2024 September: Driving with the Big Boys

What a trip, seriously! We started from our harbor in Kehl on June 15th, and in 70 days, we stayed in 38 different harbors. I drove through 312 locks while Lutz went up and down the steps to manage the ropes. I did have Lutz drive into one lock so that I could renew his license. Temperatures ranged from 25C to 38C (80-100F), with a few days of rain and thunderstorms. I felt like I was on the Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland. The map shows you our course. Our home harbor is across from Strasbourg on the Rhein River. Basically, we made a huge circle heading west along the green marker path.

We left Kehl and crossed the Rhein to Strassbourg on the Canal de Marne ou Rhin toward Nancy, then south on the Canal de Vosges (the Wild Pig Canal), or what I have renamed the “Canal From Hell.” This canal parallels the Moselle. After the Canal from Hell, we finally entered the Saône River. Now, that was enjoyable. Then, we merged on the Canal du Rhône au Rhin. Our final waterway to home was the Rhein River, which led back to our Kehl harbor. This last ride was a wonderful stretch of wide, clear water and perfect temperature, with a beautiful view of the Black Forest. Plus, since we were flowing downstream, we could keep up with the big boys to make the four locks home! Otherwise, we would have had to wait close to thirty or forty minutes for the locks.

In August’s post, I shared how The Black Pearl needed repair, and we took off alone slowly in hopes they would catch up with us. We hit some rather interesting spots for one-night stands, and no matter where we stayed, Lutz always found his morning baguette! This machine was in the village of Scey-s-Saône the day we headed out.

That night, we scored big. Only one restaurant was open—a gas station turned pizza cafe. Why not? Heck, we bought bread from a machine! Lutz scored. It was snail-covered Pizza, the only place we’ve seen snails on the menu since we left Niderviller.

We visited several small towns and stayed one to two nights, driving slowly, still waiting for our friends to catch up. The sad part about this summer tour is the forgotten towns. The rivers and canals in the 1800’s were hopping places, industry, exporting, and importing by barge. They have declined slowly since trains, planes, and Amazon took over.

Some are trying to make comebacks as cute port towns, but there is so much to repair, and young people do not want to live in these forgotten locations. But history remains; even Neapolian was there!

It was common to see a street with small shops on either side that led you to the center of town.

Today, this street has over 20 businesses, but only three operate. The rest were for sale or boarded up.

Some of the towns we visited had beautiful old mansions.

You’d think no one lived there, but then bam! The flowers in the yard were cared for, so someone was home.

We always tried to stay active and rode our bikes to local ruins like the Roman wash halls, which were prevalent in most old towns.

Or we’d walk up a hill to check out a château like Le Château de Ray-sur-Saône.

It was lit up at night. The picture is not the best—it was taken from the back of our boat—but you get the idea!

We hit a few more tunnels along the way.

Several low bridges

Also, bridges with heavy loads!

In Gray, we got lucky and were harbored right next to a street fair and live music.

It even included an Onion Peeling contest in honor of their French Onion Soup!

Before we left this Sâone River south of Auxonne, we even took a refreshing dip to cool off. 

Swimming in most of the canals was unthinkable. They are very dirty and filled with plants. 

Things started looking up as we left the Saône and entered the Rhône au Rhin/Doubs River! 

We anchored in Dôle, and I must say that it was my favorite place we visited this season.

Maybe because it is the birthplace of Louis Pasteur! 

Of course, we visited the Pasteur Museum. This picture of his home on the small canal in town was taken years ago.

It is now a museum; this is a picture of the same location today!

The town still has a small waterway that was vital to the tanning business at the time. Pasteur’s father was a tanner.

Today, the street is lined with cafes and beautiful flowers. It’s really a sight to see.

The streets have little alleyways and cool shops and specialty markets.

I loved their open market in a unique building next to the church. It sold fresh cheeses, fruits, veggies, meats, seafood, plants, and snacks!

Plus, the Roman ruins are preserved.

And cared for.

I loved the sunscreen shades of this home.

Many homes were built on Roman ruins or the old city walls.

The walking path through the town has small cat decals embedded in the sidewalks that take you on a city tour. The cat is used because the author, De Marcel, lived in Dôle and wrote the children’s book Le Chat.

Our friends Dagmar and Peter arrived in Dole four days later! Peter’s son-in-law and his two beautiful girls joined them somewhere along their path.

We celebrated their arrival and our departure with a lovely dinner out. We decided to head out slowly while our friends visited Dôle and entertained their company. They caught up and spent a night, then turned around to take their guest back to their car. That was the end of our travels with the Black Pearl. They wanted to go further south and had plans for friends to join them. 

The Rhône is a beautiful canal, and the scenery is amazing.

The cliffs are so dramatic, and the views are unreal at times.

Of course, another tunnel. But this one had a light show, 

and a waterfall goes on at the end! (sorry about the quality)

Our last tunnel was a lock as well and took us to Besançon. The lockkeeper loved the name of our boat, so we gave him a Corona beer to remind him of the Virus! 

This town was such a cool place and worth the visit. It is kind of an island with the oldest Citadel in France and a UNESCO location. The tunnel is at the thin neck of the island. We entered from the right and came out on the left side of the island, just before the third bridge.

Of course, a city tour was in order, dropping you at the Citadel and returning every hour. Plus, the Citadel stands on the highest hill in the city, and I was sure not going to try to ride my bike up to it. It was steep!

What a view! Our boat is somewhere to the right of the second set of trees.

The view from our boat didn’t look like it was that high! But I’m still not walking up there. The tram took us along special sites we later returned to.

We enjoyed visiting the museums in town, such as the Victor Hugo Museum and the Museum of Art. The latter was a unique building that took you through the dinosaur period, Roman times, and twentieth-century art.

We also took a tour of the Museum of Time, which had an exhibition of LIP Watch History.

It was time to take off. The heat was unbearable at times, and it also caused the plants in the canals to grow. I had to power backward several times to get it off our rutter.

This part of the canal would become narrow and open to small lakes surrounded by beautiful cliffs. The locks would also be farther apart, so you could enjoy the ride.

The bridges were very low, and most days, we had to drive with the top down in 100-degree weather. My poor skin! We even went through several draw bridges.

Another city we enjoyed was Montbéliard —it has lots of history about France and Germany. An interesting note: the Comté Cheese has to come from a Montbéliard cow!

We hit up the Tourist office and discovered a walking town tour.

The harbor was a great location, and bike riding to stay cool was in order. We had sunscreens from front to back on poor Virus.

Along the canal was a huge park with many trees and bike paths. But you had to share them with the ducks.

We rode our bikes to the Peugeot Auto Museum, and I learned a lot. 

Not only did Peugeot make automobiles, but he also had his hands in kitchen appliances like coffee grinders, blenders, stoves,

motorbikes, and bicycles…the whole tamale.

It was time to start our descent down the Vosges mountains. We had to have reservations and an escort since the locks were manual! All this work for just the two of us.

We made 18 locks and 25k in the heat on our first day, working for six hours! Enlarge the picture, and you can see several locks waiting to take us down.

We made it to Dannemarie and celebrated our success with dinner out! Plus, it was too hot to cook!

Our reserved crew showed up the next day to continue our escort to the next town. It was the same procedure as yesterday! But this time, we had company. Two boats went down at a time, and we went first. Going down in a lock is a breeze. The water goes out and does not rush in like a flood!

Our next stop was Mulhouse. And guess what Lutz found? Another car museum. I think Auto engineers smell them! This museum is the National Automobile Museum of France. The museum displays the collector Schlumpf’s cars, mainly Bugattis and over 600 old-timers.

It was a must for sure. I found my car at the end of the tour!

Oh yeah, there was another surprise when we finished our tour. Lutz found a Train Museum 15 minutes away by bike.

When we returned to the boat that day, Monica and Matthais, whom we had met early in our travels, parked next to us. We took off that evening for a sushi dinner together. It was so nice to meet up again and spend some time talking English! Monica and Matthias live in Switzerland. Monica is from New Zealand, and we just chatted away while the guys rattled on in German.

We also had a great visit with my dear friends Gaby and Erich. They were on their way home from camping and stopped by for dinner on the boat.

And we made individual Flammkucken on the grill!

And, of course, a huge salad with homemade gluten-free croutons!

It’s always so fun to get together. Gaby and Erich help me with my German, and I help Gaby with her English. But we spend most of the time laughing and sharing happy times!

The next day, it was time for the long stretch home to Kehl, which was the best part of the trip for me. We entered the huge lock that opened to the wide Rhein River heading downstream. So our 8km per hour turned 20km, and we could keep up with the big boys. There was plenty of room for us all.

Four locks and seven hours with a cool breeze and the top-up! What a great trip this year! It is considered a “classic” tour for boaters. But I’m still not doing it again. There are too many locks and sad towns. We have some ideas for traveling next year without Virus! Stay tuned to see how we might discover this beautiful world in a new way. Thanks for reading my post. See you next month right here at the Cook’nCoach!

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