Nevers

We have stayed in the port of Nevers for 8 nights now and we are moving on today. It was intentional to stay for this long, as we were committed to going to our friends combined 40th wedding anniversary and 40th birthday in Lindry near Auxerre. We wanted to leave the boat somewhere safe when we hired a car to do this visit and stayed overnight. So we set about exploring the town first. The weather has been appalling with perhaps the wettest weather for the past week that we have ever had in the summer in France. It has not only been wet but cold too, resulting in our lighting the woodburner...!!!

 Our moorings in the port at Nevers

We thought our boat was untidy....??!!

I think going down this water slide would result in an unhappy ending...!!

The streets are quaint but full of necessary one way systems.

The Palais de Justice

Inside Nevers Cathedral.

The cathedral is a magnificent building but was severely damaged by bombs in the Second World War which resulted in its losing all the stained glass windows. They have been replaced but by very modern ones, which although the colours are right the shapes are very wrong.

12th Century frescoes on the ceiling

Beautiful 17th Century sculpture in the crypt.

I just loved this spiral staircase.

Ancient clock and very impressive pulpit.

A fantastic building showing 'La Belle Epoque'

Another quaint street, but no cars...Obviously!!

These buildings originally ran along the side of the canal which has now disappeared and been replaced by a very busy dual carriageway.

I find my favourite Napoleon everywhere I look!

Part of the town's ramparts.

We had heard that you could see the body of St Bernadette in her coffin, so the next day we rubbed our sore feet and set off again to find her. Apparently she was a poor girl who was raised in Lourdes where she witnessed seeing the Virgin Mary no less than 18 times! She was made a saint after they dug up her body (not sure why) to find that she had not decomposed at all. She now lies in a glass coffin inside her own chapel, apparently her face and hands were covered in a thin film of wax but no preserving has been undertaken. She's been like this for about 90 years and still shows no sign of decomposing.... (This is a photo of a postcard as it is forbidden to use cameras inside the chapel)

The shrine built to St Bernadette in the grounds of the huge space devoted to her.

We've had so much rain that the  river is now flowing with great force, when we arrived it was a mere trickle.

On our way to hire the car (another marathon walk, it takes 20 minutes to cross over the Loire and get to the entrance of the town and the industrial centre is the other side of this town..) we saw this car being decorated ready for the owner's wedding later in the day!

having successfully obtained the car on Sunday we set off with some trepidation in our ugly little french car ( a Fiat Panda Hi-back). The journey wasnt too bad but it took us two hours to drive to the party. Sadly the weather was not kind and despite there being beautiful ample grounds we had to stay inside their marquee as the rain oured all day.

We had delicious food and of course copious wine!

We met Marie-Noelle's new daughter in law who will make her a granny again in december.

After the main courses were finished Barbara (left) and Marie-Noelle (right) put on some funny sketches. Of course it was all in french but I managed to understand some of it!

In between the sketches John entertained everyone with some songs whilst the actors got changed.

John sent the youngsters dancing.....

Marie-Noelle told a lovely childrens story about 'who did this poo on my head?' a french story which is similar to the duck story in UK who asks 'Are you my Mummy?'

The children loved it and sat mesmerised!

Salome (Barbara's daughter) did a little sketch too and was not at all embarrased.

The people who the party was all about Marie- Noelle (left), Barbara (centre) and Samuel (right)

We waved goodbye at 7pm after 6 hours of french my brain was frazzled, and I drove us to Auxerre where we stayed the night with our good friends Maggie and Nigel on their boat 'Gesina'. The good people of Auxerre celebrated by putting on a huge firework display for us right by the boat (it was their 14th July celebrations)! The next day we waved goodbye at 11am and drove back to Nevers. Patrice disgraced himself by getting out the night before leaving John and Nigel scrabbling around in the dirt trying to catch him....

 Yesterday we returned the car and then we went to a vide grenier passing by this magnificent war memorial.

The ancient workings left by the canal which used to be here. Our moorings are behind this on what was canal! However time to move on now, no more news to tell you!