3/9/2013
We are now approaching the last stretch of the Canal du Centre. The town of Chagny is a good place to stop. From here trains depart in direction Dijon, Lyon and the South-East. There are two moorings, we stopped at the first one which provides electricity, water and a herb and vegetable garden looked after by a friendly port manager. The second one is a little further on where the canal crosses the rail lines and widens into a semi-circular basin, not as nice and with limited electricity.
A late afternoon cycle took us along the perfect bike path to the little village of Remigny.
4/9/2013
Today we cycled the 1 km into Chagny's center and did a little shopping. The local tourist office didn't offer much information, so we had a look around ourselves and found a busy shopping area and café scene and the famous "Lameloise" Restaurant (3 stars in the Michelin guide).
During July and August sculptures of a particular artist are found at the front of the major buildings and places. This year they are from an artist, called Daniel Lafouge. All sculptures are made from bits of red and blue painted wood and look like an early-childhood attempt at carpentry. Being obviously culturally ignorant, our stomachs soon steered us back to the Place d'Armes for lunch.
We ignored the famous Lameloise and headed for an outdoor table at the very populated restaurant opposite.
The service was a little slow but eventually we muscled ourselves through two servings of "Moules Frites" (mussels and chips), which come in "provinciale", " creamy moutarde", "forestière" (with mushrooms) or "Bleu" (with blue cheese sauce).
After so much hard work, we needed a snooze before heading a few locks further to Rully.
Cycling comes naturally to us now as this is the only way to get around in the middle of nowhere.
So we pedalled into Rully and really pushed ourselves to get uphill to the castle. It was of course closed by then, but we have already seen our quantum of castles for this year. Much more interesting was the romantic centre of town - no open shops or cafés - or people as such- to distract from the old town walls and houses.
A nice, english-speaking Frenchman came to our boat later offering to take us to his small vineyard, show us around and let us try the local Cremant, a sparkling vine mixed from Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Aligot grapes. We'll see how we feel in the morning!