Bill and Nancy's Life on a Barge in Paris

This site have been moved

2010-09-15T06:51:00.001-07:00

Please come to www.billandnancy.com to see more recent updates.

Our new web site

2009-05-11T14:58:00.000-07:00

Back in 1999, we bought the name billandnancy.com and started a web site thinking that it would help us avoid writing postcards while we cruised on the canals of France for two years as planned. Well, plans are something that should always be flexible, and once we got a taste of how wonderful it was to cruise on the canals and rivers in France our two years turned into ten, and we still don't see the end of the tunnel for this adventure.

Along the way, we have become more and more accustomed to life on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, and we have also made many friends from around the world as our web site has grown and people interested in barging have found us on the Internet.

While we were living in Roanne and cruising every year from April to October, we posted updates pretty regularly, then in 2006, we came to spend one winter in Paris. Once here we didn't want to leave and by being in the right place at the right time and having had our name on the Paris waiting list since the year 2000, we were lucky enough to be given a mooring right smack dab in the middle of this beautiful city.

Since we were no longer cruising, we started a Paris blog and stopped updating our web site. Now, we have decided to merge the two back into one, and we hope that old friends and new will come back to billandnancy.com to enjoy life with us on a barge in France, and all of the adventures that happen when you live on the Canal Saint-Martin in one of Paris' most interesting neighborhoods.

Ireland with 7 in a mini van. We couldn't have done it without Jim

2009-03-25T13:16:00.000-07:00

When we heard that 5 assorted family members were going to Ireland we said, "We want to go too!" So plans were made to meet in Dublin.

We all arrived in Dublin on different days. Walking to meet the last to arrive and the mini van with a chauffeur who had picked them up at the airport, we heard a horn honking and looked up to find several hands and heads sticking out of the windows, waving and calling to us. Their plane had arrived early, so they were ahead of schedule and found us as we were walking toward our arranged meeting place. We stowed our bags in the back and piled into the van, trying to hug and kiss everyone over the seats. We were siblings, in-laws and cousins in a mini van with a singing, story telling retired Irish cop as our hired driver.

Now 7 different opinions of where to go and what to do could have been a problem, but we all recognized that very first day, on the drive from Dublin to Blarney, our first stop, that our driver Jim knew every little corner of the counties that we wanted to explore. Without even discussing it, we all turned the trip over to Jim and he never let us down.

Jim lead us to some great restaurants for delicious lunches after mornings of sightseeing, and he knew all of the best pubs to stop in for refreshments when our eyes were tired from seeing green rolling landscapes and stone castles. In one of the many small out of the way villages that we visited, he met someone he knew when we were walking down the street; a pub owner wouldn't you know. And when we had spent too much time visiting an old church and exploring the cemetery, he called the Jameson distillery to hold the last morning tour for us, so we could taste some of Jameson's finest before we went to lunch. After the second day, we started inviting him to have lunch with us, and by the end of the week we felt like old friends. When he dropped us back at our hotel in Dublin, we were all sorry to see him go. We are spoiled now, and the next time that we go on a trip we might call Jim and see if he wants to come along.

It was a memorable vacation. Our hotels were both wonderful, we never had a bad meal, and our traveling companions were family; what could be better than that.

New pontoons

2009-02-20T01:30:00.000-08:00

The good news is that we are getting new pontoons in the port, and they are wonderful, but the bad news is that since our telephone lines run through the pontoons, we, the residents on the side of Boulevard Bourdon (the Boulevard de la Bastille side of the port went through this last fall), have lost our phones and Internet connections and won't have them back until............

It has already been 3 weeks and it seems like an eternity. No longer can we pick up the phone and call family and friends in other parts of the world without thinking about the cost. We still have our call back service, but it is not cheap on a cell phone, and we have been spoiled by the convenience of making long distance calls without charge. When you are paying for the call and you have to wait 20 minutes at long distance rates for a company in San Francisco to finally pull you out of the wait queue, it feels like torture.

When our pontoons went away, we had to leave too. For one week we lived in front of the captain's office on the other side of the port way down by the lock. It was like moving to a new neighborhood. Suddenly, we were no longer in the 4th arrondissement; we were in the 12th. The Bastille métro station and the shops that we frequent were much further away, and we had to add an extra 15 minutes to our estimate of how long a métro trip or a quick run to the bakery would take. Without our land telephone line, we had to go to the captain's office with our computers to check our email or do projects. While we whined about this at first, the captain and his team could not have been nicer, offering people who were there to use the Internet coffee or juice, and letting us use one of their desks when we had a big project to complete. People came and went, with and without their computers, and we saw neighbors from the other side of the port that we normally don't run into in the course of a day. So we realized that it was a fun place to hang out, and now that we are back in our Bourdon side mooring waiting for our phone line, we pack up the computers to make the trip all the way down to la capitainerie, just for the fun of it.

Our website

2009-01-30T12:30:00.000-08:00

We decided that it was time to makeover our web site and to merge this blog back into the new, and improved site. It seemed like a project that we could complete in a couple of months, back in October when we started the work. We are still working on it, but life keeps getting in the way.

First it was our two month vacation back in the States, and then it was a computer virus, and now it is the fact that one day while we were sitting at the table in the wheel house, both of us working on different computers on different projects, we suddenly lost our Internet connection. After a little investigation, we found that workers preparing to change the port pontoons had chainsawed right through our telephone line. Merde!!

So, today the boats in our section must move to the other side of the port while the new pontoons are being put into place, and everyone is speculating about how long we will all be without our telephones. On verra!!

Winter in our port

2009-01-20T12:00:00.000-08:00

2008-12-25T06:30:00.000-08:00

Burgundy Farmhouse for sale

2008-09-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

Our oldest and dearest French friend is selling her home in Saint-Symphorien-sur-Saône, a small village in the Côte-d'Or département of the Burgundy region of France.

Saint Symphorien is 10 minutes by car from Saint Jean de Losne, a small town that has become an international boating center because of its location at the junction of the Saône river and the Canal de Bourgogne.

This charming farmhouse is 30 minute from Beaune and Dijon, two of the best cities in the Burgundy region. It is also just 30 minutes from Dole, a beautiful city in the western Jura department of the Franche-Comté region.

The house is located on a large peaceful property (3,200 m2), has 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, central heating, a fireplace, beamed ceilings, parquet floors, a swimming pool, cave, a large attic that could be converted to living space and a separate studio apartment. Asking price - 240,000 euros

Click here to contact the real estate agent in Saint Jean de Losne for more information

Deux Chevaux

2008-08-23T17:00:00.000-07:00

Cruising out of Paris, we are back in the slow lane. We have been floating along on the Marne, visiting Champagne villages and getting together with old friends, a real vacation.

In the small Champagne village of Reuil, we took a leisurely ride on an original "deux chevaux".

A day at the beach - Parisienne Style

2008-08-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

You have to love a city that closes one of it major roads during the summer just for fun. Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor of Paris, created Paris Plage back in 2002. We always lived near the beach in San Francisco, and now, thanks to the mayor, we live, at least during July and August, near the beach in Paris.

Every year more and more beaches are popping up all over Paris, and the idea has spread other cites, even our old home port of Roanne.

18 meter Arsenal barge for sale

2008-07-24T02:00:00.000-07:00

Our French neighbors are selling their barge, and it may be your chance to have a Pied-à-terre à Paris.

Luxemotor Hollandais 18 m x 4 m, construction acier de 1925. Fond neuf (Octobre 2005). Moteur Volvo Penda 100 CV (500 h). Permis de navigation. Très bonne habitabilité, confort, luminosité exceptionnelle, belle terrasse arrière. Vis. Paris.

SOLD

July 14th - Dinner with friends in Paris

2008-07-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

Oh la la, how many ways can you say it! Oh la la, what an evening!

Bal des pompiers - Paris 4ème

2008-07-14T06:53:00.000-07:00

Ireland - County Clare and County Galway, our summer vacation

2008-06-28T18:00:00.000-07:00

Hopping around Paris

2008-06-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

The last few days we have noticed some very tall people in our neighborhood.

Power Strider is the name of this new way of hopping, running and jumping around Paris.

It turns out that you can practice power striding free on Sundays at the Nomades Roller Shop at 37 Boulevard Bourdon at the Bastille. We decided just to watch, because if we are going to fall down and break something, we would rather do it roller blading, that is, if we could roller blade.

The worlds biggest Sunday Skate will be on the 15th of June at 14h30 starting and finishing at the Bastille. They will skate 22.9 kilometers around Paris, and they hope to make the Guinness Book of Records.

Sunday in the Park

2008-05-26T17:00:00.000-07:00

Life doesn't change too much. As San Franciscans, we went to Golden Gate Park on Sundays. Living in Paris, we still go to the park on Sundays, but now we go to le Jardin du Luxembourg.

Canal Saint-Martin Barge Picnic

2008-05-11T10:30:00.000-07:00

Our port is on the canal Saint-Martin with a lock on the Seine and a tunnel heading up to the 10th arrondissement at the Bastille end of the port. La Villette is at the other end of the canal in the 19th arrondissement. The trip along the canal to La Villette is only about 5 kilometers long, but because you have to pass through 4 double locks and two swing bridges,the trip takes at least two hours each way.

When our friends Jerry and Suzanne, whose barge "La Lavande" is just across the port, invited us to cruise along with them and their friends for a picnic at La Villette, we didn't hesitate for one second before saying, "We'd love to!". We have made this same trip on our barge, but this time we would be the guests instead of captain and crew.

Camera in hand, we had time to make a little movie of our fabulous day cruising through the streets of Paris.

Lady Lorne

2008-05-05T17:00:00.000-07:00

Our winter next boat neighbor Bob cruised away the other day.

It took a long time to leave port because he had to wave goodbye to all of the friends that he had made during the winter.

Keep a lookout for Lady Lorne, maybe you will be lucky enough to meet Bob along the canals.

Bistro en Seine

2008-04-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

With boats moving again, we have been amusing ourselves by listening to the VHF chatter between the boats and La Capitainerie. Passenger boats or private, everyone communicates by VHF to enter or leave the port by a lock at one end and a controled tunnel at the other. When our VHF is on, we know all of the comings and goings of the port. It is a bit like being a nosy neighbor, but we tell ourselves that it is good for our French.

Canauxrama is a passenger boat company who works out of our port. Their boats are moored across from us, and we are used to them cruising by a couple of times a day. Recently we noticed that they have started evening cruises, and one night when the VHF was still turned on, we heard the Captain's office ask them, as they always do, "How many passengers and crew?" The answer made the guys in the office chuckle, as they had a crew of 4 for with only 2 passengers. There were jokes made back and forth about the new luxury cruise, and it caught our attention.

A few nights later, we heard that they had 8 passengers, then 11 another night, so we decided to take the cruise before it became as crowded as all of the other Seine cruises. We jumped on board for the 9pm cruise on Friday night, stopped at the bar to order a half bottle of wine, got into a nice conversation with the crew when we told them that we were neighbors, and we didn't need to worry about making sure we found good seats.

Sitting at a table with comfortable chairs and a glass of wine in front of us, we waved to neighbors as we cruised by their boats and entered the lock without a care in the world. For the next two hours we watched Paris glide by, passing under Le Pont des Arts we waved to everyone out enjoying the first warm spring night. People were walking or picnicing along the quais of the Seine, the monuments were lit against the evening sky, and we had front row seats for the best show in town.

Notice in our video how clear and light the sky was at 9:30pm and how many people were out on Le Pont des Arts.

Farewell parties

2008-04-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

The weather in Paris is unpredictable. After a very mild winter full of cold sunshine, the weather has become unsettled. You can wake up in the morning to blue skies, eat breakfast during a rain storm and leave the house dressed for the cold and rain, only to find the sun has returned and you are overdressed. Pas de souci, you only have to wait 30 minutes before it rains again.

A few weeks ago, we were riding our bikes and almost got blown over by a violent storm that came and went before we knew what hit us. It snowed the other night just as we were heading off to bed, and a couple of days ago, there was a hailstorm in the middle of an otherwise mild day. It is difficult to know how to dress.

The only way that we know Spring is here is that boats are moving again. "Elisabeth", Henk and Jacqueline's beautiful barge cruised out of port recently. They had a week here without too much rain, so they were able to leave as planned. But that morning, their barge only descended half the normal level in the lock and once they hit the river they disappeared from sight twice as fast as a boat going down river would under normal conditions. Wherever they were planning to go that day, they probably arrived much earlier than expected.

From the day that "Elisabeth" left until yesterday, it has rained cats and dogs. It has done nothing but pour rain, the sky has been gray or black, and it has been cold. This year, April in Paris would not inspire any songs, movies or plays.

Mike and Jane, our charming Australian neighbors on Drumsara, picked up their newly built barge last fall and cruised for six days directly into Paris. They are now ready to start their first cruising season, and we said goodbye to them over dinner a few nights ago, and over a glass of Champagne last night, but so far they have only made it down to the end of the port.

While moored in front of the Captain's office in preparation for an early start this morning, they learned that the Seine is near flood level, so they have to wait to see what tomorrow brings. Maybe it's time for another farewell party.

Marathon de Paris 2008

2008-04-06T21:00:00.000-07:00

The Paris Marathon came by the Bastille twice today and finished up on Avenue Foch.

We were at the Bastille with our French teacher and her children to cheer on her husband, Olivier. After Oliver ran past us on rue Henry IV, we came back to the boat to relax and have a cup of coffee, and then we took the métro over to the finish line, all the while Olivier was running.

Valerie's daughters had fun cheering on the crowd, and handing out bananas to the runners as they passed the food stand.

Pinch us

2008-04-06T13:39:00.000-07:00

After taking part in a mini Venetian Carnival on the Île Saint-Louis yesterday, we went along with all of the other participants to a party hosted by the neighborhood merchants.

Between dinner and dessert, someone at one of the tables in the back of the room started singing, in fact, it was Marcel, the waiter from La Cavetière, our neighborhood bistro. He loves to sing, and does do so often.

This was the invitation for others to start singing "their" song. In Europe, people sing more that they do in the States, and everyone seems to have a song that they sing reasonable well. When someone starts singing, everyone else joins in and sings along all the way to the end. They all know the words, and for the most part, everyone carries the tune.

The songs danced in the air, and we felt as though we were in the middle of a French film. Conversations and laughter filled the room and were only silenced by a new round of songs. We knew that we were lucky to be the only foreigners, and we had smiles on our faces thinking that life doesn't get any better than this, when the owners of Bertillon arrived with their world famous sorbet for dessert.

A cheer rang out from the crowd, and everyone got up to form the French version of a line, (something free form, like a glob of mercury), while the couple scooped up double cones for the crowd. The Carnaval Vénetian had been a big success with crowds of people taking photos of the beautiful costumes against the back drop of the Île Saint-Louis and Notre Dame, and as everyone sat back down at their tables enjoying their Bertillon sorbet, we thought that this day was so amazing that we may be dreaming.

Suddenly, someone started singing La Marseillaise, and everyone stood up raising their cones in the air, and sang their national anthem with passion, only stopping occasionally to lick their cones to keep them from dripping. It was spontaneous and pure, and it was the highlight of the party.

When the evening was over, we opened the door to find a warm spring night, and crossing over the Seine we smiled our way home.

Links to Photos taken that day

http://www.onlyphotos.org/article-18602483.html

http://www.pbase.com/patrick06/venitian_carnival_in_paris

http://www.terry-photo.net/carnaval/paris-2008/album/index.html

The neighborhood is changing

2008-04-04T12:00:00.000-07:00

This is what happens in the spring in the boating community when everyone starts moving again.

Monday - We had an apéritif dînatoire for 14 people on our boat. This happened a bit by accident. Roger and Kathleen on "Water Lily" were getting ready to leave, and they had not yet met Jerry and Suzanne on "La Lavande". We wanted to get them together, but they both had company. No problem bring them along. Henk and Jacqueline were here to install our kitchen extractor. Then Bob, our neighbor from Cornwall, is too much fun not to invite, and the English couple who were staying on Mike and Jane's barge while they were back in Australia stopped by the day before to ask a question, so we invited them, and the party just kept growing..........

Tuesday - We invited nearby neighbors over to help us finished all of the food that we had left over from the night before. We always err on the side of having too much food for any given party.

Wednesday - Dinner with Henk and Jacqueline at one of our favorite local places, Chez Janou, and even though it rained most of the day, it was a beautiful evening. After dinner, we walked through the neighborhood, stopped at an outdoor café for a nightcap, and headed home through Place des Vosge, where we could admire the art galleries. It was a perfect evening with good food, good conversation and great friends.

Thursday - First Yacht Club Paris Bastille barbecue after the new board of directors was elected. There was a huge turnout, and it was a great evening that almost ended at about 11pm when people started going home...that was until Henk invited everyone onto his boat.

Alain, the president of the yacht club presented Henk with an Arsenal burgee, wine corks popped and then the music started. There's a piano on "Elizabeth" and soon guitars and harmonicas appeared and the music began.

Friday - We took a day off, before our busy weekend with the carnival and the marathon.

Yacht Club Paris Bastille

2008-04-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

The yacht club had elections recently and one of us was voted onto the board of directors to be in charge of international relations, with the knowledge that both of us would be doing the jobs that will be assigned to us. We are feeling rather proud to be the first foreign members on the board.

The first meeting of the board was held before the barbecue on April 3rd, and all went well. No problems understanding the rapid fire French, and the newly elected board is full of enthusiasm and plans to improve the port.

April in Paris

2008-04-01T08:52:00.000-07:00

April is here and the sun just came out. Of course, it went away before I could finish writing this sentence, as the weather has been nothing but bad news lately.

The good news is that our kitchen, which Eddy, le gendre of our port neighbors, started remodeling for us in October, is finally finished.

The delay wasn't Eddy's fault. He put in a new hardwood floor and installed new cabinets and counter tops just as he promised, and we have been enjoying our new kitchen for months. But it was still an unfinished project because, after Eddy finish his work, we decided that we needed a hood over the stove. Having an extractor installed sounded simple, but this is one of the things that make living on a boat so "interesting". With our low ceilings, most extractor fans made for houses just wouldn't work, and we needed to find a solution.

Shopping for something unusual like une hotte in Paris, means that you discover new neighborhoods, and learn new French words at the same time. We spent several days wandering in an out of shops, asking questions and looking at options. We were losing hope, when one day, while we were out doing another errand, we stopped in at Cap Bastille, a kitchen store on rue Lacuée, just across from the port. There we met François, who immediately took an interest in our project. Whereas everyone else that we questioned in other kitchen stores was polite, no one jumped right on the problem like François did; he was bound and determined to find a solution for us.

He walked back to the boat with us to take measurements in the kitchen, and he climbed up on the front deck to look at the kitchen roof to see how the exhaust pipe should be placed to protect our air draft. He took lots of notes, and then shook our hands with a promise to call us as soon as he had found something for us.

He called a week or so later to say that he had found just the right product, and he came by the boat with the man who would be doing the installation. They had a plan that would guard our air draft and make la hotte flush with the ceiling. Just one small problem. La hotte itself only cost a bit over 200 euros, but with the installation, le devi s came to over 3000 euros. After we recovered from the shock and explained how many dollars that would be for us right now, François said that he could sell us la hotte, and that we would just need to find someone else who could figure out how to do the job in a way that would be less expensive. We needed someone who understood boats.

We looked at each other with knowing smiles, and reading each others minds, we knew that the solution to our problem was to call on Super Henk.

Henk Hÿdra is Dutch, has built 35 barges himself, and even though he may look mild mannered in this photo, he is an action hero. When barge owners have a problem that they just can't solve, they call on Henk.

Henk has been trying to retire for the last five years, but boaters keep finding jobs that only he can do. He sold his shipyard, and he and his wife Jacqueline, who is an artist, live on the last barge that he built, a 22 meter masterpiece that other boaters have labeled a "one meter" barge. (That means that Henk's barge is so perfect that even when you are standing just one meter away, you don't see any flaws.) Henk's reputation proceeds him wherever he travels, and in the floating village of barge owners, that means that he is often called on to solve an unsolvable problem. Because Henk and Jacqueline are as nice as they are talented, they made a detour to come to the Paris-Arsenal on their trip from Roanne to Amsterdam, just to help us.

The Seine was flowing so fast with all of the recent rain, that even though Henk and Jacqueline said that they would arrive at 11 on Sunday, they called us at 9am to say that they were already in the Arsenal lock. It must have been a wild ride to get them from St. Mammes to Paris so quickly, but we weren't too surprised because, superheros know how to fly.

When Henk works for you, he shows up for work at 9 sharp dressed in his special blue jump suit, takes a half hour for lunch, and finishes at 4pm. Like other superheros, he attacks the job to be done forcefully. He moves at the speed of light, bends steel, and with his amazing skills, he creates something out of nothing. People who watch Henk in action can only stand there bouche bée.

Now that Henk has come to our rescue, we no longer have to open the doors and windows everytime we want to grill something on the stove. Thank you Super Henk.

Three days before Christmas

2007-12-31T15:59:00.000-08:00

It was 10:30 when we hopped on Vélib bikes at the Bastille, and rode down rue St. Antoine. We were bundled up for a cold winter's day, but the sun was working hard to keep us comfortable. On rue de Rivoli we passed the Hôtel de Ville, with it's skating rink out in front, and we turned right on Boulevard de Sébastopol to return our bikes to a Vélib station near the Beaubourg. We were going to our French/English conversation group, for a little Christmas party, and then to a nearby bistro for their plat du jour.

It was a perfect winter day in Paris. The sky was blue and the air crisp as we crossed over the Seine after lunch.

All of the shops were dressed for the holiday season, and street artists were helping Santa to spread his Christmas cheer.

We walked for hours, wandering in and out of shops, going to outdoor Christmas markets, enjoying the sights, and joining the crowds in front of the department store windows. Everywhere we went people were wishing each other "Joyeux Noël" or "Bonnes Fêtes".

After we walked through the Marché de Noel in front of l'église Saint-Sulpice, we went into the church to see La crèche de Caltagirone. At l'église St. Germain des Prés, the organ was playing during a service, and we stopped to listen for a moment before going across the street for an expresso at Les Deux Magots.

As night fell, Notre Dame was magnificent under a full moon. We stopped to try to capture that beauty on film, and surrounded by tourists, we enjoyed hearing so many different languages being spoken in such a peaceful setting. As we headed home across l'île Saint-Louis, we felt pleased for ourselves and for all of the visitors to Paris who were blessed with such a beautiful day.

The gift of love. The gift of peace.

The gift of happiness.

May all these be yours at Christmas.

Bonne Fête de Noël dans la paix et la sérénité

The last night of the year

On vous présente tous nos voeux de bonheur pour l'année 2008

We wish you a happy and prosperous 2008

July, August, September

2007-09-12T02:54:00.000-07:00

Eight years ago, when we bought our barge, we moved into a village that we never knew existed until after we had been living there for several months.

Being a member of the international barging community means that you live in a "moving village" with different neighborhoods that appear wherever there are boats, water and something to throw a rope around.

This summer, for the 15th anniversary of the DBA-Barge Association, a new neighborhood formed in the Bassin de la Villette in the 19th arrondissement of Paris. By the end of June, barges started arriving in Paris from Holland, Belgium, and France, with many others coming from England, crossing the channel to arrive at the basin for a long weekend celebration.

Either by the canal St. Denis or by the canal St. Martin, boats cruised through the streets of Paris, passing through the locks one barge at a time, and entering the basin at the rate of 15 a day. By the weekend the basin, which is usually home to a few 38 meter barges and a couple of day trip boats, was transformed into a village of well cared for barges, each one decorated with code flags and pennants, and it was a beautiful sight.

(Photo - Gail and Walt "Les Vieux Papillions and Pauline from "Peppa")

The rally brought together 60 barges, and there were planned events, but the highlight of the rally was, as always, spending time with other boaters. It was a chance to catch up with old friends, and to meet boaters whose paths you had not yet crossed along the waterways.

After the rally, barges that wanted to stay in Paris either came here to the Arsenal or they moored near the Eiffel Tower at the other port in Paris that used to be called Port Grenelle. This immediately increased the number of people that we knew in Paris, and we were lucky enough to be invited to a couple of great parties on some spectacular barges, with friends that are gifted in the kitchen.

While shopping for dinner at the morning market at Place d'Aligre on the 13th of July, we drifted into Le Baron Rouge with friends and began what turned out to be a spectacular day. From the Baron we moved directly to lunch on "Libertijn's" deck, and the lunch lasted long enough that dinner became irrelevant, and we just moved down the street to the local firehouse for the Firemen's Ball.

France's national holiday is July 14th, and because the French love to have a good time, the celebration starts the night before with different firehouses hosting dances.

It was a warm summer night, the dance was under the stars in one of the firehouse courtyards, and the crowd was a mix of young girls there to flirt with the firemen, families with kids and people of all ages just out to enjoy one of the few warm summer evenings.

We danced with friends and friendly French people, talked with the firemen, met other Americans who live in Paris, and enjoyed the party until well after midnight. When we were walking out, there was still a long line of people waiting to get in, and the real party was just warming up.

The good weather held up for the next night, the 14th, and we went across town with friends who were staying in the Arsenal to enjoy a pre-fireworks pot luck dinner at Port Tour Eiffel. Many of our winter port neighbors were staying on this side of town during their required 21 day absence from the Arsenal, and several others had cruised over just for the day so that they could moor close to the Eiffel Tower and enjoy a great view of the fireworks that were set off from the Trocadero.

Our friends on "Les Vieux Papillons" had pulled out all of the stops and made enough Cajun food to feed everyone in the port, and anyone else who happened by. We ate well, drank Champagne and watched the fireworks in comfort from Papillion's deck. The evening was perfect, and when it was over we headed for home.

Even though we had not planned to return to our barges on the other side of Paris on foot, the fact that they had closed all of the metro stations near the Eiffel Tower for crowd control, meant that we had to start out that way. By the time that we had walked far enough away to be able to find an open metro station, we were enthralled by the beauty of the moon shining on the Seine, and we all decided to walk back to the Bastille. We left at just after midnight and didn't get back to our boats until after 2am, but no one was complaining, because Paris on a warm summer night is a magical place.

Click here to see our 14th of July photos

At the end of July we went to the captain's office to tell them the date and time that we were going to leave for our required absence from the port. At the appointed time, we entered the lock, they let the water out and when the gates opened onto the Seine, we turned left and headed up to the Marne towards Epernay. We love the Marne with all of it's wonderful Champagne villages, and we planned to cruise along and stop where ever and whenever nice moorings presented themselves.

We didn't get very far. Instead of cruising down to Epernay, we stopped in Meaux for one night and ended up staying there for a couple of weeks.

When we arrived the port was full, and friends from Roanne on "Peppa" let us moor on them. In the morning, when boats left, we were able to move over to an empty pontoon, and after that the days just flowed along like the river current.

Boats came, stayed for a day or for several, and we got into the rhythm of the place. It was peaceful.

Meaux has a nice Saturday market, but aside from that, there isn't much to do, so after being very busy in Paris, it was nice to find a place where we were not tempted to leave the boat everyday.

We read. We worked on projects. We did nothing and enjoyed it immensly. The biggest event of the day was the arrival of a new boat. With the strong river current, neighbors would go out to catch the lines for the newcomers, and sometimes this resulted in conversations that started on the pontoon and ended on someone's deck. Joie de Vivre, a New Zealand boat from Roanne pulled up on our pontoon one day and stayed just like we did. Then we all did nothing together, and several times we discussed the joys of being lazy during dinner on our deck.

We met new people and spent time with old friends. We realized that even though we live in Paris, we still haven't moved out of the village. The port would empty out in the morning and be full again by noon. Some days we didn't know anyone and other days, we knew everyone on the block. Most neighborhoods change over the years, but in Meaux, we sat back, relaxed and watched our neighborhood change twice a day.

Back in our Arsenal mooring, we felt right at home as our winter neighbors returned to port. Our winter life doesn't start until our French classes resume in October, so September was the time for us to enjoy Paris.

Our family came to visit and we play tourists walking all over Paris together, stopping for a meal or a snack as the mood struck. Friends that we had made through our website, but had only met through email, were able to stop by and introduce themselves, and we had the pleasure of meeting them in person. We lunch, brunched and dined with new friends that live in Paris, and old barge neighbors and French friends passing through Paris came to stay at what we are now calling "Hotel Eclaircie".

One glorious Sunday, while we had our friends the chefs on board, we shopped for lunch at the Bastille market. Another San Francisco fireman and his wife were in town and lunch on the back deck was the plan.

Our guests arrived at 1pm and left at 8pm in proper French Sunday lunch style. They lived in Paris last year, so they already knew how to relax at the table.

The sky was clear blue, and the sun was warm. There were people out enjoying themselves in the park across from our back deck, music drifting down from the steets above, and more boats than usual cruising by our "table with a view". It was a beautiful day on our back deck, and the perfect end to our summer.

Summer Photos

Everyone leaves Paris in August - except us

Firemen come to the port to train

This guy came to the park on the other side of the port to do his laundry. He saw us taking his photo from our back deck, so he took one of us.

Second course of our Sunday Lunch

Velib, Paris'newest transportation system meant that we no longer have to carry our bikes off the boat and up 50 stairs to ride through the streets of Paris. We couldn't wait for our annual pass to arrive in the mail.

Now we hop on a bike more often than taking the metro.

There are so many things to do in Paris in the Summer, that we reluctantly left the port at the end of July for our required 3 week cruise.

We had an Elvis sighting along the Marne canal. The sister commmerical barge named "Graceland" passed us just before Elvis appeared.

April, May, June 2007

2007-06-12T09:26:00.000-07:00

In Paris, last fall was summer, winter was fall, and spring was winter.

April announced itself with rain and cold winds, and after a two week heat wave at the end of the month, where everyone worried about global warming, the cold weather returned. People who live in Paris dug into the back of their closets to bring out their winter clothes, and the poor tourists had to layer everything that they had packed just to keep warm. The souvenir shops were selling more umbrellas and rain ponchos than T-shirts and sun hats. It was cold, it rained most of the time, and we felt sorry for the soaked and shivering tourists who, we imagine, had planned their trips picturing romantic strolls along the Seine under a blue sky with warm spring breezes.

In our old home port of Roanne, the constant rain kept everyone from finishing spring boat work, and many boats were still in Roanne when the rain caused a canal bank to collapse. The Canal Roanne à Digoin runs right next to its source, the Loire River, and a breach in the bank not far from Roanne dumped all of the water out of the canal and back into the Loire. The 18 kilometer stretch between locks lost some 500,000 cubic meters of water overnight, and the people in the port of Briennon and along the canal found their boats and their lives on tilt when the woke up the next morning sitting on the muddy bottom.

Friends in Roanne, being boaters who are used to changing plans at the drop of an Avis de Batellerie, just made a slight mental adjustment and started looking at their boats as homes. Instead of cruising along the canals, they are relaxing in Roanne, or taking other types of trips, and everyone seems quite content with the forced change of plans. It is funny to think of the question that boaters are frequently asked by friends who are thinking of visiting during the summer, "Where will you be in June (or July or August)? It just goes to prove that life on the canals is full of surprises, and surely no one in the port would have answered "Roanne" to that question a few months ago. Until the breach is repaired, the boats in the port of Roanne are not going anywhere. The word is that the canal is scheduled to reopened on the 15th of August.........on verra!

On May 8th, wearing our Gortex rain jackets and Gortex pants, très à la mode this spring in Paris, we went to the Champs-Elysées near the Arc de Triomphe to watch the annual parade to remember of the end of WWII in Europe.

We were not alone, news cameras were at our side. After the election, everyone was interested in seeing Jacques Chirac for the last time, and maybe even catching a glimpse of Nicholas Sarkozy.

Waiting for the parade to start, the soldiers spoke quietly, and the horse smiled.

The Republican Guard has their stables are on Boulevard Henry IV, near the port, and we love seeing the horses as they pass through our neighborhood on their way to special events.

The Republican Guard has a horseback band that is thrilling to see and to hear.

Jacques Chirac passed by in a black sedan with a police motorcycle escort. He waved goodbye to the crowd, and everyone tried to take his picture.

Some of the tourists staying at the Marriott on the Champs-Elysées must have all been out late the night before because they were still in their PJ's at 10am, and it looks as though they were wondering who was making all of that noise.

Paris creates one dazzling event after the other, and each one is more impressive than the last. The city leaders are very imaginative.

On May 13th, to celebrate the new world speed record of 574 kilometers per hour, set by the TGV that runs between Paris and Strasbourg, the SNCF, the French National Railway System, ran the train through the center of Paris, on the Seine River!

There were bands on all of the foot bridges that it passed under, and we went to see Jackie, our French teacher, whose band was playing on the Passerelle Solférino, near the Musée d'Orsay.

Just as we arrived on the bridge a dark cloud passed over and dumped buckets of rain on the band as they were in the middle playing a sunny little tune. A small crowed had gathered, and everyone scattered, eventually regrouping under the bridge. The music started up again after the band dried off their instruments, and blotted the water off of their sheet music, and after awhile, their happy music coaxed the sun out again.

Jackie's band, Afreybo, is made up of people, most of whom, work in the fields of medicine and science. They relax away from work by being playful with their music and their band uniforms, which are lab coats with self mocking cartoons drawn on the back. For this occasion they were also wearing caps celebrating the "SNCF World Record 2007".

To announce that spring was here, Paris transformed the plaza in front of the Hotel de Ville, where the skating rink had been during winter, into a whimsical garden.

When it started raining on market day, as it often did this spring, we found a comfortable place to wait out the storm at Le Baron Rouge. You can taste by the glass, or you can buy a bottle and a plate of cheeses and pâtés to share with friends while waiting for the rain to stop. In fact, with its ambiance bon enfant, this little wine bar is not only a warm refuge on a cold or rainy day, but also because of its stone walls, it is a cool hideout on hot days too. We know this because the first time that English friends from the port brought us here, it was one of those hot "summer" days that we had last fall.

On June 21, the longest day of the year, it was warm and although there were clouds in the sky, it didn't rain.

It was "La Fête de la Musique", and we walked from the Arc de Triomphe back to the Bastille, stopping to listen to different musicians along the way. Near the Louvre, we found some comfortable chairs near a fountain and we stayed for awhile to listen to the music and to watch the people strolling by, hand in hand, enjoying Paris on one of the best nights of the year.

Even if the seasons seem a bit out of sync, Paris is still a great place to be.