This site have been moved

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

Our new web site

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

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

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

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

Burgundy Farmhouse for sale

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

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

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

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

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

Bal des pompiers - Paris 4ème

Ireland - County Clare and County Galway, our summer vacation

Hopping around Paris

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

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

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

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

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

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.