The Petite Saone

After leaving the "Canal between Champagne and Burgundy" we turned into the Saone River, called the "Petite Saone" in these higher reaches.

The Petite Saone

We stopped in some very attractive towns including Pontailler, Mantoche and Gray. One night was spent anchored in a small inlet surrounded by water lilies, visited by swans, frogs, fish and dragonflies.
We had a memorable dinner in Pontailler, choosing the regional menu and enjoying what it offered, including frogs legs (Penny's first occasion to try them).

Our stopping place in Mantoche
Gray is the largest town in the area and has a prosperous but turbulent past, so many of the old buildings no longer exist. It was a major port so the banks of the river were lined with quays.

As we worked our way up the river there were fewer towns nearby and there were even days without fresh bread available.  However, two   lock keepers offered local wine for sale, one adding honey displayed so that it caught the eye as the boat rose in the lock. In one lock cottage we bought a dozen eggs collected on the spot, with explanations that the two white eggs were just as good as the ten brown ones. Another had a magnificent vege garden and we bought a lettuce cut while we waited. The keeper's wife had baked rhubarb tarts.  In a very remote mooring, an elderly man and his wife drew jp in a small white van late one afternoon with a basket full of farm produce- eggs, lettuce, beans, carrots, radishes and courgettes. All prices were very moderate and the food could not have been fresher.

The town of Gray
In the small town of Scey sur Saone (1600 residents) the old mill on the river has been converted into a hydro- electric station producing 340Kw. This is the first example we have found of such a useful conversion. Scey sur Saone was also where we enjoyed this year's "Fete de la Musique", held around France on or close to the Summer solstice, June 21st. In Scey it took the form of a concert at the Mairie whose building also is the village school. There were stalls selling soft drink, beer and wine as well as frites and sausage baguettes. The first act featured a dozen children from the primary school singing very beautifully. Next was what I know as a concert or stage band featuring musicians of all ages playing instruments ranging from flutes to tubas to percussion, no strings. Their standard was excellent and we thoroughly enjoyed some old favourites from our many years of attending similar concerts featuring our children playing flute, clarinet and tuba.

Fete de la Musique- Scey sur Saone
The concert was moving onto some rock numbers when we decided to call it a night and go home for our own dinner, a bit more to our taste than sausage baguette and fries.

Port sur Saone was the final town we visited on the Petite Saone. Like Gray it has been a major port for river traffic, but it seems to have had a more industrial past.

We had intended to continue up to the top of the Saone at Corre and enter the Canal des Vosges to join the Moselle River and proceed into Germany, but at Port sur Saone we found that the Canal des Vosges was closed at Corre for an indefinite period. 

Regards,

Penny and Dave