2015 European waterway trip – Canal de la Marne au Rhin – Part 2

On the Canal de la Marne au Rhin

Ligny to Bar-le-Duc.

The trip down to Bar-le-Duc was relatively painless.

A whole 15 kilometres with 16 locks(dropping 41 metres).

Lift bridges near Bar-le-Duc

Except for one occasion, the remote control worked ok.

Just before Bar-le-Duc there were a couple of lift bridges, but they opened for us.

Shangri La in Bar-le-Duc

The mooring there was right next to the railway station, but hardly a train came past.

As seems to be the norm in France, the spot is also for camper vans and there were several of them parked at the spot too.

It was more than adequate at 8 Euros a night. No wifi, as we had come to expect.

Bio Clair – organic produce

And you had to pay a refundable deposit of Euro 20 for the key to the ablutions, which were fine.

Bar-le-Duc was a much bigger and nicer place than we had expected, so decided to take a full rest day out.

Supermarket

There was apparently a fresh food market that day.

Big disappointment.

Only four stalls in a huge hall.

But right opposite we spotted an amazing shop – Bio Clair – loads of organic stuff and all sorts of the things we vegans like.

So a big shop up.

View across the town

The big supermarket chain ‘E Leclerc” had a huge store outside the town where we stocked up on other things like soy milk, which we were not often able to buy.

At the mooring we found an English self guided walking tour, and off we went.

Church in Bar-le-Duc

Quite a walk up the hill but it was worth it.

Usual lovely old buildings and wonderful views across the town.

It must have had good strategic value in the old days.

Wealthy part of town

At the top of the hill was the wealthy area.

Come lunchtime was the usual battle to find vegan or at least vegetarian food!

Haute Cuisine???

We did come across a Middle Eastern type cafe and ate a white bread salad sandwich and chips, with of course a pichet of wine.

About as close as we veggies get to Haute Cuisine in rural France.

Bicycle inventors’ statue

Bar-le-Duc is the home of Pierre and Ernest Michaux, apparently the inventors of the bicycle.

Bar-le-Duc

All in all we enjoyed our sojourn in Bar-le-Duc, ending the day sitting on our back deck with the usual glass of wine.

Now the lady harbour master is only there for half an hour in the morning and again in the evening.

Bar-le-Duc

But the next morning there was no sign of her for us to get our Euro 20 key deposit back.

We waited as long as possible, but had to get going.

So we kept the key and left a note, No one ever came back to us.

More on that later.

For a completely different perspective on our travels, have a read of Karen’s blog

Next – on to Vitry-le-Francois.