18.09.12

We left Samois after a lovely stay there on the 11.09.12 (Happy Birthday Dominy!!) and moored at Moret sur Loing. They were doing 3 nights for the price of 2, so we took full advantage of having water and electricity! The weather was lovely although there is now a 'nip' in the air showing us that autumn is on its way! The leaves are beginning to change colour too. We saw some strangley coloured boats on our trip to Moret but we were both glad to see the back of the Seine.....

 

What were they thinking of painting the boat this colour??

 

Moret sur Loing is a beautiful medieval walled town with some absolutely wonderful buildings...

 

 

Would be great to have your hair done in this hairdressers?

 

The above is part of the town hall!

 

Just look at that woodwork!

 

Another door into town...

The above two photos show that autumn is on its way, although the sun is still very warm during the day, the relection of the sky in the first picture is just edible!

 

The church organ is the oldest in this part of France and dates from the 12th century!It has recently been restored.

 

Our moorings in Moret sur Loing

 

We had one of our rare meals out in this lovely bistro. The food was just great and all done by one lady who did all the serving too. We had to forgive her her miseries as the food was so good....!!

Part of the town is placed on little island connected by walkways.

 

We moved on from Moret to Nemours on the 15th September. This is another walled city with some lovely buildings but the moorings were not very attractive although they did give us FREE water and electricity, sadly it was impossible to get TV reception......

 

 

This must be quite old but is now no longer one house but split into flats.

 The stained glass windows in the 12th century church were magnificent again, with one depicting the Turin shroud!

 Nemours Castle, it was open day on the 16th september so we were able to go round it.

 The outside of the same church as above.

 



 

The housesa alongside the river (top photo) and one street in town which has part of the canal through it (bottom photo). We moved on Sunday early evening as we had had a large stone thrown at us saturday night which fortunately didnt break the window but it was a close thing. Shame the yobs hadnt anything better to do at 1am!!

 

 We moored outside this enormous factory, as it was the only place which had enough depth for the boat, we spent an hour trying several different places in the canal but it was just too shallow! This factory used to belong to Volkswagen cars and made all the glass used in their cars, but the german company shut it down and moved the business to Poland, removing 220 jobs from this town which has subsequently died because of it. There are no shops or restaurants and the streets are largely full of out of work men, a very sad sight to behold.

 The workers built a wooden graveyard, with a wooden shrine and on each cross are the name of the man and his family signifying the loss to each of them, a very sobering sight.

 We thought this poster said how they felt quite graphically!

 

Everyone we spoke to was very friendly to us so we stayed two nights, the weather was beautiful and we went for some really good bike rides. Well usually i finish with a cute photo of Patrice.... He decided to go crayfish fishing last night and spent some time hanging over the edge of the canal where we could see some crayfish very clearly. Sadly he got overexcited, and overbalanced and fell into the canal, he looked like a drowned rat! John put on a wood fire in the burner to warm up our shivery morsel!!!!!





10.09.12 FONTAINEBLEAU CHATEAU

We cycled 8Kms each way today so that we could visit Fontainebleau palace. We have had a super day and spent 3 hours going around the sumptuous rooms open to the public. Ive always loved Napoleon, since I was about 10 years old and really wanted to see this place, and now we have!

 A curious fountain in the Garden of Diana.... yes the dogs are really weeing!!! Bizarre!!

 Oval Courtyard, in the middle is the keep, all that remains of the Medieval castle. Fontainebleau was first constructed in 1137 at the time of Louis VII

 All that is left of the canal that used to go to the Palace during the time of Henri IV

 The Golden gate dating from the riegn of Francois I, this was the original entrance to the Palace in 1528

 A lovely stained glass window depicting Napoleon.

 The Pope's Bedchamber

 Francois 1 Gallery, which was started in 1533.

 The Games room in the Napoleon's private rooms

 Marie Antoinette's Bed - she never slept in it as the revolution happened before she had a chance!

The Queen's Boudoir / Marie Antoinette's washing chamber.

 The above 2 pictures need to be rolled into one but this is Napoleon's Bed inthe once Louis XVI's dressing room. The furnishings are still as Napoleon used it in 1814.

 

 

Napoleon's bathroom, he often gave audiences here!! Apparently he loved to bath.....

 

 

 Chapel of the Holy Trinity, High Altar, completed in Louis XIII's reign. This was where Louis XV got married to Marie Lecszinska on 5th September 1725.

 Part of the side wall of the chapel

 The Palace with the Lake Pavilion built during Louis XIV's reign

This is the Horseshoe Staircase which overlooks the Horseshoe Courtyard, this is where Napoleon made his farewell speech before he went off to exile in Elba.

09.09.12

We didn't move very far... just travelled for one and a half hours and found this lovely mooring in Samois sur Seine so we have stayed here for 3 nights so far, and probably another two or so more!! We are moored on the island where the Django Rheinhard festival takes place every June, as he lived here...( and died here!) it is wonderfully peaceful and at night is a lovely pitch black velvety darkness. Access is by the bridge you can see in the right hand side of the picture, so we have no cars or noisy motorbikes to spoil our peace.. just the dratted commercial boats!!

 Some times on our short cruise we had the Seine to ourselves with superb forests either side of the river. This is the famous Fontainebleu forest and we hope to go and see the famous castle there.

 This is Samois sur Seine port which costs 12 euros to stay per night but we are mooring totally free although we have to generate our own electricity!

 The town square is shoewn in these 2 pictures. It shows a typical sleeepy french square with at least 3 restaurants that we saw! Access to it from the river involves a really steep walk up a cobbled hill and takes about 30 minutes to get up and 20 minutes to get down!

 Last night we met up with our friends on the Cave Vagabonde. They were moored in the Quai to sell their burgundy wines and beers, and once they shut up shop we had a lovely evening in their wheelhouse sampling their local beers and we contributed a dubious bottle of Lidyl red wine. As we drank that last it really tasted OK!!! John entertained them with some of his new songs which he has been composing at a remarkable rate and when we left the boat a lady outside asked John if he would play 'Dead Duck' again especially for her.... John had to decline as he felt he was not sober enough to do it justice. Sometimes it is good to keep the fans keen.......??!!??

The proprieters of the Cave Vagabonde (from left to right) Martin, Elio, and Anne. These friends are part of our first french friends that we made back in 2010 and they always make us feel so welcome! Age seems to become insignificant on these occassions and we are just so grateful they include us in their busy schedule!