On a beautiful sunny day in the last week of March we left Strasbourg to travel back along the Marne au Rhin canal to Nancy. Ryan was catching the Eurostar from London and meeting us in Nancy for Easter.
The European Parliament was shown to full advantage from the waterways.
Our first night was spent at Hochfelden and we were treated to an amazing sunset.
The next day we headed upstream to the Artzviller lift. We arrived after 2 days cruising - this took us 4 weeks on our initial cruise but, to be fair, we did stay 3 weeks in Saverne.
After spending the night in the peaceful location we contacted the lift operator to move us up the hill in the bucket
And we get this amazing view. But the adventure isn't over - we still have 2 tunnels to go through before we can relax.
While it was only a few hours of cruising we decided to stay the night in Niderviller to go to Restaurant M. I had already checked that it was open for lunch as it was well over 1 km walk from the mooring. On arriving we were told that the restaurant was fully booked but Kevin managed to convince them that we would be quick and we would eat on the verandah. For such a small town it is a great restaurant and the fact that it was full on a Wednesday lunch is testament to that. The restaurant overlooks the kiln of the old earthenware factory and the shop sells all sorts of crockery
This was the dessert on the menu du jour with 3 courses for just €13.50
As we had already travelled along this canal we endeavoured to stop at places we hadn't stayed at last time. So this time we decided to stay at Lagarde, which we avoided last time due to the number of flies and the pungent aroma of either silage or cow manure. Both were missing on this occasions, thankfully. And then the next night we stopped at Etang de Parroy. As it was so early in the season there were very few other boats cruising so we had this magical location to ourselves.
These views were early morning just after the mist had cleared.
These views were early morning just after the mist had cleared.
Quite quickly we arrived in Nancy, almost a week earlier than planned, so we decided to head on to Toul for a week. We much prefer Toul marina over Nancy. This would mean that we would need to catch a bus to Nanacy to meet Ryan and then cruise from Toul back to Nancy. This would give Ryan the opportunity to experience cruising in the canals and up and down locks, and also to experience some of the peaceful landscapes that abound on the French canals.
View from the old medieval town of Liverdun. Also home to a great little Madeleine bakery Veritable Madeleine's
Next stop Nancy and a chance to revisit the medieval town and Place Stanislas.
The fun fair was also in town and changed the skyline somewhat
Ryan enjoyed his long weekend on the canals - it inspired him to write his own Blog, and it was great to spend some time with him
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