Since reaching the rivers Saone and Rhone life has got considerably easier.  We left St Jean de Losne on the 22nd August and followed the Saone down to its junction with the Rhone at Lyon, arriving three days later on the 24th August. The Saone is very like the upper Thames from Oxford to Windsor, except it goes on for much longer – we travelled over a hundred miles of it.  After the canals it was a real treat to find marinas and proper quaysides and pontoons for leisure boats to tie up at and real towns and cities with shops and restaurants that were actually open.  The locks were much fewer and much of the time Sue and I took turns at the helm while the other sunbathed in the generally warm and sunny weather.  Much of the time I lay on the foredeck taking snaps or looking at Swans, Herons or Egrets through the binoculars. As we flowed down towards Lyon we passed through increasingly affluent countryside, smart villas and villages and the occasional riverside r...

Well, St Jean de Losne actually.  A small town on the River Saone about 25 miles South East of Dijon.  It isn’t in the “Rough Guide to France” and I would guess most French people haven’t heard of it either.  But, to the waterways community it’s a major centre close to the junction of a number of rivers and canals which stretch across Europe.  It’s a place where working barges come to die, rusting in the docks here and where Brits and other eccentrics trade pleasure boats of all shapes and sizes.  We’re resting up in the marina here after an exhausting trip from the channel ports. I’ve known in theory that France is much bigger than the UK since I started French lessons at school.  It’s one of those first things you learn – that the UK would fit into France “x” times, though it has a similar sized population.  However, travelling through the country from one end to the other at the pace of a slow jogger really rams home the practical reality – Fra...