2015 European waterway cruise – Finally into France

On the River Meuse

The first three, Anseremme, Waulsort and Hastiere were in Belgium while the last,
Les Quatre Chiminee was in France.

I said previously there were not many pleasure boats on the water, but for this stretch we ended up in a convoy of 5 or 6 boats.

On the River Meuse

Quite an interesting assortment – an American from Hawaii, on his own in a large penichette style boat, a German couple, an unknown hire boat and a local Belgian with a large Dutch steel cruiser, a bit similar to us.

It was at the last lock we purchased our French Waterway licence, or Vignet.

It was a lot more expensive than I had expected.

Les Qyatre Chiminee

One can purchase a year licence for just over 400 Euro, so I thought our 6 to 8 weeks shouldn’t be too much.

However, a 1 month one cost 133 Euro and I had to buy 2 of these.

The 1 month Vignet

Entry into France was a bit of an anti-climax, with no apparent border or immigration formalities.

Flag etiquette

In accordance with maritime flag etiquette, I replaced the Belgian Courtesy flag with the French one.

So, 266 Euro lighter, we were in France and were tied up in Givet just after 15.00 hours.

Givet Capitainerie

Not sure why but I had expected Givet to be much bigger.

It was ever so tiny.

But it was a cute and attractive little town.

The Capitainerie was a very friendly French lady who spoke no English at all.

However, we managed fine with our French.

Shangri La in Givet

The services (electricity and water) were good,
the ablutions were excellent and clean and tidy, and all for Euro 8.55 per night.

There was no wifi though.

We would have to get used to this lack of wifi at many of the towns.

Givet

We took a walk up to the town.

Not a lot going on here.

There was a small supermarket – a Carrefour – where we did a small shop up for provisions.

Givet

Next – into the canalized Meuse.