OTHER PURSUITS

It's that time of year that we say goodbye to Soraya and navigation for a while. Strasbourg has been great and there will be a lot more to report in the winter when we return after our Autumn navigation for hivernage. A couple of photographs of our last couple of days there in searing heat here in the east.

Margaret browsing the free book exchange.

This 'Livres en Liberté' is the largest we have come across so far, with a good selection of books in French, German and English. Running in the park yesterday morning I came across this turtle walking across the road. Not a good idea. After consultation with a fellow runner we decided to hasten it's passage over the road, for potentially its own good. I picked it up carefully and yes it did try to urinate over me. I used to have a tortoise as a child so was aware of the possibility. We returned it to the lake edge. A few seconds later it re-entered the water and slowly swam off.

Close up of a turtle, as the previous blog post.

Passing by the European Parliment and the Union Jack is still flying! Thought they may have taken it down or lowered it to half mast. Have we always been at the end or is that space reserved for leavers?

A Union of flags.

No more blog posts until we return to Strasbourg and commence our Autumn navigation in mid September. Off on the TGV to Paris and Eurostar to London to meet Martyn and Charlie at The Plum and Spilt Milk? Have a great summer. Did I mention the whirlwind? Well as the saying goes, more of that later.

DID I MENTION THE TURTLES!

No wonder there is a population explosion with this many storks around. There must be a lot of baby deliveries. Joking aside we are in stork land (not the butter substitute) and it's lovely to see them flying overhead. At the Orangerie Park in Strasbourg they are virtually endemic, wandering around, nesting on the Orangerie. It's unusual to get so close to them.

Nesting on the chimney tops.

When the stork in the sky flew over there was a almighty commotion from the birds in the nest. There were parents in the nest and a young stork. Who knows what the angst is?

Stork wandering.

Storks aside we live in and among .....'bald as a coot'. Yes coots. We don't feel they are very good parents. Their very young chicks literally fall out of their nest off the propeller of an adjacent boat. Parents there to guide, protect? Not really. We've been monitoring their progress. The parenting skills seem to be '0'. They come out from the nest as a family but soon loose each other. The parents go off foraging for food independently and the young are left. All of a sudden chaos breaks out. Both parents have realised they have no idea where the chicks are. You can see/hear the angst. 'I left the kids with you!' 'No I thought you were looking after them'. 'No I said......' OK where are they? Lots of calling and they are usually found. The other day after this normal exchange a massive commotion occurred. A black backed gull came from nowhere and plucked up one of the chicks for lunch!! Margaret was out. I relayed the story. 'Well why didn't you throw stones at the gull?' Unfortunately we were fresh out of stones on Soraya! Good news there are still two coot chicks left. I did not realise they are 'ginger tossers' like myself. Actually they look like a couple of hairy conkers. They are very sweet.

The remaining 2.

Going back to the blog post title, we were in the Orangerie Park and in the lake were turtles, lots. You didn't see them at first. The more you looked the more you saw. This was amongst rowing boats. All very European. More of that later, we are in the 'Capitale Européenne'.

Afternoon tea, a beech leaf.

PVs

PVs or Photovoltaic Cells. As we have mentioned before we installed them last winter. So what's the verdict? They are excellent, they have exceeded our expectations. We have 4x300 watt panels potentially giving out 1.2kw. They are a new generation of panels that do not need direct sunlight only a bright sky. For the sceptics 'Have we had 1.2Kw?' We do have on a regular basis over a kilowatt output and I have seen for a short period 1.18Kw. So I would say yes, after all I'm not watching the meters all of the time.

Minimum visual impact of the 4 panels on the wheelhouse roof.

Soraya is a gas free barge, we are all electric. Most barges use gas for cooking and often hot water. All our energy requirements are electric. This is good from the point of view we don't have a gas explosion risk. The difficulty is that all our electrical power input to the batteries has to come direct from the engine, generator, shore or solar. After the installation of the PVs we can navigate, stop wherever we want and never have to worry about power. We were in Metz recently for 2 weeks with no electrical power from the engine which we gain if we are navigating and no shore power yet we still had a full 100% battery charge due in part to excellent weather. We have not had any shore power for over 2 months and our average battery level is from 90-100% daily, despite running a washing machine, dish washer,  boiler for hot water, fans and all the other paraphernalia of modern living. It's great and free of running cost, no CO2 and totally silent. Obviously we did have the purchase cost. This is constantly being recovered as we do not often need to pay mooring or electricity fees as we do not need power. Pay back. Difficult to estimate perhaps 3 years, then we'll be euros in.

STRASBOURG

We finally made it to Strasbourg. We tried a couple of years ago, however, the Arzviller Inclined Plane (see previous blog post) was out of order so no route from the west. This year all good. We have negotiated a great mooring close to the town centre. In fact the city and moorings are so good we have booked Soraya in for this coming winter. Trips to Strasbourg anyone? Only 1hr 50mins from Paris on TGV.

Strasbourg is a beautiful city with lots of old timber framed buildings, cobbled streets, as a contrast there are many very modern buildings, fortunately not diminishing the historic areas. A few areas are rather too full of tourists for my liking and of course being on the border with Germany if you are not French you are assumed to be German. There are plenty of areas away from the tourists and it is the home of flammekueche (tarte flambée) and of course Fischer beer. I can see a brewery trip coming up. Can't be all bad.

One of the many, many waterways.

The waterways dissect Strasbourg, you always seem to be going over another river/canal or have a waterside view. We are not allowed to take Soraya into the touristy heart of the town it is reserved for tour boats only. In fact all the bridges are too low and there is quite a flow on the river L'Ill so I'm happy to be moored off centre.

A bit of flower posing!

There is plenty of bimbling to be done with fascinating little streets and impasses. Lots of coffee shops, bars and restaurants selling flammekueche. 

Even my Brompton is getting into the pretty mood.

A great aspect of the city is The European Parliament, joking aside, is the cycle network. Every road has dedicated cycle lanes, most two way as shown below. As the city is flat it's just great for getting around on a bike. Seriously it is the best city cycling network that we have come across. Did I mention the flammekueche?

Margaret on one of the many quality cycle routes.

GLASTO 2017

We didn't go to Glasto this year, we gave our tickets to Martyn & Charlie. This didn't stop us watching it on Soraya wherever we are. In Strasbourg actually. A couple of late nights, a substantial volume on the hi-fi and lots of communication with family and friends who are there or are often there. All good fun.

Margaret & I watching? So much to watch.

The Foo Fighters. They were great.

SAVERNE - ROSES AND CHERRIES

Saverne is a really nice small town. One of those places that just works. A good port plaisance with a very helpful Capitaine and support team. As we were staying longer than expected because of the music festival, we explored the sites. Châteaux, coffee shops, Super U, all the normal things. We were recommended to go to the Roseraie de Saverne. They are into roses in Saverne and each year they have a Concourse de Rose. It's a big competition with entries from all over Europe. The rose garden is impressive, if you are into roses, which I quite like (not in winter). The trouble was it was too hot with 37 deg. C in the shade, it takes the edge off the spectacle. So off to a cooler place.

Margaret assessing the scent in the Roseraie de Saverne.

Coolness was found in form of a shady coffee shop terrace and ice creams.

A rare photo of Geoff eating an ice cream. Not his normal domain, come back Fischer all is forgiven.

All that rose eduction and degustation made us think about food. On the way back to Soraya we saw a wild cherry tree literally laden with cherries. On with some old clothes, cherry picking can get very messy, and on with the harvest. There was no shortage. A few kilos later it was back on board and it's stoning time!! A couple of hours later 9 jars of cherry jam. Definitely a baguette tomorrow morning.

Some of the canal bank wild cherries about to be turned into jam. Yes the hands are still red.

21st JUNE, A DATE FOR YOUR FRENCH DIARY

Whilst not very well known it's worth looking out for. If you happen to be in France at this time, look out for 'Fête de la Musique'. It is a nation wide event in medium to large towns where for one evening various stages are erected around town and there follows an evening of varied music, all free. There was even a stage on the quayside of the port plaisance. The Fête usually takes place on 21st of June.

Margaret outside Chateau des Rohan in Saverne accompanied with a bit of rock.

We stayed in Saverne for a couple of extra days for the festival, it was worth it. There were 8 stages covering a range of music genre from rock to jazz to blues to coral chant to pop to salsa. All good quality, all very different and great fun. We had our own mini-Glasto!!

A very small courtyard stage at Place Monet, focusing on 'Chansons Françaises'.

THE ARZVILLER INCLINED PLANE

Well, this was amazing. We'd seen photos of it but they were nothing like the real thing. The Arzviller inclined plane was built in 1969 to replace 17 locks over 4km with a total drop of 44.5m. The 17 locks were a problem for the canal traffic as they were so close together, which made navigating very difficult for 38m peniches. It was also too narrow for the barges to pass. It would take a day to navigate these locks and the barges coming the other way would have to wait. This became such a problem for the bargees that a solution had to be found. 

The Arzviller Inclined Plane.

The mechanism consists of a moving tank like a huge bath tub (caisson) that you drive into. It is balanced by counterweights which are connected by cables drawn by electric winches. The tank moves sideways up or down the inclined plane and is sealed at each end, so completely watertight. It uses very little power as the counterweights balance the caisson which is always the same weight with or without boats in it. (Displacement of water, Archimedes Principle etc.......) You then just drive out into the canal. 

Here we go into the caisson, ready to go down.

We were going to go down the inclined plane two years ago when we left Nancy but had to completely reroute as it was out of action for nearly 2 years. The caisson jammed, trapping a boat and releasing a hugewamount of water down the valley. This was repaired over a few months and then the caisson twisted and was damaged badly a second time. Now it seems to run well and efficiently. It was a great experience.

Boats in the caisson.

SANS PERMIS

Margaret has found her perfect boat hire company. She's looked at Locaboat, Navig France, Nicols, Canalous. When this recent hire company arrived in port there was no competition. It's a strange rule in boating on the inland waterways of France that if you have no experience and no idea what you are doing you can hire a boat and after 10 minutes instruction, off you go. Hence the 'Sans Pemis', 'Without Permit'. There again if you own a boat you need all the qualifications and for those you need experience. Must be a logic somewhere. Whereas in the UK you do not need any qualifications whether you hire or own a boat.

Hapimag. Well it seems to be working.

MUSÉE DE FAIENCE

Before leaving Sarregumine we were recommended to go to the Musée de Faience. What is Faience? Well it's also known as Majolica. Are you any the wiser? We weren't. Sarregumine was once the centre of Faience, with the whole town being actively involved in its manufacture or support roles. For those of you that are still guessing what Faience is the photograph below says it all.

Winter Garden of the apartments of Paul de Geiger director of Sarregumine faience c1900. All ceramic.

He decided to have a complete 'Winter Garden' made in illuminated pottery to showcase his factories. The room is now a historic monument and is mind blowing, everything is ceramic, stoneware and porcelain.

We particularly liked this piece as we were moored within this view to the left gatehouse.

Centrepiece for a dining table.

The musée is really a memorial to the town's history in ceramic production. They did illuminated tableware but there real excellence was the large fantasy pieces and monumental pieces.

A reproduction of a satirical sketch from a Paris magazine, huge, about 7 metres across.

The pieces were used in shops, breweries, spas, cafes, restaurants as they were hygienic, decorative and did not loose their colour. Well, that's enough history for one day.