Wednesday is marche day in Mailly La Ville. We strolled up the lane into the town square with keen anticipation but inevitably delayed by Duck and swan feeding by the much ooohing crew.
Looking back down the quay, I was just pleased to be here
This was surely the smallest market in France. It consisted of 3 stalls and one of these was a sad young man who displayed 3 half sized baguettes, 4 cakes and some maginificent gougeres. That was the first purchase sorted. The fruit stall was a lovely display of freshness and more purchases were made.
The rather incongruess huge array of tatty cheap clothes at the final stall was overseen by a well fed lady worryingly choosing thick tights to wear on this 82 degree morning. Her face spoke a thousand un uttered words. Buy something Please just buy something. A 5euro t shirt was added to the days swagger. I left the now beaming and a touch sweaty lady feeling good with myself as we headed for the boucherie pondering on just how many sales she would make in this tiny sleepy little french village every wednesday. More evidence of the idiosyncracies of the French economy.
The boucherie was straight out of the movies. The sweet old lady who had almost certainly already ordered her plot and stone meticulously removed any trace of fat from my entrecote before the weighing and pricing. This I liked! I added a fillet mignon of porc and merguez and chipolatas to the order. She opened what looked like a larder door. Beyond was a huge dark vault. Like so much in France, there was more to this shop than met the eye on entry.
With the Boulangerie another victim of the rural recession, the bread depot was last night mini market shop. We had purchased at every shop and at every stall of the market. Nice one! This place had bundles of appeal.
With swagger stashed, we slipped lines mid morning and approached the first lock of the day under the watchful gaze of this marble beauty. A very nice entrance!
The beautifully presented locks became a feature of todays journey,
Through Mailly le Chateau where we had picnic`d with Mum eons ago. The canal provided a very different view of the domineering chateau which gave the town its name
After a run which gave the fabulous zorn valley in alsace a run for its money in the "most beautiful leg" charts, we cruised under the 50m high limestone cliffs of Rochers de Saussois. A world famous spot for rock climbing training. A stunning `amorage` for the night.
Eric and Jill rafted alongside and set off on bikes in search of a pharmacist. This would surely be no problem in France where they clearly have a massive hypochondriac issue with decent size towns offering at least 3 pharmacy stores despite not having a boulangerie. The french "exception".
We donned hiking boots and set off in the footsteps of Hillary and Tensing. The rock shapes were fantastic and this heart shaped hole was just too tempting for one romantic old fool who scurried up to shout to the world his love for his crew.
Sadly, this bravado was not well rewarded. 6 gnat bites would be a bugger later.
Another formation bore a striking resemblance to a chum recently celebrating his 60th. Happy birthday Steve;
It was easy to see why this spot was a climbers favourite and there was ample evidence of ropes and old pitons. stretching up these overhanging crags.
We toiled up the slopes which degenerated from steps to loose gravel with increasing care and breathlessness. These two intrepids conquered though and were pretty pleased with themselves.
Our endeavours were richly rewarded. We did question health and safety issues with terrifying sheer drops to certain death seducing one of our adventurers uncomfortably close to too many edges. The skipper was far more circumspect of course.
The boats looked so tiny below us
The village of Merry sur Yonne was picture postcard.
After a lovely walk along the cliff tops we chose an alternative route for our descent. The top section stretched our sinews and our nerves. The effort proved worthwhile and during one very tense traverse the tension was melted following a close encounter of the butterfly kind.
The crew held up magnificently and finally we had cracked the exceptionally tricky top section
A rather less welcoming encounter was the increasingly irritating attack of gnats. They were in a feeding frenzy and seemed to be all over us to such an extent that we were quite relieved to finally get down off of the grassy lower slopes.
We strolled to the bridge and over into Merry Sur Yonne. Delightful, but a walk to the laverie through the park proved to be another gnat nightmare. Was it my suntan lotion, was it the black shirt, they were surely tartgeting me. I took 2 hits to the face which immediately ballooned and collette suggested we should retreat at pace. Back at Doucette, Eric and Jill had returned, they too having gone to war with the pesky little blighters. An adjacent noddy boat were spraying and fighting with the buggers as we spoke having made the schoolboy error of bbq`ing and the smoke attracting wave after wave of the darting blood eaters. We hunkered down in our foxholes, drank on hydrocortisone and started to scratch.
What a day of adventure yet again! The night however would prove to be uncomfortable.
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