The Kindness of Strangers

The scenery of the Ardennes national park comes to an end in Charleville-Mezieres.  The steep wooded hillsides give way to soft farmed countryside.  I'm currently reading Anthony Beevor's account of the Ardennes offensive of 1944.  I'm struck that the Germans used the Ardennes to head west in 1870, 1914, 1940 and 1944.  Beevor wonders why it was still a surprise to the allies in 1944 but I can see how challenging an attack over this terrain would be (and ultimately was).

Charleville is a pretty town with a formal layout from the C17th (somebody called Charles . . .).  It's our first decent restaurant meal in France and we take a couple of days to explore.  Like so many towns in this area, there's a Boulevard Franklin D Roosevelt and a Place Churchill (or vice versa).

We also continue our game of taking a train back to get the car and then driving it forward along the river and getting a train back.  This gets more complicated as there aren't many trains and we start needing buses - of which there aren't many either.  Google is a great help with this and it's fun making it all work.  Life would, of course, be easier without the car but we're going to need it in a week or two when Julie drives back to the UK for some more 'Grandma time'.

Onto Sedan where we were encouraged to visit the castle.  It advertises itself as Europe's largest castle at 35,000 square metres.  Perhaps the manager used to be an Estate Agent.  But it was very good indeed and the audio guide helped us track its building in various stages from the C11th onwards.  It finished with a marvellous exhibition and panorama of the battle of Sedan in 1870 which covered the surrender of Napoleon III without making it terribly obvious that France had lost . . .

A lovely day in Mouzon where I got the only bus of the week back to Sedan for the car.  And I was the only passenger.  The driver was a bit surprised that I didn't have a free ticket and spent some time working out that the fare was €1.

The following day we moved onto Stenay.  I'd worked out that there wasn't a bus back and had ruled out using a bike after an abortive ride up a steep hill.  A taxi it would have to be.  Paying our harbour dues at the Tourist Office, I asked the nice lady about taxis.  She offered to make the call for me.  One company didn't answer.  The other said 'not today' and then it would be €40.  While we were pondering this, a lady running a charity stall in the office piped up, "Je te conduirai à Mouzon".  And she did so in her 26 year old Mini panting its way up the hills for 20km.  She wouldn't take any money for petrol and we had a lovely stilted conversation in my dodgy French and her dodgy English.  Once back in Stenay, we patronised her charity stall generously.  People are amazing.

Feeling good about people, we watched wedding photographs taking place near the mooring.  The photographer then asked if he could use our boat as a back drop.  Of course, and we invited the happy couple aboard for the obvious Kate and Leo Titanic shot!  Congratulations Damien & Audrey.

But I hope using Taddy as the Titanic wasn't tempting fate!

We finished the weekend by attending the local craft beer festival which was  . . . enjoyable.  A Frenchman told me that the French were rude and unfriendly.  I disagreed - strongly.

Comments

  1. Unknown29 June 2019 at 12:59

    Delighted you are having such lovely experiences with French hospitality which we have also enjoyed so frequently for nearly 50 years in many areas of France. Interesting too that Rob has now read Beevors "Ardennes 1944", which sits in our library. Must have given the book an added dimension while actually viewing some of the landscape.
    Finally, in regard to Charleville-Mezieres, we've never been there but, many many years ago, a French friend from Toulouse was stationed there during his National Service. Needless to say, he hated it!! Carry on enjoying ... Hope you and the lovely Cora are managing to keep cool ... xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alan and Rosie29 June 2019 at 20:02

    It sounds as though the meal that you had in Charleville was the first decent one. Is that so ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rob Dean29 June 2019 at 20:49

      Yes, most of the small towns in the east have bars and pizza parlours but no restaurant - or at least not one open in evening. We've been caught out turning up at 7pm to find them closing.

      Delete
  3. Alan and Rosie29 June 2019 at 20:09

    One puzzle about France I've never been able to solve. When one visits a French market one can see wonderful, colourful displays of fresh vegetables. Who eats them? When you visit a French restaurant your meat comes with one vegetable, usually french beans. Strange!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Perfect First Day

Image
Monday 1st April and we're off. We're up bright and early to get ready and say goodbye to the friends we've made in Bruges; Andy and Felix the harbour masters, and Luc the trip boat owner. Bruges is a busy city and we need several bridges lifted as we leave town.  That means we're asked to leave in convoy: 3 from our harbour and another 3 from the one just up the canal.  And there's a big commercial barge coming through as well.  There's plenty of people watching to make sure we haven't forgotten how to drive over winter . . . We head east through a total of 5 lifting bridges where our convoy stops traffic for 10 minutes.  We're last and feel most guilty but the natives still seem happy to wave.  5 out of the 6 boat convoy are British and nobody shakes a fist (although we have been assured we're the laughing stock of Europe). On down the boringly-named Gent to Oostend Canal where spring is in the air.  We see our first dabchicks (baby gr...
Read more

Paris - the city of love

Image
Paris was packed with tourists all snapping the views and having a great time.  But very few of them were passing the Eiffel Tower in their own boat that day.  It felt VERY cool.  Probably the highlight of several exciting days visiting the city of love.  But first we had to get there. We cruised the lower reaches of the Marne which pass through the up-market southern suburbs of Paris.  Very pleasant but not many boats and just the odd commercial. The extravagant loops typical of the lower reaches of a river are shortened by a short tunnel at Joinville le Pont.  Everything changes as the river becomes very busy and quickly joins the Seine and you're crossing under the Peripherique.  We'd been joined by other pleasure boats and there were large commercial boats moving fast in both directions and passing under the many bridges.  The navigation instructions warn against stopping to admire the view.  I get their point - there's so much...
Read more

The Bridge to Nowhere

Image
Where have we been?  In Brussels, that's where.  There's plenty to distract a visitor to Brussels which is one of Europe's more under-rated capitals.  But we have the added distraction of daughter and son-in-law, Cat and Chris and (almost forgot) young Alfred George who at 10 months needs to see his grandparents! After Ronquieres, we headed north on the Brussels-Charleroi canal and back into Flanders.  Here and ecluse becomes a sluis and the lock keepers speak English!  The town moorings at Halle looked unfriendly and a close call in a narrow stretch with one of the 1350 tonners encouraged us to continue on to Brussels.  The canal get quite 'gritty' as it enters the city and there was some tight corners.  But the industry is interesting.  Belgium uses its waterways to get waste and recycling moved without clogging up the roads.  We could be doing a lot more of that in the UK We arrived at the delightful Brussels Royal Yacht Club in th...
Read more