Category: French Boat

Overview

The Canal du Rhône au Rhin is a 237 km long canal that connects the Rhone River with the Rhine River. It is one of the popular routes for boats transiting from the Mediterranean Sea to the North Sea. We saw numerous sailboats on the canal that were transiting. We spent a couple weeks this past July travelling the length of the canal.

From west to east the canal starts on the Saône river just north of our home base of St-Jean-de-Losne, heading east-northeast to finally terminate about 13 km from the Rhine in the city of Mulhouse. To enter the Rhine you have to take the short Huningue Canal to the Niffer lock.

Locking up… from the Saône to Montreaux-Chateau

Leaving the Saône just north of our home port of St-Jean-de-Losne the canal rises through 75 locks to top out 175 km later and 160m higher in the little town of Montreaux-Chateau. For this part to of the canal lock operation is “automatic” with the use of remote that was given to us at the first lock entering the canal from the Saône.

Our itenary for this section:

From	To	Dist (Km)	# Locks	Time (Hrs)
St-Jean	Dole	21	7	4.5
Dole	Ranchon	20	7	4.5
Ranchon	Besancon	35	11	8.2
Besancon	Fourbanne	29	8	5.9
Fourbanne	L’Isle-sur-le-Doubs	37	15	7.9
L’Isle	Montbeliard	24	12	5.3
Montbeliard	Montreaux	22	12	4.9

Dole

The three day cruise from St Jean to Besancon has become one our favorite short trips for visiting friends. Dole is a lovely town with an the city mooring is near the city center.

And you can’t miss the Pasteur museum (Louis was born here and they are very proud of the fact).

From the Saône to Dole is almost entirely in the canal and there is one ~5Km stretch through an “industrial zone” (a chemical plant of some kind). But there are some very pretty parts and the section as you leave Dole is particularly attractive.

Besancon

The approach to the city of Besancon is one of the most dramatic on the entire French canal system. The view of “The Citadel” from the river is amazing. The stretch from Dole to Besancon is mostly in the Doubs, the river that supplies most of the water for the canal.

Besancon has a long storied past reaching back to the Roman era and there are Roman ruins scattered throughout the city. You have the choice on entering Besancon of taking the tunnel under the Citadel or staying in the river and doing La Boucle around the old city.

The walk up to the Citadel is steep but the views are amazing. The Citadel (designed by Vauban in 1684) is now a museum and zoo and definitely worth a visit.

Montbellaird

Three or four days of cruising brings you to the next major stop on the canal, Montbeliard (though there are several lovely little towns on the way). This is also where you have to contact the VNF if you are continuing east.

Montbeliard is a big city with great restaurants and excellent train service (for visiting guests). There is really lovely park near the marina and the city center is a short walk away. And the walk into town takes you right past the Musée du Château des Ducs de Wurtemberg.

Montreux-Chateau

One easy day from Montbeliard takes you to the top of the Canal, 160 meters above the Saône. Leaving Montbelliard you pass through the industrial town of Sochaux. And just past Sochaux you pass over the Allan river on a canal bridge.

There is not a lot in Montreaux (not even the ruins of a chateau, just a hill where it used to be) but it is a good place to rest up for the lock chains to come.

Locking Down to Mulhouse

We started the day from Montreau by dropping off our lock remote at the first lock of the day (#2) and meeting our itinerant lock-keeper. From here to Mulhouse (34 KM) all 37 locks are manually operated by a VNF eclusier who accompanies you all day.

From	To	Dist (Km)	# Locks	Time (Hrs)
Montreux	Dannemarie	10	15	4.0
Dannemarie	Mulhouse	23	23	7.0

The first 10 locks are all in 2 Km before they start to spread out a bit. We were told when we arrived in Dannemarie that we would have to wait a day to proceed as they were “full”. Since each boat (or two boats travelling together) requires a lock-keeper, they can only handle so many boats a day.

Fortunately Dannemarie has a few restaurants and a decent supermarket and we lucked into a free concert on the canal.

Mulhouse and the Rhine

Another long day of locking with a friendly lock-keeper and you arrive in the city of Mulhouse. The locks are spaced a bit farther apart and there is one swing bridge.

Mulhouse has a great old downtown area, lots of shopping and the national auto museum of France (a must see). And, as usual, the city marina is right in the middle of the old city.

To reach the Rhine river from Mulhouse is an easy 13 Km on the Canal de Huningue where it joins the Grand Canal d’Alsace (the canalized Rhine River). No time this year to go further but next year we plan on a grand loop that will take us from Mulhouse up to Strasbourg.

Alaskans!

Whenever one of their children graduates from high school my niece Danielle and her husband Perry take them on a European tour. This year it was Abel’s turn. In addition to Scotland, Spain and Greece they carved out a week on Decize.

They arrived a day late (thank you EasyJet!) and we took them out to one of our favorite restaurants in St Jean, Bistrot La Cotinière.

Cruising to Dole

The next day we headed out on one of hour favorite short routes, SJL to Besançon. First stop…. Dole.

After a warm day seeing the sights in Dole we had dinner at Demi-Lune where Perry and Abel did battle with a serious fondue.

Then on to Ranchot, a tiny little town on the way to Besancon.

We arrived in Ranchon and, after mooring and walking around a bit, set up for a picnic dinner on the side of the canal.

On to Besançon

Then on to one of our favorite cities in France, Besançon (birthplace of Victor Hugo). After a long day of cruising in and out of the Doubs we entered La Boucle de Besançon (the part of the river that circles the city).

We spend our day here visiting the Citadel, the Museum of Time and the Victor Hugo museum…. and drinking.

And before we knew it the week was over and were walking our friends to the train station.

Winding our way back

We delayed our return from Turkey, staying a day in Dijon and then getting an AirBnB in St Jean for a couple of nights to give the H2O workshop a bit more time to finish up the work they were doing.

In Dijon we stayed at our favorite hotel (ibis Styles Dijon Central). In St Jean our favorite place to stay (Les Charmilles) was booked so we tried a new place (La Marina). It was right on the river with views and a ful kitchen which was nice.

Covid!

But.. as we were moving back onto the boat I started feeling a bit off Friday (June 19) and by Sunday was sure I was sick. Got some Covid tests from the pharmacy and confirmed that, yes, after four years, I finally managed to catch Covid-19. Felt like a moderately bad flu.

Gray and back…

After of week I finally tested negative and we set out on a little shakedown cruise ahead of the arrival of our second set of guests of the season (my niece Danielle, her husband Perry and their recently graduation son, Abel). We headed up the Saone toward Gray.

We have had a lot of rain this summer and the Saone is running much faster than normal and is up quite a bit. The Canal du Nivernais (which we had planned to do this year) is closed and looks to be that way for a while.

We had planned to stay a few days in Gray but got to talking with another boater (Peter, from England) and he suspected the dock we were at would be flooded in the next few days so we headed back south to St Jean to get the boat ready for our guests.

Sure enough… the docks in Gray were flooded the next day so we made a good call.

Barges and Hotels

In the “Grande Saone”, from our home port of St-Jean-de-Losne to Lyon where the Saone joins the Rhone, there is commercial traffic. The four locks in this portion of the Saone (covering 215 km) are big. Really big: 190 meters (620 feet) long by 12 meters (39 feet) wide. They can comfortably fit 25-30 boats the size of Decize.

We will typically see one or two of these guys every day. It gets really exciting when you have to follow one into the lock (yes, we will sometimes follow one of these into a lock – sometimes with more than one pleasure boat).

We also see hotel barges from the Rhone that make it all the way up to St Jean.

There is usually no problem being on the river with these bigger boats. They move quite a bit faster than us but you geet used to looking back every so often to make sure one isn’t coming up from behind. This guy passed us as we headed out of Chalon-sur-Saone this morning:

Saint Jean de Losne

We arrived in Saint Jean to find Decize in her usual spring spot…. the shipyard.

Seven days later we have decided to cast off tomorrow morning. Some projects are done… others not so much.

The electrician Thomas, with an able assist from the captain, got us current with our electrical systems… check: done.

We were pleased to see new upholstery in the salon. Check: done.

But, we seem to be missing one of the new mattresses.

And no curtains. Oops. So we made do with some window film to give ourselves a little privacy.

The swans have inspected Decize and deemed her seaworthy.

Ahoy! Anchors aweigh.

Auxonne for lunch

The season is starting to wind down (though you wouldn’t know if from the number of hire boats still on the canals!) so, after our meeting with Phillippe, the shipyard manager, to discuss repairs/projects for the winter, we thought we would take one last little jaunt north.

We left St Jean September 1 (is it September already?) stopping for lunch in Auxonne.

We’ve had mixed experiences in Auxonne. The last few times we visited the main street had been torn up but they’ve finished the repairs and it is quite lovely now. We wandered into a creperie just off the main street for a nice quiet lunch.

On to Gray

We saw a very attentive captain keeping his helmsman in line as he passed through the last lock into Gray.

Strangely most cruisers stay on the south side of Gray, which is neared the city center, but also less pretty and noisy than where we like to moor, just north of the city.

We took a day in Gray to stock up on supplies and look around. We found a little artists shop and bought a piece of painted glass from a very nice artist.

We walked to the local supermarché for supplies and spotted some authentic looking Mexican food…”Le Kit”.

Being just north of the city it was easy to get into the countryside for a short run. Unfortunately I am running by myself these days as Roberta has tendonitis in her knee.

On the way back south we stopped at what has become one of our favorite spots north of St Jean, Pontailler-sur-Saône, a picturesque french village with a great restaurant near the river.

And one final night on the river before heading back to St Jean…

Heading Home

We left Lyon while Burgundy was in the middle of “une canicule” (heat wave) or, as we Texans like to call it… summer. The 10 day forecast for Lyon shows highs in the 90’s most days so, like finding a parking spot in Houston, shade became our primary focus and we broke out the little portable AC for the first time this summer. We use it at night to cool our berth and it works well for that but is much too small to cool the whole boat.

We had a little excitement in our first lock; a big barge, a little sailboat and us in a pouring rain.

Trevoux

Our first stop going north was Trevoux, where I took the opportunity to run up to the Chateau Fort de Trevoux. Built in the 14th century (1360) it was abandoned during the religious wars of the 16th century (when the Protestants and the Catholics spent 36 years slaughtering each other),

We stopped for martini night at a nice city mooring in Creche-sur-Saône,

before heading up the short side canal to Pont-de-Vaux . Because of the heat we elected a shady canal mooring rather than at the city dock . I did run into town the next morning.

Tournus

Next stop was Tournus, which is one of our favorite little towns on the Saône. We spent two nights here so we get hit the market for more fresh food. One strange thing is that, in a town of about 5,000 residents, along the main street, over 5 blocks, there are 11 hair salons. Eleven. And I might have missed one.

And in the “Grande Saône”, basically from St-Jean down to Lyon, there are quite a few big ships, commercial barges and hotel ships. It’s always exciting to come around a bend and see one of these big boys coming toward you.

Back in St-Jean-de-Losne

After a few more days of cruising, stopping in Chalon-sur-Saone…

and Verdun-sur-Doubs…

we arrived back in St Jean with a day to get ready for our meeting with the shipyard manager to discuss boat projects for the winter. I’d rather be cruising…

South on the Saône

After leaving La Sielle and rejoining the Saône we continued south to Lyon, where the Saône joins the Rhône. We have now cruised all 400+ navigable kilometers of the Saône, from the little town of Core in the north to Lyon, the third largest city in France.

We had planned to overnight in Trevoux, but the dock looked crowded so we continued on and found a small restaurant dock which had the added convenience of providing dinner.

We went for a short run the next morning and discovered an interesting record of the flood levels on the river.

Lyon

We were a little worried about boat traffic cruising into Lyon but, except for the occasional tourist boat and one or two big barges, we saw little traffic.

And our worries about room at the city marina were unfounded. They limit stays to four nights so there are no long-term cruisers and plenty of spots. Also some of the best showers on the entire river.

And yes, it was laundry day. And we had entertainment in the evening provided by some locals…

We stayed four nights, doing laundry, shopping and visiting the sites. My favorite was the Roman amphitheaters on the hill above Lyon. Lyon was settled as a Roman city named Lugdunum after Caesar conquered Gaul (50BC or so).

Besides the ruins of two amphitheaters (one could hold 10,000 people and the other about 3,000) there is a very nice museum with all the Roman artifacts discovered in the area….. and there are a lot

The Rhône

And we could not leave Lyon without at least entering the Rhône so, the morning we left we motored the 1-2km from the marina to the confluence of the two rivers. In the picture below the bridge on the left is over the Saône and the one on the right is over the Rhône. This is looking north to Lyon.

And with that we turn around and head back north….. and you never know what you might see on the river…

La Seille

The Seille is a small tributary of the Saone that is navigable up to the town of Louhans. There are four locks on the Seille, the first one (La Truchere) is manned by a lock keeper but the other three are manual locks that have to be operated by the passing boats.

We stopped in Cuissery our first night on the Sielle. Cuissery is one of the four designated “book towns” in France and there are some amazing bookstores here.

Louhans

Louhans is a pretty town that has a huge market on Monday. People come from miles around (and the traffic shows it).

And they have live animals at this market and we saw several people going home with chickens.

But some of us stuck with more traditional fare.