1776 Remembered Abroad

While I may hear the murmurings of “enough already” in the background, we only have a couple of more days to relate, and then I want to spend some (virtual) ink on the food in general and a recounting of our three star meal at Relais Bernard Loiseau, then it will be c’est fini..

So after our rather longish day of doing two thing (gasp) in a single day, July the Fourth was spent in a more leisurely fashion.  Checking the little itinerary card that always greeted us in the morning:

Revealed that we were cruising in the morning and would visit the Cathedral in Auxerre in the afternoon (surrounded by lunch and dinner)

And cruise we did.  Can you imagine being at the other end of 128 feet of steel trying to steer a rather unresponsive vessel (it is, believe me, I tried) into a lock that has maybe eight or nine inches of clearance on either side?

Loic managed this with ease, never once having to resort to “stick the nose in and give it the gun” technique.  It was while the barge was in the lock that you could jump ashore (rather step ashore if you chose the right time) and bike or walk beside the barge.  While MFO and I generally preferred to stay on board, since this was the next to last day, we figured that we should engage in bicycling beside the barge at least once.  So we disembarked and Thibaut gave us a couple of bikes, and a short lesson in gearing, breaking and so on.  Once the barge has (in this case) lowered enough in the lock there is no going back.  So, although we had not ridden a bike in a long time, we figured how hard can this be?  You never forget, right?.  Well, there is something about the French (?) barge variety of velocipedes that kind of belie that statement.  The engineer in me would say that they are very short coupled.  Meaning that, if you give a slight correction to the handle bars, there is an immediate response which is not gradual.  That results in over correcting with the resultant movement in the other direction which eventually turns into a divergent oscillation.  We struck off uncertainly down the path (fortunately several other passengers were far out in front of us, so it was only a small audience left).  Long story short, this is how we “biked” the barge path..

Mercifully there was a bridge not too far ahead where we could again board the barge with the aid of a ramp so we didn’t have to get to the next lock.  We were quite ready to accept their offer

That was the end of our extra-barge activity.  Fortunately it wasn’t too long until lunch with aids to softening the memories of our less than memorable morning experience

 

 

The lunch entrée that day was the Turbot obtained from the broken down fish monger the day before

Done “en papillote”, in this case "en foil" which he says holds the moisture better than the traditional parchment paper…  it was very good.

After lunch and the requisite period of post lunch settling down (nap) we boarded the little bus and headed for Auxerre.  As with a lot of cities, the town is dominated by the Cathédrale Saint-Étienne d'Auxerre (or Saint Stephen in English)

As you can see, it was on the other side of the River Yonne, so to get there involved a bit of walking, and as you can also see it was a lot higher than the river, so it also involved a bit of climbing.  But, get there we did, and inside it was as impressive as all these tend to be.  It was built between 1215 and 1233 above an 11th-century crypt, and like any remodeling added on to into the 16^th century.

 

 

One of the windows depicted Joan of Arc

We did descend into the crypt (again, special permission for the tour) where we saw some of the remnants of the original walls

After that we walked over into the city where we enjoyed some shopping and a glass of….Chablis.  Following that we got back on the bus and dozed until we were back on the barge.

When dinner hour came (the hour following cocktail hour) there was a table set for celebration of the Fourth of July!

With those always special place settings (the Franklins weren't real unfortunately)

 

Mercifully they didn’t carry the American theme to the food (no hot dogs or hamburgers) as the menu included:

Oeuf Meurette

Carré et Souris d’Agneau

Sauce Nivernaise

Puree di Panais

Fromages

Salade

Gateau au Chocolat

Vin Blanc: Chablis 1er Cru 2007      

Vin Rouge: St. Emillon Grand Cru Classe 2009

The Gateau did honor a Fourth of July American tradition however

 

And I shouldn’t have to repeat that we were

 

DFD

We were not looking forward to our last day of the barge journey, but retired happy