Briare canal 21/8/18 to 25/8/18
This canal is approx. 53 kms long and has 32 locks. We did this canal on Anja as visitors in 2015 , the time when our plans to buy Anja and retire to our life in France and Caravaning in Australia commenced.
The canal begins with “ The pont-canal of Briare “ which was designed by Gustave Eiffel, it is the longest pont canal in the world at 662 m long and was opened in 1896.
We stayed two nights in
Briare
We wandered around the town, explored the port on the inside of town and an inside canal network for loca boats, these boats are hired for day trips or a week or two. We have seen an increase in numbers of these boats since Sancerre on the last canal. Briare is also known for its mosaic tiles. We didn’t visit the museum but some samples are in the pictures below, these taken in the church.
Rodgy-les-Sept-Ecluses
We did not stop overnight here, it was just a photo stop and a memory from our stop here in 2015. The seven old elcuses (locks), were built in the 1600’s and replaced by the current locks in 1887. The old locks were used for transportation of goods.
Dammarie-sur-Loing
A pleasant overnight stop in a village where we had stopped previous in 2015, and it locked the same with no-one around, shutters on the houses all shut, a small café with small grocery selection and a war memorial.
After Dammarie we had a few stops at the 4 ecluses, and took some photos along this pretty part of the canal as we also did in 2015.
Montargis
The town is known as little venice as the canals run around the town. We had skipped a lot of towns to get to a major centre for Johns birthday the next day.
We walked around the towns and small canals, visited the surrounds of the old chateau, now used for a private school.
The afternoon caught a local bus to the out of town shopping centre hoping to look at electric bikes, however we didn’t find any we liked, did the shopping and back to Montargis and out to dinner for Johns birthday.
We were supposed to pay at this Port but as usual the police collecting the fee didn’t visit the boat for money. They chatted to the Tourist info office staff for one hour and went home.
We rushed this canal as we had visited in the past and we want to be back to Migennes the boats home for the winter as we have some maintenance requirements and winterising routines for the boat. We would rather attend to these at the Migennes than while travelling. Hopefully we will do this canal again in the future and travel more slowly.
