Vitry la Francois

Seascapes Travel Log
Michael Grew
Fri 17 Jun 2011 19:29


Vitry la Francoise  17.06.2011  48:43:62N  04:35:66E
We left the mooring at 08:45hrs in bright sunshine but a chilly wind and motored the last 13 kilometres of the Canal du Marne to Vitry la Francoise. In all we had covered 222 kilometres on the Marne in 12 days and passed through 45 locks going up and 71 locks going down. When we arrived in the Port du Plaisance, we found there were several spaces available and we managed to moor up stern to without any problem. The lady Capitainerie was very helpful, chatty and amiable. One of the Brits off a cruiser told us that the canal we were originally thinking of travelling up instead of the Marne, the VNF were definitely going to close it this week through lack of water. Apparently they had already stopped some yachts from going up it. After lunch we went for a walk around the town, stopping for a while to watch a group of Frenchmen playing Boulles (Ptang) in the park. Some of the old boys (yes, older than us!) were very good and there was a strong competitive feel about the games. When we got back to the boat the berths were filling up rapidly by some very big cruisers, one very big one very nearly moored next to us which would have meant we would have had extreme difficulty in leaving the mooring and getting around his prow. Fortunately he went past us and stopped further down. It was our intention, this evening, to take the laptop up to McDonalds, have a meal and use their free WiFi facility. However at 19:00hrs it started raining hard so we delayed and ate on the boat. The weather improved after dinner so we walked up into town with the laptop and came across a cycle race around the town. Crickey they weren’t half going some. We were told that were going to keep up that pace for 52 laps!! We watched a few laps then walked on up to McDonalds.