Vincelles to Mailly-la-Ville

This morning we were up bright and breezy for 8 o'clock breakfast, the crew all wished Diana happy birthday, they must have picked it up from the booking form, then off in the mini bus back to Auxerre to visit the cathedral. All the streets are cobble which is not original, they ripped up.the tarmacadam a few years ago and laid them to go with the timber framed houses, which made walking rather uncomfortable.

Needless to say the cathedral was at the top of the hill, once close to it we spend some time looking at the exterior features and Mathew, out tour manager talked us through how they told the story of the Bible, starting at lower left and working up and to the right, also how they were disfigured in the religious wars with all faces and hands removed from the carvings . The decision has been made not to restore these to as new but keep them in the disfigured state.

Starting from the bottom left-hand corner the figurines describe the Old Testament and working up came into the New Testament. We went into the cathedral some of the paintwork is still visible on the walls especially where they removed an old confessionary. The roof is also painted just like all the walls were at one time.

The Cathedral is probably best know for its stained glass windows one of which is the Bible in pictures.

 

The old organ was removed and sold to be replaced by a more modern one and due to lack of space the pipes were mounted both vertical and horizontal, I have never seen another like it .

There is a small Old Church adjoining the right hand side of the cathedral that was the original small church on the site well before the cathedral was built. The tiny cube building.  

 

 

 

From here we walked into the centre of the old town where before leaving us, Mathew pointed out the old astronomical clock  mounted in the gate tower. This was fully restored during the Covid period. Its unusual as it has two large hands, one solar that does a full rotation of the face in 24 hours the other Lunar which rotates more slowly. He also pointed out a red British Telephone Box. This was a gift to Auxerre from Redlich which is their twinned town in Britain.

 

We were now free to go our own ways, to get a drink at one of the cafes and visit the loo.
There are some very old buildings as you can see by the roof line and the infill in the wood framing.

Mathew had given us a rendezvous point and time to meet him down by the river rather than retracing our steps to the carpark and spot on time he pulled into the layby right behind the public toilets. From here it was only about 20 minutes back to the boat for lunch.

   After lunch we set sail up the river and several short canal sections that cut off some of the river bends. Some of the old lock cottages are still lived in and well kept, one of them supporting some interesting drawing

One of the locks is notes as the iron work is painted pink and also has an old lift Bridge across the tail also with pink iron work, The story behind is that the last éclusiers to work here were a pair of lesbians and they painted it pink and so it has remained.

We passed this chap cooling his toes, I was expecting him to get his fishing tackle out, but no just sat and chilled on the edge of a weir.

The VNF are installing new weir controls very similar to the traditional system of paddles often used on rivers in the past, you can see one behind the chap in the picture above, but they now have an overhead gantry to draw them,

For our boating friends who know of the Shroppi Shelf, well its not a patch on over here where you have no chance getting ashore without a plank.

I mentioned earlier that today was Diana’s birthday, I thought about it and decided not to say a word but the boat crew picked up on it from the booking and at dinner we had a special desert.