Almost as soon as I hit ‘publish’ on last night’s blog it started to rain again.
It stopped this morning for a while during which we visited a wonderful boulangerie in Auxerre, had some breakfast and a hot shower at the Capitanerie. Luxury! We then wandered into the old side of Auxerre, meandering along the narrow cobblestone streets, checking out the window displays of the boutiques. The French call it lèche vitrine, licking the window.

We met up with Carol the kiwi who is staying on a boat in Auxerre and had a grande creme with her at the cafe in the old town.
Then we untied our ropes and headed south out of Auxerre heading on the Canal Nivernais/river Yonne.
It started to rain again on and off all afternoon but it was such lovely countryside it didn’t matter.

That’s our boat in the middle. The little one.

We went through 7 locks, 11kms down to Bailly where we tied up in the side of the river, by the steps that lead up to the Bailly wine caves.
This ancient quarry lies about 50 metres into the bedrock, dug out by workers in the 12th century. The stone was used to build some of the architectural heritage of Burgundy.
The stone was transported via the Yonne river. In 1927 the quarry was used in mushroom farming and then in 1972, due to the natural humidity and constant temperature it was transformed into wine caves. Hurrah!
We felt the need for some degustation and bought a lovely Crémant de Bourgogne Baigoule Bailly Lapierre which we had with dinner on the back of the boat. Yes it has stopped raining!

We also bought a couple of others to take home.

This one we bought off a lock keeper.

Now it’s 7pm and we have a lovely treed mooring to ourselves. We can hear the church bells ringing from
Bailly. And it’s not raining. Yay!