This was the view from our boat this morning, no one could explain the tepee or the Indian canoe on the far bank, and island between the canal and the river.
Today was another morning excursion this time firstly to a vineyard or lots of vineyards, we drove up into the forest overlooking the Valley to see all the Vines
and then went down into the town, walking through the narrow ally ways to the Old Monastery where the original wine was made by the monks many years ago.
The wine is still pressed in the same way it always has been with the same press, and stored in oak barrels in the same cellars the Monks used. One thing that has
| changed is that they now use screw tops on all their wines as they find them much more
| reliable than corks. own screw tops to keep |
They have what is effect a library of all their old wins, stored away so that they can compare back to years past and how they have aged.
It was then time for the wine tasting, and I must say this is the best tasting event I have ever attended. We had 5 different white wines, all from the same area and they all tasted different to each other, depending from which side of the valley the grapes were grown and how high up for the different soils, these were all the same variety of grape. Even I could detect the difference.
After the wine tasting we had a three course meal at the Monastery with even more wine. I was expecting a snack type lunch, like I have had at some other wineries, but no, this was the proper job. The do cater for weddings and special events and this is not in their normal wine tasting sessions but specifically for European Waterways.
After lunch we returned to the boat to continue our journey upstream. On our way back to the minibus we passed this church doorway, you will note its covered with horse shoes, but unlike in the UK where we mount them to keep the luck in, they mount them so the luck drains out into the area. The plan was to go to La Saussois but we carried on to Merry-sur-Yonne to moor for the night.
I think this was the spot where we were supposed to moor for the night, where the canal section runs into the river with a very long training wall for deep navigation, by deep I mean almost a meter and a half, we could see the bottom most of the time, The rivers we bypassed where less than 300mm all the way across from bank to bank.
The first lock we came to that had a statue of a naked lady holding a dove I can’t find any information about her, the lock house is again decorated to include a fixed metal rod.
As well as two boat full’s of young people enjoying the water on a very hot afternoon we also passed a heard of cows making the best of it..
There was a rather fine chateau standing on the hill top, bit of a contrast to the modern bridge with a tractor going over it
