OUT WITH THE NEW IN WITH THE OLD

You have to do certain tourist stuff at times and Châteauneuf is on the list. It's old it's big it's commanding. Some of the interiors are beautiful, I particularly liked the design concepts in the ablutions department.

Margaret and Scoots on our way.

Great tiled floors, tapestries, huge bath. Not totally sure of the use for the plank over the bath. The calico looks good, unsure about the practically.

Le grand bain.

The adjacent parlour with undeniably French Oak floors.

The parlour.

I think it's to time to rethink modern bathrooms. After all what is wrong with a bit of wet fabric and distressed panelling.

WEATHER

What is happening? Last week it was 20deg C with shorts and T shirts, this morning it was -1.5deg C.

BBQ!

It would take hours to heat up the barbie never mind searing the crevettes. Good news Soraya lovely and warm due to French power supplies.

RESTAURANTS

As many of you know, we are always ready to try a new restaurant. So when we heard there was a Michelin Star Restaurant on our route, we had to look it up. We arrived at La Bussière-sur-Ouche which is in the middle of nowhere and went in search of the restaurant which is in an old Abbaye. We found the Abbaye but the gates to the grounds were firmly closed. We phoned up and tried to book, but the whole place was fully booked for 3 days for a wedding. We must at least have a look at it!!

Abbaye de la Bussière

Inside L'Abbaye

The Abbaye has been renovated and is now a Country House/Hotel. The proprietor, who is British, showed us round. It's absolutely superb. I wouldn't mind staying or at least having a meal there sometime. We'll have to come again.

Having missed out on our Michelin Star meal, we were told by the owner that there was a lovely Bistrot at Pont d'Ouche which was our next mooring. We arrived around lunchtime and went for a drink in the hope of booking for the evening. The owner was rather reluctant as she closed at 7.30 and didn't really  want to cook after 6. We said we'd just come for a drink and arrived at 6 to find her just locking up! Sorry, she said, but there's nobody around, no custom so I've cleared up and closed! This was Saturday night and the Bistrot was closing at 6!! Oh la la........

GUI AND GIROFLÉE

We know where to come next Christmas for a good supply of Gui (Mistletoe - Viscum album), the Bourgogne Canal it's almost a pest. Some trees seem to be more mistletoe than tree.

Poplar trees covered in Gui along the banks of the canal.

The other plant in abundance is Giroflée (Wallflower - Erysimum sp.) in its native state before plant breeding, it's superb. You wonder why we did not leave it in its natural form.

Natural uncultivated Giroflée in preferred habitat, a wall! Clue's in the name.

CHÂTEAUX AND CASTLES

Yes we set off at last. A difficult decision as we were at home in Dijon. It's spring time on Le Canal de Bourgogne and everything is looking beautiful. We've recently had very mixed weather, glorious sunshine, half an hour of intense rain and wind then back to the sun. What's going on? Our stay in Dijon has been great with lots of friends visiting and as we have previously mentioned a very cost effective place to live. Dijon city has so much to offer and a very friendly and content place, with great transport both within the city and from afar. It's now time for navigation. We can't wait. Jobs done, people seen, shopping done, the cellar is full.

Bye bye Dijon see you?? Auxerre, Paris and the Champagne region here we come.

The Canal de Bourgogne is beautiful with so much to see, scenery and historical places and artefacts.

One of the many châteaux along the canal. This small château at Fleurey-sur-Ouche.

Scoots has been off Soraya a few times for excursions. A delightful one was to the ruins of a castle at Mâlain. It has been under restoration for ~20 years and they seem to have not yet started.

Mâlain castle on a vantage point looking over vast tracts of Bourgogne.

Our progress is very slow as there is a lock on average every kilometre and with so much to see we sometimes only go ~6km per day. Could be a long trip.

LAST WEEKEND IN DIJON - L'INDUSTRIE ET SPEAKEASY

A great weekend before we set off. A beer or two in a favourite Café de L'Industrie and a meal in a new restaurant 'Speakeasy'. Both were great. 

The interior with their signature 17th century character, shh.

The interior was bizarre. Sofa's in the toilet cubicles! I was sat in a three way seat, all facing different tables. You had to move the table to arrange the right eating distance. If you tried to move the chair you couldn't as two other people were sat on the other parts of the seat. All a bit strange and very intimate.

My close encounter with others.

The food was great and all very unexpected. Definitely go there again when in Dijon. Did I mention the cocktails? More about them later.

Margaret outside Speakeasy after a great meal and cocktail or two!

A SECRET ADMIRER?

The other day I returned to the barge after shopping in town to find this beautiful bouquet of flowers on the back deck. 

The Bouquet

Was it from one of the hotel barges?? Watch out Geoff!! We do meet some really nice people on the canals.

SAE 30 AND A DONG I

Warning...... this is a story about engine and gearbox servicing!

In line with my philosophy of owning and running Soraya I believe I should be able to maintain, repair and upgrade as required all aspects of the boat. This does not preclude other people but I try to be self sufficient. In January I serviced the Deutz Turbo engine. Part of the service was obviously an oil change. These engines do not have a drain plug on the bottom as traditionally cars have. Instead they have a valve system with a manual hand pump to pump out the old oil. I carried out the service as normal but was surprised to find how little oil I pumped out. There again I was not 100% sure of the capacity and used oil looks like used oil. Service done for the year.

Yesterday I was giving Soraya the once over in preparation for our departure on Monday. I had the engine running and dropped it into gear. The propeller turned very slowly and stopped! Very unusual. After looking at the Morse controller, the cables, the connections, movement of the clutch accelerater etc. I could not find a fault, however, still no reliable propulsion. Oh la la!

The engine sends the power to a combined hydraulic clutch/gearbox. This is surprisingly named 'Dong-I'. On checking the oil level I found it was empty. Very strange as there are 'no' leaks. I then had a eureka moment. I realised I had back in January inadvertently pumped out the gearbox oil not the engine oil. This can be easily done as the valve at the hand pump was not labelled ( it is now ) and a slight turn selects either the engine sump or the gearbox sump. No problem refill with oil. What oil? After a lot of internet research and various conversations I talked to the UK agent and he stated it had to be SAE 30. No multigrades. You probably have not tried to buy a single grade oil, if any. Well I can assure you it's all multigrade now. I asked other barge owners and they did not know where to buy it. Eventually after hours of calls and driving round Dijon I located some in a boatyard in Saint Jean de Losne about 35km away. So empty oil container in hand and onto the train and a ~2 kilometre walk to the shipyard from the station. I had to take a container as the boat yard only had 200lt barrels. 

My walk back along the river Saone to the railway station, with the SAE 30.

Oil obtained, levels restored and all good.  The good news about all this is that the gearbox oil needed changing this year so now all done ahead of schedule. I was also amused when talking to a hotel barge owner about where to buy the oil by the fact that his engineer had done exactly the same thing recently on his boat. Made me feel I wasn't totally mad.

CONCERTS

Two concerts in a week and they were both superb. One was a violin concert and the other piano. Dijon Opera has a new venue across town known as the Auditorium. The original Opera House in the centre of town obviously needs work and so no doubt at some point a project costing a huge amount of money will be launched. We had problems getting into the auditorium. We walked completely around the whole building and couldn't find the entrance. Eventually we had to ask and it was across the road behind another building. You went straight up a large escalator, across a bridge over the road and back into the auditorium. It should have been signposted......but then we know what signposting can be like!

Orchestre Dijon avec Pianist Denis Kozhukhin

The pianist was Russian, absolutely amazing. I've never seen hands move so fast before!

A MICHELIN 'STAR'

It had to happen. We are friends with a few hotel barge owners. These are very upmarket barges for 4 or 6 clients with all the razzmatazz that goes with this level of accommodation. Recently we were invited for a meal on one of these barges and the chef made a superb meal. His normal haunt is in Michelin Star restaurants in UK. He is currently doing a season on the French canals. We had planned to have the hotel barge owner over for a meal and the chef was not required that night so after a few glasses of excellent wine we invited him for a meal! Was that a good idea? 

Gold chocolate filled with liquid chocolate, raspberry sorbet, caramelised mango and other bits. Yummy! As served at our visit to the hotel barge.

What do you cook for a chef who cooks in Michelin Star restaurants? Oh la la!! Well we decided to go for good old curry. It worked fine as these guys long for food like curries which they rarely make. This was followed by that well-known Indian desert, lemon meringue pie. And no I am not showing a photograph of a Goan Chicken with Aubergine and Dahl.

BLANC ET BLONDE

Here's a fine pair on the back deck. The sun is shining and has some warmth at last. So it's out with the chairs and a nice bottle of Rully 1er Cru Monopole and a bottle of artisan Blonde de Bourgogne. As a good friend said 'It's a tough life being a tourist!'

Blanc et Blonde.

MORE MOUSTACHES

I told you it is the way to go. Blog post 'Moustaches - The Way Ahead?' Now moustaches are appearing everywhere, if you look!

The girls don't want to be left out.

Even the pottery in Dijon are sporting moustaches!

And now it's slippers.

I think I may ditch my moustache, perhaps they are becoming overdone.

HÔTELS

There are Hotels and Hôtels. In Dijon they are many Hôtels, previously private residencies or town houses, perhaps you should call them urban chateau's. The one below was the home of Charles Logouz de Gerland, master of the Dauphine's robes. Not a bad little place for looking after someone's wardrobe.

The internal courtyard.

On reflection I think I made a bad career choice I should have been a wardrobe monitor.

Exit to the street with amazing swags over the door.

There are many 'Hôtels' in Dijon obviously all originally residences and hence offices of the entourage of the Dauphine (Duc de Bourgogne). All incredible buildings with very plain street fronts. The only real external architectural detail is a pair of doors large enough for a horse drawn carriage. Once inside opulence is de rigueur.

A dining salon in Hôtel Lantin, now Musée Magnin.

Not many hôtels, if any, are now in single family ownership. Most split into apartments and/or offices.