Auxerre to Bailly





Beginning of the trip this year on the Nivernais.  We had thought we would travel on the Bourgogne, but the work the VNF was doing on that canal is not finished.  It is closed until just after we come back in mid June.  The Nivernais is where we were last year and it is a lovely canal with several nice places to visit.

First one to visit after several locks is Bailly.  There is a cooperative there that was started in 1972.  They created a champagne type Cremant and become an appellation as in an area that is designated for a certain type of French wine.  We had a nice tour into the caves, which house six million bottles of wine.  The caves were dug to quarry limestone, which was used to build the many wonderful buildings in Paris and London.  It is called Bailly La Pierre.  

We walked into the town of Bailly and all the lilacs were blooming.  We saw a grebe type bird with a baby bird sitting on her back. A lovely day with warmer weather.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
 Juniper!  She is a previous hire boat that has been privately owned for quite some time.  She is 38 feet long, has two staterooms and two heads, a decent sized kitchen with refrigerator and stove.  Nice seating are in the main cabin, where you can also steer from in bad weather (view from inside).  Fans and air conditioner for hot days. She also has an upper deck where most of the steering is done, and a table and chairs up there for eating with a great view! Well equipped to go on the canals, at a reasonably easy pace of 5 knots.  She has been over a lot of canals; we were on several in 2019.  This year it will be the Nivernais; beginning and ending in Auxerre.   So glad we were able to buy a 1/3 share to join our partners in 2019 and get our licenses.  This is a great way to travel and see the out of the way places in France.  
Read more

Tannay pictures

Image
  Duex Chevoux Citreon from early 1960s. Restored sports car Restored sports car, owner and friend. Gerald Demuth Coteaux de Tannay Bring in the Chardonnay  WWI/WWII memorial and the Church  View from the top of the hill Street of winery and proprietor.  Old implements for corking the wine.
Read more

Travelling the countryside

We managed to get a rental car, even though Enterprise said that they don't rent for the same day you call in, it worked!  Bill rode the bus into Auxerre to pick up a snazzy looking Citreon, 6 speed. Ann, Bill and I left to go to Sancerre, a wine town overlooking the Loire Valley that Bill and his brother, Tom, had visited in 2019.  We drove through many fields of pure yellow, which we later figured out was grown for canola oil.  It was amazing how vast the fields were and the contrast to the hay being grown, and the wine grapes not quite in leafed out. The spring colors have been impressive with more trees leafing out every day.  It is not long after you leave a town that you are seeing these vast fields. We stopped and looked at an old windmill along the way. We were intrigued by a Fort in the town of Druyes-les-Belles-Fontaines.  So, we parked the car and hiked up the hill to explore it and see the view.  The Chateau-Fort Des Comtes de Auxerre was impressive and had a community
Read more