Canal du Centre

Canal du Centre

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Familiar Ground

With the stop at Santenay we returned to some of our favorite cruising grounds. This was our third visit to the village in the Cote d’Or or Golden Hillside, home of some of Burgundy’s best wines and spectacular scenery. The tie up is very basic, just some bollards along a good deepwater bank with some picnic tables, but the setting is beautiful. There’s a great 8k bike ride up an abandoned railbed to the neighboring village of Nolay with it’s 14th century limestone roofed market. There are two well stocked wine coops in town where we always manage to spend too much, and a good restaurant, Le Terrior, that we’ve patronized every time we’ve been here.
The weather was perfect for the bike ride day, giving us great views of the Burgundian countryside.


When we’ve been here before, it was always later in the year and the hillsides were bright green with the vines in leaf. This year we’re much earlier and the vines have just begun to bud.


After our Friday night dinner out, Saturday morning saw us setting off for St. Leger sur Dheune just a couple of hours up the canal.
Underway, Tim and Christine were able to demonstrate their superior deckhand skills, although Tim looks a little distracted by the photographer, breaking his concentration.


Tim also got this great picture of Cathy Jo and Christine enjoying the day.

Last year we didn’t have a chance to fully develop our garden so we put some real effort into it this year. There’s a full herb garden on the “terrace” and geraniums, verbenia and lobelia scattered about. The rudder post also boasts the most photographed chicken in France. We call him Gerard in honor of the famous French actor whose portly profile is similar. Lookie loos, or gongoozlers, as the British call them, are constantly taking pictures of him when we’re in locks.







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