Court Short – Claire and James Short

Reunited and restored to her normal self, here are the pictures that should have been with the last blog!!!

  Ocean Rainbow is now reunited with her mast, her rigging is set, her boom is on and she looks wonderful.    The team at Port Napoleon have been excellent.   They’re professional, fast and so amazingly helpful.   Jean-Jacques in his cherry picker was brilliant during the mast restepping.  He helped straighten out the […]

After the most beautiful last day on France’s mighty Rhône River, we are now back in our familiar salty environment.   We have spoken to our last lock keeper and negotiated his slightly tricky lock, said goodbye to monster barges and 200ft long floating hotels.  We have closed our Guide Fluvials (Waterways Guides) and now […]

So we’re now at our last ‘sightseeing’ stop of our wonderful canal trip.   Can’t believe it’s coming to an end but oh my goodness have we loved it all!  We’re now saturated with ancient history and almost completely befuddled with the names of all the places we’ve been to and, as for churches, we […]

  We have just loved Avignon.  5km of walled city, Palais des Papes (the largest and most important gothic building in Europe) the famed bridge, wiggly cobbled streets, trompe d’oeil windows, towers, churches, fountains, water wheels and restaurants.   It’s been a real cycle marathon but we think we’ve covered most things!! Great place to […]

We arrived in Avignon and the first thing we did was to go off in search of wine!!  Rather special wine as it happens and a rather special day where we learnt even more about grape varieties, wine making processes and domaines.  Châteauneuf-du-Pape consists of the remains of a castle, dozens of little “caves” for […]

We’re progressing down the beautiful Rhône with stops in marinas tucked out of the way of the wash from barges and other river traffic.  Valence was a nice town with a lovely park but it’s Viviers that’s caught our imagination with ramparts surrounding the cathedral and ecclesiastical buildings dating from the 11th Century.  We also […]

In our household cars and bollards do not have a happy relationship, however this is not the case with our boat and bollards!   We’re loving them, they’re the floating kind and as fast as we go down, so do the bollards.  Oh bliss!   Mind you we’re descending at a pace and quite some […]

Literally translated that is what Côte-Rôtie means and it refers to a very small area along the Rhône from Vienne to Condrieu where the sun beats down on the slopes.  Here a very dry red wine is produced from a combination of Syrah and Viognier grapes that are grown in terraces linked by steps.  We […]

We had such a great time in Lyon, finding so much more to see than expected.  From ancient to modern, Lyon is a city that surprises.  Everywhere we went from the narrow cobbled streets of Rue de St Jean to the astonishing Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourvière, from the modern bright buildings of the […]