La Mer, le Canal & les Pyrénées

[Jacques Vert]

We enjoyed our time in Clamecy, partly because we had the best weather of our trip and partly because being in the centre of twon we had access to shops, cafes, etc. I was able to walk to the boulangerie for fresh croissants for breakfast, something I had missed for the first 4 days of our cruise. We ended up staying two nights here.

Then it was time to continue down the valley. Some mist over the Yonne River in the early morning:




At Clemecy, the Canal enters the river Yonne. Originally the canal went through the town on a separate course but that route has been permanently closed off. But first we have to wait for the lockkeeper to open the swing bridge and then lower us into the river...






and for the first time on this trip we have company; this small private boat was its way to Paris.




We let him lead the way...




Early morning rowers:




After a few kilometres we leave the river and are back in the canal; some of the bridges are very low and narrow...




Beautiful scenery along this part of the canal....












We caught up to another boat so now we are going through each lock as a group of three:




Back into the river; in fact the canal enters and leaves the river numerous times in this part of the valley:










We leave the river and back into the canal again...

 

[Jacques Vert]

Mailly-le-Chateau

We are due to hand back our boat at Mailly-le-Chateau which had a population in 2021 of 531 although looking at the village it would appear that there was a time when the population was very much higher:




This is another village that has hit hard times as farming has become more mechanised and the people move to the bigger towns and cities. We went for a walk around the town and again, the only shop that was open was the Tabac. Everything else is permanently closed. There is even a very nice looking hotel and restaurant that appear to have closed in the past couple of years, as well as the boulangerie, a motor cycle shop and a number of others. We did come across four teenagers and it dawned on me that, other than some school children in Clamecy, I had not seen any people under 50 in the past week. They confirmed that everything in town had closed, except for the Tabac.

It's a shame as, like many of the other small villages, there are numerous classic stone houses that are decaying from a lack of maintenance and there is noone living in them; just waiting for someone to restore/renovate them. Of course, it would be costly but it's still a shame to see this history at risk of permanent loss.

The basin where we are to drop off the boat tomorrow is very underwhelming...



About the only thing here is an old pontoon with our boat company's name, but at least they have installed power and water. It appears to be a work in progress; a drop-off point for those just hiring a boat for a week.

 

[Jacques Vert]

That night we were treated to a spectacular sunset...













Next morning and the problem is that there is absolutely no public transport to or from this village.

Fortunately, I had managed to arrange a lift from here back to Chatillon-en-Bazois where we had left our car and my man arrived just as arranged. So it's an hour and a half back to Chatillon and then about one hour, forty minutes from there to Auxerre where we have booked an apartment for the next three nights. Meanwhile, my three shipmates will make their way to Mailly-la-Ville, about 5km downstream, from where they will catch the train to Auxerre and we will all meet up that evening. What could possibly go wrong?

 

[Jacques Vert]

Well, I made it back to Chatillon, picked up the car and headed for Auxerre. About half way there I received a call from my shipmates to advise that the train had been cancelled, there were no taxis or Ubers and they were stranded in another small village where everything was permanently closed. So I detoured to Mailly and picked up one of them plus the bags and continued on to Auxerre, arriving about 4 hours after leaving the boat. Then I drove back to Mailly-la-Ville, picked up the remaining two shipmates and drove back to Auxerre. All up, about five and a half hours of driving back and forth. I guess it could have been worse: what would we have done without the car?

 

[Jacques Vert]

Auxerre

Auxerre is the capital of the Yonne department and has a population of 35,000 although the larger surrounding urban area accounts for around 113,000. The old town quite pretty...










The clock in the above photos dates from 1484. The clock’s distinctive features are the two hands: the first is a solar hand (goes round the clock in 24 hours) and the second is a lunar hand which goes around with a delay of about three quarters of an hour. However, both hands juxtapose at midday at new moon and midnight at full moon. It indicates both the solar time and the moon phases.










Auxerre would have been a better place to pick up or drop off a canal boat as it has plenty of transport options including trains to Paris and buses from Dijon and many other towns, although we have needed at least two weeks. Here is one of the bases in Auxerre...

 

[FlyingFiona]

View attachment 414697

I never knew that St Nicholas was the patron saint of seafarers until I saw him in the square named after him in Auxerre.

 

[Jacques Vert]

I never knew that St Nicholas was the patron saint of seafarers until I saw him in the square named after him in Auxerre.

Yes; from Wikipedia:

Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers, toymakers, unmarried people, and students in various cities and countries around Europe.

...an interesting mix.

 

[Jacques Vert]

It seems to me that every French town with more than a few hundred residents (either now or in the past) has to have a cathedral and Auxerre is no exception...

 

[Jacques Vert]

Our accommodation in Auxerre was in a renovated stone house about 500 metres from the centre of the old town. It was very nicely done but unfortunately I forgot to take photos. The only doownside was that the central heating was set to 20 degrees and there was no way to turn it up. As the weather in Auxerre was quite cold while we were there it would have been nice to come home to something a little warmer. While people in this part of the world may be used to wearing jackets inside, we are not.

So after three nights in Auxerre it was time to head south to warmer weather which had always been our plan. First we had an overnight stop in a small village named Saint-Gence, about an hour north-west of Limoges. This place is one of the nicest we've staying in, anywhere...

 

[Jacques Vert]

We would have liked to stay an extra night in Saint-Gence but alas, it was already booked for the next few nights, so we continued our journey south. We booked four nights in Sendets, a small village about 20 minutes drive east of Pau. Our accommodation was in another airBnB which had a reasonably good rating of 4.87 and a lot of good reviews. Unfortunately it didn't live up to our expectations, mainly because it wasn't clean but also the yard and surroundings were somewhat overgrown, the shower was dangerously slippery and the toilet downstairs didn't have a hand basin so you had to go upstairs to wash your hands which made having a toilet downstairs rather pointless. There was just no comparison to the previous night's stay at Saint-Gence.

One of the problems I find with airBnB is the inconsistency: you never know what you are going to get. It really is hit and miss. The reviews depend on the expectations of the individual guests and it surprises me how many guests give 5 stars to properties that are nowhere near that standard. On the other hand, some guests give a rating of 4 stars and then describe how nice the place is and give no indication of why they didn't give 5 stars. Such reviews are not at all helpful.

At least with the chain hotels you have a reasonably good idea of what the hotel will be like. Sure there are variations but you know that most Ibis hotels will have small rooms, a Hilton Garden Inn will provide a decent breakfast and a J W Marriott will be pretty swish. Problem is that when we are staying in a place for up to a month at a time we want a kitchen where we can cook our own meals, a washing maching, and enough room to be able to spread out. There arn't many hotels that fit these requirements.

 

[Jacques Vert]

Les Pyrénées

 

[Jacques Vert]

Pau

Pau is a very pleasant city of approximately 77,000 people around 80km by road from the border with Spain. One of the town's features is the Boulevard des Pyrénées. As there are no buildings on the southern side of the boulevard, it provides a panoramic view of the Pyrenees mountains whichare around 50km to the south.

According to Wikipeadia:

The boulevard was created at the suggestion of Napoleon 1 and overlooks terraced gardens cascading down the valley side. In clear weather, especially early morning or late evening and in winter, the view stretches from the Pic du Midi de Bigorre to the Pic d'Anie, with the Pic du Midi d'Ossau standing out in the background...The boulevard runs for some three-quarters of a kilometer...

 

[Jacques Vert]

Back in the day most visitors would have arrived by train (and many still do) so a finniculaire was built from the railway station in the valley up to the boulevard. You can now ride it for free:









More photos from Pau...

 

[Jacques Vert]

Fans of Le Tour de France may be familiar with the Col de Marie Blanque as it has been crossed 15 times since the 1978 tour. It links the valleys of the Apse and Ossau Rivers. We took a drive up and over the Col and enjoyed some beautiful scenery along the way.










We stopped at this roadside creperie for lunch on the way up the mountain....

 

[ellen10]

I love watching Le Tour! We have done 2 legs, great fun.
Beautiful countryside, much more lush than the countryside of your canal cruise.

 

[Jacques Vert]

Lac de Bious-Artigues

About 30 km south of the turn-off to the Col de Marie-Blanque is the Lac de Bious-Artigues. It a very pretty spot and there are lots of hiking trails in and around the lake including the GR10 which goes from the Atlantic at Hendaye on the Bay of Biscay to Banyuls-sur-Mer on the Mediterranean.




We told the attendant that we were only staying a short time to take some pictures and he waived the parking fee without hesitation.

 

[FlyingFiona]

That is so beautiful!

 

[Jacques Vert]

Laruns

Laruns is a small town of around 1,200 inhabitants in the Ossau Valley about 40km south of Pau. Most of you would have guessed that I'm running about a month behind with this trip report (as I have with most of my trip reports). We happened to drive into Laruns when there was a local festival in full swing:



Not sure what that first language is: could it be Béarnese? The French translates as "Cheese Fair"; the locals explained that it is "October Fest for the Cheese". Well, it is France after all.

Everyone was having a great time with lots of stalls selling all kinds of things, plenty of food options and, of course, plenty of cheese and wine. Also some live music and singing and dancing.
















We had arrived late afternoon but I suspect these guys had arrived quite a bit earlier...

After listening to them for a while they started singing an old french sea shanty that I happened to know from an earlier trip. I was standing in the back singing along to the choruses when an elderly frenchman came and stood beside me and joined in. We had a great time singing along to the choruses while the main group worked their way through the dozen or so verses.

 

[Jacques Vert]

Not far from Laruns is the Petit Train d'Artouste which claims to be Europe's highest narrow-guage train. It only runs from around May 8 to October 6 and I didn't know of its existance until after it had stopped running for this year. Looks like a fun day out.

More info here: (Home - Été)

and here: Petit train d'Artouste - Wikipedia

 

[Jacques Vert]

Next we were heading to Jaca on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees and there are basically two mountain passes that could be considered: the Col de Bessata and the Col du Pourtalet. The Bessata route goes from Pau via Oloron-Sainte-Marie and Canfranc and is the route that the railway line used until it was closed in 1970 after a major derailment destroyed one of the bridges. More here: Pau–Canfranc railway - Wikipedia

Canfranc is reached from the french side through the 7.8km Somport tunnel. The station at Canfranc was featured in one of Michael Portillo's Great Continental Railway Journeys and is said to be where Hitler met Franco in 1940 (see https://glintoflight.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Canfranc-_-What_Stories_It_Could_Tell.pdf).

Note that there are other reports that state that Hitler and Franco met at the station in Hendaye in 1940. I'm not able to confirm whether they met at both stations or whether one of these "meetings" has been misreported. Either way, the station at Canfranc is quite spectacular and has a lot of history. After the line closed, the Somport tunnel was modified to take road traffic but the station was left to deteriorate. However, recently it has been renovated into a luxury hotel Canfranc Estación, a Royal Hideaway Hotel - Huesca - o Guia MICHELIN

Currently there are public consultations about reopening the line: SNCF Réseau begins public consultations to reopen strategic France-Spain rail line

With all this history and proposals I wanted to travel via this route and check it all out for myself however, I was disappointed to find that the road was impassable following heavy rain in early September that washed away large sections of the road: Pyrénées road connecting France and Spain will be closed for months

So it was the route over the Col du Pourtalet for us...