Monday 10th September 2007
Decided to drive to Auxerre today a city of art and history, which has managed to protect its exceptional heritage throughout the years.
We checked out the route, which would take us via Bleneau, St-Fargeau and Toucy. Having previously visited the first two villages we decided to stop at Toucy to have a look around and of course for our morning coffee. (We found out that if you drank your coffee at the bar it’s cheaper than sitting down inside and much cheaper than if you sit outside on the terrace. Which could just mean at a table, which is on the pavement outside the café!)
We were going to sit outside as the café was full of cigarette smoke but then moved inside because it was too sunny.
Toucy is an old town, much like them all around this area, with a great church of Saint- Pierre (12-16thC), overlooking the streets below which were narrow and cobbled with (16th-17thC) timber framed houses either side and the usual water drainage gutter running down the middle of the road. This town dates back to the 3rd century. We spent about an hour walking around Toucy taking some photos before heading off to Auxerre another 35klms away.
Very little traffic on the roads even though we were now driving on the better ones. Not having driven at night as yet,we have noticed there are no cat eyes anywhere to be seen and no red or white reflectors on the sides of the road. There also does not appear to be much street lighting about either. No doubt we will find out more about all this when we venture out at night in the car.
On to Auxerre. After having a banquette of ham & cheese we found the tourist bureau down on the riverbank of the Yonne. A wide river with many barges, pleasure boats and river cruise vessels. We picked up a booklet to ‘Follow the Thread of History in Auxerre.’ This detailed a very easy way to walk around the cobbled streets, following a yellow line with stop off points to look at interesting buildings etc with the booklet giving us all the details. (Check out the website) We went into two of the five churches The Catherdrale St-Etienne being the most beautiful.
The drive home was easy and a pleasure as there was very little traffic.
On our way back through Rogny we stopped off to catch up with Englishman that we had met before on our travels. We saw his barge the Jubilant so went over and introduced ourselves to David and his wife Juliet. A 38 metre converted bulk grain carrier turned out to be a very well appointed and comfortable way to travel the canals in one of their 6 en-suite cabins. They were on their way up to Montagis and then to Brussels where they will lay up the barge for the winter.
Time to go to bed and make sure that we are ready tomorrow morning and that we have the kitten in its carry box ready for when Elizabeth picks us up to drive to Paris for the day.
Decided to drive to Auxerre today a city of art and history, which has managed to protect its exceptional heritage throughout the years.
We checked out the route, which would take us via Bleneau, St-Fargeau and Toucy. Having previously visited the first two villages we decided to stop at Toucy to have a look around and of course for our morning coffee. (We found out that if you drank your coffee at the bar it’s cheaper than sitting down inside and much cheaper than if you sit outside on the terrace. Which could just mean at a table, which is on the pavement outside the café!)
We were going to sit outside as the café was full of cigarette smoke but then moved inside because it was too sunny.
Toucy is an old town, much like them all around this area, with a great church of Saint- Pierre (12-16thC), overlooking the streets below which were narrow and cobbled with (16th-17thC) timber framed houses either side and the usual water drainage gutter running down the middle of the road. This town dates back to the 3rd century. We spent about an hour walking around Toucy taking some photos before heading off to Auxerre another 35klms away.
Very little traffic on the roads even though we were now driving on the better ones. Not having driven at night as yet,we have noticed there are no cat eyes anywhere to be seen and no red or white reflectors on the sides of the road. There also does not appear to be much street lighting about either. No doubt we will find out more about all this when we venture out at night in the car.
On to Auxerre. After having a banquette of ham & cheese we found the tourist bureau down on the riverbank of the Yonne. A wide river with many barges, pleasure boats and river cruise vessels. We picked up a booklet to ‘Follow the Thread of History in Auxerre.’ This detailed a very easy way to walk around the cobbled streets, following a yellow line with stop off points to look at interesting buildings etc with the booklet giving us all the details. (Check out the website) We went into two of the five churches The Catherdrale St-Etienne being the most beautiful.
The drive home was easy and a pleasure as there was very little traffic.
On our way back through Rogny we stopped off to catch up with Englishman that we had met before on our travels. We saw his barge the Jubilant so went over and introduced ourselves to David and his wife Juliet. A 38 metre converted bulk grain carrier turned out to be a very well appointed and comfortable way to travel the canals in one of their 6 en-suite cabins. They were on their way up to Montagis and then to Brussels where they will lay up the barge for the winter.
Time to go to bed and make sure that we are ready tomorrow morning and that we have the kitten in its carry box ready for when Elizabeth picks us up to drive to Paris for the day.
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