Thursday 26th August
We got up this morning in Gurgy and had baguette and confiture (jam) with coffee for breakfast and started our trip to Joigny. We spent the day travelling in unison with the English family as they were heading in the same direction.
The river is lovely up here and there aren’t as many locks to contend with.
We spent the lunch time floating slowly in the middle of the river. There’s very little other boat traffic. We have heard there were a lot fewer boats being hired this year no doubt because of the global financial crisis.
Once the locks reopened it was only 1 quick lock and we were in Joigny.
What a lovely town. It’s set on a hill by the river and has some beautiful medieval buildings although they had a big fire in the 16th century and they rebuilt.

There is a gorgeous cathedral and château high on the slope and the sides of the hills behind the town are covered in vines. In 1438 the inhabitants of Joigny rose up against their lord. The wine growers and coopers armed themselves and took the château by storm. They captured the lord and dealt to him with their mallets! They now call themselves Maillotins and show the mallot on their coat of arms.

We spent the afternoon wandering the narrow streets and alleyways, spent some time looking around the cemetery and the church and stopped for an aperitif, a kir, before walking back to the port de Plaisance where we are moored surrounded by French, English and German boats. Hopefully it won’t be too noisy although the boat opposite us has a bunch that look like they may get rowdy later.
Today we travelled 22kms and went through 6 locks. An easy day!