F or true gourmands who know their escargots and cuisses de grenouilles, the region of Burgundy has long been the place to go to tuck in their napkins. I love food. I love France. I love being on water. Surely there was a way to do a similar summer trip, but on a budget? We would eat like kings despite our pauper finances and limited kitchen facilities and try not to crash or sink. It proved fairly easy and our minute maiden voyage took us upriver to the nearby town of Louhans, where a short walk from the mooring was a cornucopia of food shops beneath the arches of its medieval arcades.
The next morning, waking to the quacking of ducks, we each emerged from the comfy beds of our own cabins why not, when it slept ten? By mid-morning we were used to our new life on the River Seille, the children untying the ropes, my husband and I taking it in turns to rev the engines and steer as we gently relaxed into the tranquillity of being on the water.
/data/as/sharp/stores/3/20240725_103301.jpg "Call girl Chalon-en-Champagne")
Now and again we saw a heron perched on low branches, the occasional blue dart of a kingfisher and fellow boat cruisers waving as we passed. Soon our hunger led us to moor up near a bankside picnic bench and tuck into the spoils of our shopping trip. Who needs Michelin stars? Sitting by the water under the shade of a tree felt as good as it gets.
While the children played in the swimming pool of the riverside campsite Les Bordes de Seille, I indulged my bookish nerdiness with a visit to a bookbinding shop, Espace Gutenberg, where the print-maker Jean Pelichet, all twinkling eyes and ebullient enthusiasm, demonstrated typesetting and printmaking. And on we went.
As the trip progressed, we got the hang of the locks. Manoeuvring a Our final stop was Saint-Jean-de-Losne, the capital of boating in Burgundy, and we rewarded ourselves at last with dinner out. It was all the local specialities I was never going to cook on a boat, and a final gastronomic hurrah. To order a copy go to timesbookshop. This slash of glacial turquoise water in the mountainous Haute-Savoie is the site of Yelloh!
