One more chateau to climb to.

Lutzelbourg

After a few days we moved on to the Foret du Brumath - where three other barges were waiting to go into Strasbourg - we gathered for an evening meal in the local forest auberge - but it was a bit of an Irish bargee closed shop.  Then off to the Bassin Dusuzeau in Strasbourg past the EU Parliament and a few interesting river cross currents en route.

More taxes

The Rally was 33 x DBA barges all shapes and sizes - a number of other Sagars so we could check out the mods on the newer barges. Vrouwe Catherina alongside - but no mains electricity (despite all the promises) so some boats left early.  The main Rally events were a Dinner and cruise on some of the closed waterways but the organisation wasn't up to Army standards (lets blame the French)

Strasbourg Rally

The Bassin was being developed and was very active at night (except on Kotare).

We collected the mail, did the shopping and lots of sightseeing.  The Rally visit coincided with a music festival so there was plenty of action in the streets. Petite France was pretty but full of those pesky tourists.

Petite France - Strasbourg

There was even some wildlife.

It was the longest we had stayed static since Kortrijk but after 9 days it was time to cast off.  We considered heading up the Rhin towards Basel but chickened out and went west again retracing our steps.