River Meuse and Canal de la Marne au Rhin
We left Verdun and headed off further up the River Meuse, arriving at Dieue sur Meuse for a late lunch. It was a nice place to moor, albeit on the edge of a village housing estate, but still peaceful. We did our usual recce of the village on our bikes and found, up a lovely little lane, a rather nice old mill which had been turned into a Gîte de France holiday ‘cottage’. However, what we missed, because it wasn’t marked on our canal map and we had forgotten to look at the French version of the Ordnance Survey map, was an old fort which appeared not to have been appropriated by anyone and therefore free to explore, unlike the one at our next mooring Fort Troyon.
If we return from our UK trip by car, the fort near Dieue will definitely be on our list of look-ats.
Fort Troyon mooring itself was truly lovely, proper bollards in a small clearing in the trees, a barbeque (if you wanted it) two picnic tables and a rubbish bin. It was miles from anywhere, clearly only used by occasional boats, and only a couple of miles from Fort Troyon, where we learned from our booklet that the French had held out heroically against a huge bombardment by the Germans for seven continuous days before eventually the Germans gave up. The fall of this fort would have allowed the Germans to encircle Verdun and capture that too.
Sadly our visit had to be by guided tour, and though we were promised some English explanation along with the French, this was not forthcoming. They knew and we knew that if no English was on offer we would not have paid our €8 for the tour so they just lied to us! Very annoying. We later learned from a lock keeper that the fort is actually privately owned and belongs to a guy from the village of Lacroix sur Meuse a few kilometres further on (and run vaguely under the auspices of the authority which oversees all the WWI sites). This came as no surprise to Alex who was convinced from the start that the whole place was a con!
St Mihiel was our next destination and as we neared it we noticed a campsite with a quay and a sign saying ‘ACCOSTAGE BATEAUX’. As we steamed past, Louise looked up ‘accostage’ and discovered it meant literally ‘boats come alongside’. However we were past it by then and so continued to the town quay, which was full, but the silo quay opposite and through the bridge was empty, so with some uncertainty we moored there. The only downside was no water or electricity, no sun after 3pm and a faint but all-pervading distasteful smell! The next day we returned by bike to the campsite to suss it out. Yes, we could moor for free, and have electricity for €2.60 per night. Fair enough. We went back for Riccall and retraced our path downstream. The only downside here was, as we discovered next day, no shade until well after 6pm.
Next day we decided to visit some re-created trenches which were recommended by Tourist Information and started off at 9 am before it got too hot. The Tourist Info lady (clearly a car driver) had said that the road to the trenches was fairly level. It wasn’t! After 3 kms of uphill struggle we decided to abandon that particular goal and went off at a tangent to an unreconstructed trench – La Tranchée de la Soif’ where the French had endured three days without food or water, before surrendering.
It’s difficult to imagine, as we walked through the placid and peaceful leafy area, and looked at the concrete remains of dugouts at the bottom of the half-filled ditches which were the trenches of WWI, that 90 years ago the place was one of utter carnage. There is no sensation of horror, just one of tranquillity. The re-growth (or re-planting) of the trees which were decimated seems to have restored a sense of serenity to the whole area. All around one can clearly see the craters caused by the bombardment of one side or the other, but somehow they have turned into shady little dingles amongst the trees. The whole place seems so benign that it takes an enormous leap of the imagination to picture the horror that it was. Nature appears to have drawn a veil over the whole episode and quite right too, but it is hard to juxtapose the two views that on the one hand we must move on and on the other that we should never forget!
After all, within 21 years of all this carnage, the world was at it again in WWII. You can hardly credit it. And of course it is still going on, thankfully to a lesser (or perhaps more contained) extent now, but nevertheless just as barbaric. Will the human race ever become civilised?
So ends Thought for the Day! (Louise).
However, we headed back to the boat in time for lunch, having cycled (and pushed our bikes) some 10 kilometres in increasing heat. The heat just rose and rose and this turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far. The temperature reached 42oC! and how we needed the shade of a silo tower at our mooring at the campsite but some nearby small trees gave us somewhere to cower off the boat.
After a couple of days there we decided it was time to move on, and besides, we could do with some water, so we headed off back upstream to the town moorings, and lookee! – 10.30 am and plenty of room for a big-un. So we spent our 4th night in St Mihiel giving us a chance to recover from the day before. We could also take on free water and electricity, stock up again, and have a closer look at the so-called ‘Seven Ladies of the Meuse’ a row of natural monoliths like buttes, standing proud above the river course, one of which we climbed. Maximum temperature this day 24oC – nearly twenty degrees lower than the day before!
Our next stop in this gentle cruise up the River Meuse was Sampigny, a small village whose main claim to fame was a derelict château, which was basically a complete ruin, but a notice stated that the owners would be happy to give a tour and more information if you rang them. We decided against this for obvious reasons, but when Alex spotted a sign at the entrance to the château which read ‘Privé. Entrée interdit’. He said, ‘Sod that’ and headed off up it! Louise, being a ‘good girl’ left him to it. Actually the building looked so decrepit that even the click of the camera might have been enough to bring it crashing down!
Our next stop was Commercy, in which a very much extant Stanislav Château was situated. The tourist information centre, housed in one of the wings of the château, gave us free wi-fi which we used three times in two days, to post blogs and catch up. The town also boasted an Olympic sized velodrome right next to our mooring and a rather classy looking boys’ school, formerly a priory!
Next day we stopped for lunch as it was getting late, and nowhere better presented itself than one of the hell-holes we occasionally see here in France – a vast open-cast lime extraction operation. The whole area was covered in a layer of white dust and the works themselves were a total blot on the landscape.
When we reached the junction of the River Meuse and the Canal de la Marne au Rhin, we decided to make a 6km detour to Void, partly because we needed to put in time and partly because we had been told that there was an unlocked wi-fi signal available from the moorings there. So all in all, we could not avoid Void!
As is often the unpredictable nature of moorings, the place was packed but we eventually managed to attract the attention of Peter and Ann on Anneter (they took the P out of their two names!) and we rafted up alongside them. The usual drinks ensued that evening with the four of us and another British couple, Bill and Jan from an unlikely named boat Keolanui (previously owned by a Hawaiian or some such) and had a good chin-wag. All the boats left the next day except Keolanui so Bill and Jan came for drinks with us, and more chat. They left the next day and then we became the only boat on the mooring. Full to empty in two days!
Oh and by the way, the wi-fi was unlocked and available! (Obsessed or what?!!)
When we retraced our steps and got down to Pagny-sur-Meuse the moorings were empty so no problem there, but by the evening the whole pontoon was taken by four British boats (sometimes you just can’t get away from us!).
However, Toul beckoned, so next day we made a fairly early start for the tunnel and 14 locks ahead, and arrived in the Port de France marina at about 1pm, where we wanted to stop till we had sussed out the Lorraine Marine mooring where we are going to winter.
Port de France was organised primarily for cruisers under 15m and it looked pretty full. However, a helpful Dutch guy encouraged us to moor on the end of a pontoon – which we did – nearly destroying it in the process, and from this rather precarious position we struggled the bikes off to reccee the scene.
Toul promises to be an interesting (historical) town with mostly intact and very substantial city ramparts and an impressive cathedral but it is nothing like the size of Gent which we enjoyed so much last winter. As we are going to be here for some months we must limit ourselves as to how much we explore each day or we will run out of interesting diversions, though having the car here will mean we can go much further afield.
Now we are preparing for a trip back to the UK for 10 days followed immediately by a visit from our boating friends Mike and Jean, who arrive on the day after we ourselves get back to Riccall.
