Barging in France – River Saone – Chalon-sur-Saone

Thursday it rained all day. Fortunately we were heading downstream, and there were no locks to negotiate, so we made good speed and arrived in Chalon-sur-Saone after about 2 hours, around lunchtime.

River Saone in the rain

There was plenty of space to tie up. For some reason the capitainerie was closed (we found out he had taken the day off) but we could connect up to electricity.
A short while before we arrived, the boat windscreen wipers stopped working. Most inconvenient! I never found out what was wrong, as the next day they worked again. Intermittent electricsl problems are a nightmare.
Also, the forward starboard saloon window was still leaking, although having been removed and an attempt to seal it up made.
We took a walk up to the town, found the Tourist Office, and a Moniprix. This store/supermarket has become one of our favourites, and we are often pleasantly surprised by the veg/vegan items available there. and their in store cafe has soya milk. So we had a coffee out of the rain, and used the free wifi to catch up on communications.

Eating out in Chalon-sur-Saone

We even located a vegetarian/vegan restaurant, La Pierre Vive, which turned out to be a lunchtime only place and decided to try it the next day.
Friday – still raining. Good reminder why we don’t usually boat this late in the year.
Capitainerie open now. And he only charged us for the days he was here. We did get the wifi code, but again this was not much use.
The marina itself was not bad, not too far from the town centre. I am sure it is lovely in summer.
I think we will be back here next year, so also decided to defer doing the usual self guided town walk.
We did find the bricolage (DIY hardware shop) and bouhgt some more duct tape to seal up the window, and a new large re-chargeable torch. The old one doesn’t hold it’s charge anymore.
As planned, we tried the restaurant La Pierre Vive. A very enjoyable vegan buffet lunch, if a bit on the pricey side at Euro 14. And we couldn’t resist a pichet each of house red wine.

Some funny things happen to boats – at the marina slipway a small boat had fallen off it’s trailer and a local crane was busy getting ready to lift it up. Can’t imaging how that happened?

Our cycling/hitching acauaintance left to go and stay with someone else, and we had another lazy afternoon and evening on board.

Next – day trip to Lyon.