In the immortal words of John Denver, “All our bags are packed, we’re ready to go”. It’s been a while, but now all the borders are reopened and after several lockdowns over the past 2 years, we are now looking forward to moving through locks of a different kind. If our plans work out there will be about 377 of them! This will be the first, Lock 76 (Saint Jean de Losne) at the entrance to the Canal de Bourgogne.

As you can see on our home page, we have got a new boat named “Lodi” which is currently moored at H2O in Saint-Jean-de-Losne, France. Between us and Lodi, it was almost love at first sight, although we did have a few FaceTime dates prior to committing to her purchase.

It took six months of painstakingly scouring the internets boatyard sites, looking for our new dream vessel. But in the end, having found Lodi, everything happened very quickly, and now we are off to Europe to finally take possession of her on 7^th May. It will take a little while for us to get accustomed to each other, as every boat handles a little bit different, but that all forms part of the excitement.

Our plan is to start off with the first canal we cruised on back in 2013, the Canal de Bourgogne, then turn south into the Canal du Nivernais, meeting up with the Canal latéral à la Loire, the Canal du Centre and back up the Saône River to Saint Jean de Losne. Austin has again attached a map of our planned trip on our home page, which makes it easy to follow our progress. (This Year’s Itinerary)

There will be a few challenges, not least the famous vineries of the Burgundy and Chablis areas we are passing! We’ll attempt to regularly update our “Travelling the Rivers and Canals of Europe” blog once we are on our way.

Wish us luck and stay well until we meet again!