The Marvelous Marne

The River Marne runs through the Champagne region before it joins the Seine south of Paris.  It's navigable from Epernay which is about 130km from Paris.  The river makes it way down a beautiful shallow valley where the hillsides are covered in vineyards or trees.  There's not many locks and there's some lovely towns to visit.  It's popular with boaters so we were expecting it to be crowded at the end of July.  But it wasn't really.  There's plenty of boats but following the basic rule of 'cruise early, moor early, we found we could tie up in the places we wanted to.

The intense heat had gone and the weather was glorious.  We didn't rush.  We found some nice restaurants - the dessert trolley in Dormans was to die for!

The First World War theme continued.  There were 2 battles of the Marne (1914 & 1918) and there were reminders of this in most towns.

Each town has more champagne houses (apparently there are 5000) but we'd learned our lesson and the cupboard was full!

But we kept a close eye on the grapes by walking through the vineyards of an evening.  It is interesting to see the labour intensive care that goes into the crop.  And the specialized hi-lift tractors are amusing to watch.

Many of the vineyards are labelled with the champagne house for which they are destined.  I didn't think the Moet et Chandon grapes looked any better than any others.

The weirs on the Marne are interesting.  Many of them are of the old 'needle' construction involving thin rods about 4m long slid by hand into a frame.  Rods can be removed or replaced as flows require.  This is a hazardous operation involving the operator walking across the weir.  In a nod to safety, they now have a safety line for the poor chap to clip onto!  There are still a few weirs a bit like this at the top of the Thames.  But we call the needles 'Rymers' (nope, no idea).

There were lots of nice stops but a special mention goes to the village of Jaulgonne which has this single mooring as its 'Halte Nautique'.  A scruffy box appeared to contain power and water.  An even scruffier sign suggested the key might be obtained from the Mairie.  Off we went to get there before the lunch break.  But the Mairie was closed for the holidays (very French).  As we wandered away thinking we'd live without power, a passer-by asked what we had wanted from the Mairie.  I started to explain that we were at the Halte Nautique.  'And you want the key' he said.  'That's easy, ask at the village shop'.  At the village shop they happily handed over the key and asked us to bring it back tomorrow.  No deposit, no hassle.  All so very French.  That evening we went to the bistro.  I asked for the carte.  'I am the carte' said the owner.  So we ate the menu of the day and it was very nice too!