Field of Flowers

It was a perfect summer's day ! We rode to Xouaxange about 20 minutes away from the canal, and found this Elvira Madiganesque files of wild flowers - Queen Anne's Lace, cornflowers, erigynon... heaven couldn't be better !

A great part of the pleasure was being totally unaware of any Dangerous Critters that might lurk in the long grass. I would never have done this at home in Australia - far too many snakes.

I was really intrigued by the strange (read: very un-French) names of some of the towns in this area: Gonrexange, Xouaxange etc. Haven't been able to find out their provenance as yet.

Holiday Snaps: The Canal Boat

We're just putting the photos from our holiday into an album, and enjoying the memories...

In France, we hired a DIY boat on the Marne to Rhine Canal for 4 days. We (the two of us) started our voyage at Lavarde, in the Lorraine, went east to Lutzelburg, then returned.

We could cook, sleep and shower on board, and we could moor anywhere that took our fancy. We also hired bikes so that we could ride inland to forage for food. The bikes proved to be vital, because it was August, and most of the shops in the little villages were closed for the summer holidays. We discovered this on our first morning, when we walked 2km to find a 'boulangerie'. It was closed ! Went back to the boat to pick up the bikes and ride 2 km in the other direction to the next village. This boulangerie was also closed !

Fortunately, we spotted a travelling food sales van and virtually threw ourselves under the wheels to stop her driving off. We had worked up quite an appetite at this stage, and bought up big ! We took our croissants, 'dejeunette' and cheese to a lake that we had passed en route and sat in the glorious sunshine, counting our lucky stars, and the lucky swans who insisted on sharing our breakfast. And that was the first morning !