A Bön Voyage In France

Preparing for our yearly pil­grim­age to join my Mum and David on their canal boat in France, our fourth in as many years, our girls could hardly con­tain their excite­ment. Summer on the boat is such a delight for us all. Madeline and Cameron have become bril­liant trav­el­ers and need to be as we travel to meet the boat by plane, train and taxi to St Jean de Losgne, 45 min­utes out­side Dijon on the river Soane in France.

Five canals meet at the Soane. It’s the take off spot for many tourists doing ‘live aboards’ on boats head­ing along the water­ways to the South of France.

On arrival, the first rit­ual for the girls is to attach their “rope swing”. Mac shins up a tree close to the boat, tying the rope around a sturdy branch. Madeline and Cameron spend every moment they can swing­ing from it, hurl­ing them­selves nois­ily into the river.

Temperatures soar, it’s far too hot to cook on a steel boat with no air con, so we bar­beque every night, drink wine (the adults!) and play games until sun­down at 10.30pm when Mac and I would jump off the boat into the river to cool down before bed.

Mac loved relax­ing on the boat, his biggest daily chal­lenge was decid­ing how to break up an 8 hour day of read­ing his book!

We meet won­der­ful peo­ple on the river too. Mum and Dave have many friends, both French and English. It’s amaz­ing how we all com­mu­ni­cate – even with very bad French (that’s me) or no English (them)!

Wine and food quickly break down any bar­ri­ers as we embrace the French love affair for eat­ing and drink­ing! The French have per­fected the lifestyle and have all time in the world for their friends, old and new!

An hilar­i­ous evening was spent with Mum‘s French friends who came pre­pared with note­book of English phrases! After a fab din­ner we moved to their boat for cham­pagne and cher­ries mar­i­nated in “Fabric de Maison”! At the men­tion of these cher­ries I knew we were in trou­ble! Mum had warned me about this home­made alco­hol which can be rather like fire water (last night I had a go at mak­ing it — a jar filled with cher­ries and rum left to sit for months to get the full effect. I‘ll report back when we open it!). Later the gui­tar and har­mon­ica came out. French and English alike cho­rused an hilar­i­ously bad ren­di­tion of Hotel California fill­ing up the still night air.

Another day moored close to a camp­site, we re-​discovered old friends, Jean Michel and Clare, who run the café there. They greeted us with hugs and kisses on both cheeks! We were delighted to see them too. Jean Michel is an amaz­ing chef, pre­vi­ously work­ing in Vienna, Austria. From then on my morn­ing rou­tine included a visit to his kitchen to see what he was cre­at­ing for the evening menu. He often invited me in to taste some­thing deli­cious. We had fab meals there, most mem­o­rable were smoked eel, whole sea bass stuffed then baked with salt and a del­ish rab­bit dish. Yum. His ice cream has to be the creami­est most divine tast­ing ever!

One lazy after­noon we stopped by for a beer and met Jean Michel’s brother, Christian. Managing to com­mu­ni­cate in my pid­gin French I found he lived nearby in the Jura Mountains. Coincidentally Mac and I had a trip planned there for the fol­low­ing week! Christian quickly sug­gested that we visit him as he had American friends stay­ing who he thought we‘d like. We exchanged phone num­bers, excited at see­ing the area from a local point of view.

A week later Mac and I left the kids with Grandma and Grandave and headed for the Jura Mountains about 1.5 hours away. Famous for Jura wines, fab­u­lous sausages and cheeses includ­ing Morbier and Comte (our fav) the Jura‘s, bro­ken up into region of lakes, are nes­tled up against the French Swiss border.

Salins-​les-​Bains, a Spa town famous for its ther­mal baths was our first stop. Very fash­ion­able in Victorian times when guests would take the waters for months at a time, this charm­ing Spa is still included in the French health sys­tem with patients sent here to help recover from illness!

Leaving the heal­ing waters, we drove to the large walled city of Besancon built on a loop of the River Doubs. A remark­able exam­ple of 17th cen­tury mil­i­tary archi­tec­ture, this regal city’s for­ti­fi­ca­tions afford a stun­ning panoramic view of the roofs of the city. The high­light of our trip was a visit to the Saint Jean Cathedral, home to its mag­nif­i­cent Astronomical Clock made of 30,000 pieces built between 1858 and 1860. The 57 faces include depic­tions and work­ings of cal­en­dars, the move­ment of the plan­ets, eclipses and tides. Mac was intrigued though I could not wrap my head around its machinations!

Our sec­ond day was a whirl­wind of sights, peo­ple and deli­cious food. We drove through beau­ti­ful wine coun­try and stopped in a town called Arbois where Louis Pasteur spent much of his childhood.

That night we slept in an ancient Benedictine Abbey founded in the 6th cen­tury at Château Chalon in the heart of the Jura vine­yard region. We felt trans­ported to another time sur­rounded by the ancient walls and tran­quil rooms where monks had lived out their lives. Set on a hill­top, the vil­lage of Château Chalon has glo­ri­ous views of the vines renowned for Jura’s “ Yellow Wine”. Beautiful wine-​growers houses and a church dat­ing to the 10th cen­tury added to its charm.

Next day fol­low­ing Christian’s direc­tions, we meet up with him, his wife Marie and their American friends at a local church . Christian had pre­pared an alfresco wine tast­ing for us par­ing Comte cheese, wal­nuts and the fan­tas­tic ‘Yellow Wine‘ which is aged for 6 years and 3 months to achieve its lus­cious best.

Back at their home and four divine courses later includ­ing salmon mouse, kebaks, toma­toes, hearty bread, cheeses, French mac­a­roons, Sangria and wine!! we were off on another adventure.

Close by is Château D’Arlay- an 18th cen­tury cas­tle, as many French told us, one of the few cas­tles still pri­vately owned , passed down through gen­er­a­tions. The charm­ing Count and Countess hosted our wine tast­ing there. They told us they are very proud of their vine­yards which sup­ply to a select num­ber of restau­rants in New York City. Sadly we heard too of the hefty inher­i­tance tax in France, which means that unless one of their chil­dren makes some seri­ous money they will have to sell the château after their par­ents deaths. Drinking wine in the after­noon with this lovely cou­ple, that out­come seemed a very sad end­ing for an his­toric fam­ily legacy. Doing our bit we bought some wine after a pri­vate tour of the château before bid­ding them adieu.

We ended the day at a pri­vate air­field where Christian and Marie, together with a won­der­ful group of friends, own a hangar and five bi-​planes, fly­ing these WW11 vin­tage air­craft most evenings in the Summer.

Mac and I were both pas­sen­gers in circa 1947 bi-​planes. We took off side by side and Mac got some amaz­ing shots of Jean Francoise and Olivieax our pilots. I felt very ‘Amelia Earhart’ in my fly­ing hat. Wow, we were both blown away! Flying in the open air was an expe­ri­ence of a lifetime!

Landing, we saw more peo­ple arriv­ing and two huge tables had been pulled out and set up as only the French can. A bar­beque was wheeled out and some seri­ous food was served as the sun set on a truly magic day with won­der­ful new friends who so gen­er­ously shared their pas­sion with us! Much later Christian leads us back to our B&B in Château Chalons.

Next morn­ing we wake to the gor­geous view and break­fast, sur­rounded by time­less vis­tas, vines and glo­ri­ous moun­tain air. Later we did a light hike then pic­nicked in a fan­tas­tic gorge in Baume-​Les-​Messieurs pur­ported to be the most beau­ti­ful vil­lage in France.

It was Bastille day so we cel­e­brated din­ing alfresco in the Abbey gar­dens amongst veg­eta­bles and flow­ers the tal­ented French chef used to cre­ate his deli­cious mas­ter­pieces. We gazed out over the gorge sip­ping our wine and devour­ing his won­der­ful food as the sun­set, before head­ing into town for the ‘Feu de arti­fice’ the Bastille Day fire­works spec­tac­u­lar. We both agreed this bril­liant dis­play that lit up the sky seemed a fit­ting finale to our Jura Mountain adven­ture where the truly unex­pected had given us a set of mem­o­ries we’ll never forget.