Gray days…

We never know when we arrive in a place just how long we will stay there. Gray is a popular destination for overnight trips from St Jean de Losne and people speak well of it. Our first impressions were of it living up to its name - with no small measure of “wet” as well! It’s a small town of 7000 inhabitants with another 1000 in Arc-les-Gray on the other side of the river and its situation on the Saone meant it was once a strategically important town both from a military and a commercial perspective. The advent of the railways changed all that and it is now a charming, quiet, provincial town of little note except that it welcomes boaties with open arms and does its all to make our stay here pleasant (and cheap!)

On Monday, the day of our arrival, there was a long enough break in the rain for us to explore the town a little - most especially with a view to finding a wifi connection so we could check the email. Like every other French town, it has an impressive church, where we searched without success for a statue of Notre Dame de Gray. Commentaries about the church spoke of a statue of Our Lady, sculpted from a miraculous oak tree and gifted to the church. It is credited with many miracles and the walls of the church are covered with plaques acknowledging its miraculous intervention but try as we may, we could not find it. Gray has a most stunning town hall, one of the best examples of renaissance architecture in this region. Opposite it should have been the Office du Tourisme but in summer it moves to different offices in the lower part of town, not all that far from where the boat was moored. When we did find it, the reception couldn’t have been better and even though they didn’t (yet) offer internet services there, they were able to help us locate an unsecured wifi connection - we think belonging to a nearby hotel - within metres of their door. Sometimes you can even connect from inside. They were also able to offer the usual maps and information about the region, including a fantastic brochure with up-to-date details of all the mooring and port services offered in the region. If only every region produced such a brochure!

The next day after drying out and a concerted effort to address some of the remaining leaks on the boat, one of the women from the Tourist office dropped by our boat. Pleased to see that we hadn’t left port, she (Claudine) asked if I would be prepared to do an interview with the local radio station - they were doing a series of interviews, including with a couple of other boaties. Taking the advice I’ve given to many an exchange teacher in the past, I said yes before I could think of any reason not to. Claudine was delighted and we had a long conversation about all manner of things before agreeing to meet back at the boat at around 3:30 for the interview - for which our reward turned out to be an invitation to dinner at Claudine’s house that evening and a free guided visit of Gray on Thursday morning.

The interview seemed to go well - I enjoyed a wide-ranging discussion covering such topics as why boaties come to France, the cost of living, French-NZ relationships, the benefits of language learning, the cost of living and the impact of the economic crisis. I won’t have to listen to the interview, so it will be up to others to determine its success but both interviewer and Claudine seemed happy enough.

Dinner was a real experience of French rural life. Claudine lives with her three children and her mother in Gy, which is about 20km from Gray. The property is huge and once was a dairy farm and cheese factory. The farm has been sold off now and the dairy factory has closed. Income is now generated by renting out two houses on the property - one as a short term holiday home, the other on a long term tenancy. The surrounding woods threaten to invade the property, so there was work being done to keep it at bay. Claudine tends to the magnificent and expansive garden and lawns - the lawns alone take 5 hours to mow on the ride-on mower. Claudine’s children weren’t home on Tuesday but her mother was - at 76, she was not at all fazed by having impromptu visitors for dinner, one of them struggling to cope with conversation in French. It’s amazing how far a warm heart, a warm smile and a bit of willingness on both sides will go to aid communication. We enjoyed a simple, tasty meal and a lovely evening with Claudine and Mamie before being dropped back to the boat - an entirely unexpected encounter on arrival in Gray, which serves to illustrate the benefits of being able to speak the language. Such moments are precious.

Wednesday just seemed to disappear… We changed our mooring spot yet again, moving just a little further upstream to a spot just beside the camping ground. It’s amazing to have such a choice of places to moor - and all with such great facilities. We did shopping, taking advantage of the Lidl supermarket nearby to get in a supply of well-priced rosé. (Lidl supermarkets seem to do the best deals in wines and we often stock up there when we can). We also visited the local Bricomarché looking for solutions to various “problems” with the boat. As J suggested, we found the answer to a hinge problem and I spent much of the afternoon replacing the hinges on the hatches in the saloon floor that give us access to the motor, and learning quite a bit in the process. We then had Nick from Onderneming over for drinks. Onderneming is a lovely old Dutch sailing tjalk and Nick spends most of the summer on it - often alone. We had had quite a few conversations with him about the rising waters and, like me, he was interviewed for the local radio. It was a pleasure to send a bit more time with him talking about boats, waterways and our common working past in education.

Our guided visit of Gray on Thursday was gorgeous but we are still kicking ourselves at having left cameras behind as we saw some beautiful sights that are only accessible with a guide. We saw inside buildings that are not normally open to the public, the most interesting of which was the St Pierre Fourier tower with its crafty revolving staircase. The top flights of the staircase turned around so the entrance to it could be completely hidden denying access to the little room upstairs - a wonderful hideout if ever you needed one. There were lots of other fascinating secret spaces - passages and courtyards normally hidden from view. The Hotel Dieu is now a wonderful refuge for the elderly who can no longer look after themselves. This facility is over 500 years old and was built under the orders of Louis XIV to look after paupers and wounded soldiers. We were able to visit the chapel, and some of the other spaces that did not intrude on the residents. In particular, behind a locked door, we entered the apothecary which is a 2 room wonderland. Walls from floor to high ceiling are covered with drawers with all manner of familiar and unfamiliar ingredients. There were shelves and shelves of ceramic jars similarly labelled with mysterious and wondrous concoctions and J could imagine herself as a very happy apothecary if she had lived in other times.

During the visit, the mystery of the missing statue was also solved for us - she wasn’t missing at all but had been before our very eyes all the time. It’s just that she was no more that 10cm in height and was on show within a reliquary on the altar. We’d been looking for something a little bigger. The 2-hour long tour served as a reminder of just how much of a town you can miss when you visit on your own but we if we paid for a guided visit of every town we visit, we wouldn’t be able to afford to stay as long nor perhaps to eat…

Apres la pluie, le beau temps

(After the rain, the sun shines)

Weather in all its form is a constant and very evident factor here. It seems to us that it is more ‘in your face’ here than at home. This is perhaps just because we are not engaged in paid work to distract us - or perhaps because the boat is a confined space not unlike a tent or a mobile home. The wrong sort of weather can restrict us to this very small space for extended periods…

Our first 2 weeks here in France were extremely hot - uncomfortably so - and unusual for May the locals kept telling us. However, it did mean we could get on with the work that needed to be done on the boat straight away because we needed good weather for the work on the hull and we were able to cool off in Christian‘s pool at the end of the day. We were put in the water, quayside, went down a lock and motored into the marina and made a perfect reverse into a finger mooring. Perfect timing because five days of intermittent and spectacular thunderstorms followed. (It is always nice being tied up to pontoon when the rains come because the pontoon and boats rise together. It’s not so flash when the waters (and the boat) rise while tied to a fixed point!) The few stormy days in the marina gave us plenty of time to marvel at and enjoy the benefits of our new cockpit cover, as well as to re-acquaint ourselves with familiar persistent leaks around a couple of windows. (Some, however, do seem to have been taken care of - although a change of wind direction can show how deceptive appearances can be.)


Weather reports are usually very accurate here so, on the promise of a fine, still morning, we headed off up the Saone river on Wednesday morning and reached the lovely Auxonne by lunchtime. By afternoon, the wind was already getting up (as predicted) and could have made a later mooring tricky. We stayed for two nights, enjoyed the company of Bruce and Susan from the US mid west and who introduced J to the joys of a dirty martini. From there we spent a lovely time at Pontailler before heading to Mantoche. We arrived in sunshine on Saturday afternoon, which remained till lunchtime on Sunday then it rained till night fall.

Our plan was to pack up in the morning and go to Gray but it started to rain again and it looked as though it would continue for some time. We don’t usually navigate in the rain because C has to spend a lot of time outside when we go through locks - and besides, it just isn’t that much fun. After giving it some thought we decided to navigate the river anyway. We did not fancy being stuck in Mantoche on a mooring that could flood if the river rose and there were no locks between where we were and the Gray quayside, so we could both spend most of the time warm and dry in the boat. We arrived at the quay in Gray in pouring rain. Despite the fact that there were a lot of boats - and people - on the quay, no-one came to help with ropes, which is unusual but perhaps not surprising. We are quite capable of tying up by ourselves but an extra hand always makes it a little easier, especially in difficult weather conditions.

We were delighted to find that Gray offers free water and electricity and very soon were tucked up, warm and drying out any dampness by lunchtime. The rain abated for a couple of hours in the afternoon so we had a pleasant walk around the very pretty town and stocked up on some essentials from the supermarket near the quay. Just as we arrived back at the boat the heavens opened again and it rained heavily until dark (it’s nearly the longest day here so “until dark” means between 9:30 and 10pm). We kept a close eye on the level of the water in the river but it rose surprisingly little overnight.

We took advantage of better weather in the morning to spend a couple of hours replacing mastic around windows, which was no longer doing its job. Time and the next rain will tell if we have been successful. As we got on and off the boat, we noticed that the water level had risen quite a bit during the morning and seemed to be getting higher. Catherine made a visit to the VNF who manage French waterways and confirmed that within a couple of hours our mooring ropes could well be flooded and the boat would be bumping the steps. Not a good situation, as that sort of bumping could seriously damage more that just the new paintwork on the hull! So we had to leave our lovely free spot, travel a short distance through a lock and moor at the Le Boat (commercial hire boats) Port for10E per night. However, we would be on the favoured pontoons and under the circumstances 10E seemed quite a small price to pay for our safety and the well-being of the boat! The next challenge was to dock the boat in a finger mooring with the swollen river running at right angles to the pontoons. Suffice to say this was accomplished after a couple of failed attempts and it wasn’t a pretty sight. Once again no-one came to help, even though it wasn’t raining… unlike last year when the lovely Stanley and Wolfgang were there to help us in out in Dijon.

We moved this morning from Le Boat port, a bit further up river to moorings attached to a camping ground. The river is going down and although we are not on pontoons we will be safe. It will cost 5E for the same services we paid 10 E for last night (mooring, electricity, water and showers). It is a very hot day and Catherine has found an inside job to do. The two engine hatch covers have hinges that are lumpy to walk on and one of them is broken. (it was badly placed and so has been bent over the years) Catherine has bought and begun to learn how to use a chisel. She is ‘checking in’ the new hinges so they have a low profile. She learnt quite quickly which side of the chisel should face down! It is too hot to be outside, inside is only marginally cooler but is an example of one of the many ways weather dictates to us. Another will be our decision about when to leave here - more rain is predicted for Friday morning and that may well influence our timing for continuing up the river. It would suit us better to go on Friday because the next stop will be in a hire boat centre and Saturdays are changeover days there making it a good day to avoid for all manner of reasons!

Saturday night in the big smoke

(barbecue smoke that is)


Last Saturday night saw us moored at Mantoche, which is a small charming village sporting its own impressive chateau on the waterfront, resident artist, bar/restaurant, a few permanently closed shops and a bread van calling at the port at 9.30am.

There is a wide mown strip of grass on the waterfront with lovely shade trees and enough room for about 6 boats. On this particular night all mooring spaces had been taken up, three of them by hire boats, who were pleased to have our help coming in. The arrival of the two boats full of Italians is probably worthy of a post on its own but suffice to say that the mix of first-time boating and a mix of languages worthy of the tower of Babel made their entry into the port a wondrously entertaining exercise.

On the grass verge, we noticed 4 lads arrived who, with the help of a towel to maintain modesty, changed into togs and did the boy thing of running and ‘bombing’ into the river. They were joined by some more lads, then a couple of lasses and there was a deal of good-natured horseplay. They lit a barbecue and produced a few cold beers. There were about a dozen 18 year olds who were celebrating a birthday and while it was a bit noisy we did recognise there was nowhere in Mantoche for the young to go to enjoy themselves. They provided us with a lot of entertainment as they displayed certain stereotypical behaviours for a group of teenagers. Those of us who have raised and taught teenagers marvelled at how predictable they were. The dynamics of the group changed with each new arrival. One (very attractive) girl had her eyes on a very handsome lad but when she could see he wasn’t going to reciprocate, she sought out another. There was one large fellow, James, who was the ‘clown’ and felt it was his job to keep everyone amused with singing and general tomfoolery. There was a small element of the behaviour of the group playing to the gallery (ie the boaties) but very little of that. They were enjoying themselves so much they forgot about us especially when it got dark.

We understand that they packed up at 1am - we were well and truly asleep by then - and when I say “packed up” I mean it literally. The following morning, the only sign that anyone had been there on the Saturday night was a single forgotten sock ad we can‘t be sure that it belonged to one of them. Not a scrap of rubbish was left behind and certainly no broken glass. We were all very impressed. Sue, a solo boatie from the UK said that if that had been ‘back home’ the site would have been littered with rubbish and broken glass. We’re not sure it would have been an different in NZ either.

It has been our experience in all French villages to meet and interact with polite well behaved young people who offer a hand if they see a need. Yesterday, on the quay at Gray, a young man, who had heard Catherine speak in English and French, knocked on our boat and asked if he could correspond by email in English with her because he wanted to improve his English language skills. We know we can’t generalise too much because we are usually in small country towns and villages - but we have been impressed.

Le grand départ

Wednesday, 10 June at 9:30am we set off from St Jean de Losne on a perfect morning for navigating - sun shining and no wind. After several changes of plan to a very rough initial itinerary, we have decided to head straight up the Saone river, then up the Canal de l'Est, which will bring us (sooner or later) to the city of Nancy. We are in no hurry. That's part of the pleasure of travelling this way. When we get to Nancy, we'll see how long it has taken us to get there and then make up our minds where to go from there. There is no shortage of options: east to Strasburg, north-east toward the Saar river and the German border, north to Metz and Luxemburg or west ans south on the shortest route back to St Jean de Losne. Whatever the route, we plan to be back in SJL in early to mid-October.

On Day One, we travelled a very acceptable 16-17km in around two and a half hours. That's quick navigating for us but we were on the river (i.e. no speed restrictions as there are in canals) and we had only one lock to negotiate between SJL and Auxonne, another advantage of river navigation. last year we averaged nearly one lock per kilometre travelled. We are now moored in Auxonne and will spend the next couple of days here looking around. It's a lovely small town boasting fortifications by Vauban (THE French specialist in designing town fortifications) and a connection with Napoleon, who began his military studies in the town as a teenager. Less famously but equally important to us, Auxonne has a market tomorrow morning and a free internet connection at the Tourist Info office.

PS Cycling on Auxonne's ancient cobblestones is not a comfortable experience!

Of Christian(’s) kindness

Good fortune and insurance agents don’t usually go together but there are some exceptions. Those of you who have read last year’s log entries will know that the previous owners of our boat gave us the contact details for their insurance agent, Christian de Baillencourt, who specialises (amongst other things) in boat insurance. Making contact with Christian has turned out to be one of the most amazing strokes of luck for us. Having imagined an imposing and very formal personage, and French bureaucracy of the highest order in respect of insuring the boat, the reality could not have been further from the pre-conceived! The day we arrived in Dijon last year (en route for St Jean de Losne), Christian picked us up from our hotel, took us to his office, had the insurance business over with in a matter of minutes, let us use the office computer to check our email and took us to the supermarket before dropping us and our food back at the hotel. He was also responsible for helping to set up the amazing “Sunday Lunch” and when we met again at the end of the boating season, he bought us a lunch and said that we should let him know when we were arriving in Dijon this year so that he could meet us at the station and either take us home to rest for a day or so after our travels or take us directly to the boat in St Jean de Losne. And so, a week before we left NZ, we contacted Christian to let him know the time and date of our arrival in Dijon…

…and he got back to us to let us know he’d be at the station to meet us and take us home to his place for the night, which, indeed, he did. He has a lovely, large house in Chenay, about 20 minutes out of Dijon, complete with billiard room, swimming pool and lovely, upstairs guest room and bathroom. We had intended to spend just one night at Christian’s and then move onto the boat but when Christian found out that it was on the hard and that we planned to paint both inside and out before putting it into the water, he insisted that we should borrow his spare car and “commute” to St Jean de Losne from his place until the painting was finished. Given that the inside painting was in the main cabin and that temperatures were in the mid to high twenties, we yielded without too much resistance to the lure of a spacious bedroom free of paint fumes and a swimming pool to relax in at the end of the day, as well as Christian’s most enjoyable company. As it turned out, we stayed for a week, and it was wonderful!

Christian is a generous host and really easy company. We shared lovely meals - sometimes with just the three of us, sometimes with his friends or even at their homes, including a return to the home of Marie-Jo and Therese (“Sunday Lunch”) for a delightful evening meal in their stunningly beautiful garden. Conversation was in fabulous franglais with Christian keen to use his pretty competent English and insisting that Jeanette made every effort to use her French when talking to him.

The absolute highlight of the week, however, came one hot evening, when we had arrived back at the house quite a bit before Christian. We’d had a swim and were enjoying a cold beer, when he arrived home to announce that it was a perfect evening for flying and would we like to go for a spin in his micro light? Would we ever!!!

We piled into Christian’s VW convertible and blew any remaining paint dust out of our hair (noses, eyes and other places) on the 15 minutes drive to the aerodrome. In almost no time and with very little effort, Christian had the micro light out of the shed and ready to fly. J went up first, then me - we each had about 15 to 20 minutes in the air and it was FABULOUS! I am not always comfortable with heights (swing bridges can scare the hell out of me) but I wasn’t afraid even for a moment. It was simply exhilarating. The countryside in this part of France is particularly beautiful in a cultivated, pastoral kind of a way. From the air, in the evening light, it was breathtakingly gorgeous - a patchwork of wheat, barley, rape and sunflower fields, all different shades of green and some imprinted with amazingly regular patterns made by the tractors doing the irrigation. In amongst these were villages, small forests, lakes, farm buildings, roads and the railway. We could have taken the kind of photos that you see in those “From the air” books but we didn’t dare take the camera up with us. It has no strap and we didn’t want to drop it - both for the sake of the camera and for anyone who might find themselves underneath! So our photographic record is from the ground - you’ll have to imagine the rest for yourselves!





Christian is an experienced flyer and a conservative one - at least when he has novices on board. We both felt completely safe and neither of us would hesitate to go flying with him again - if he should offer. Trust is an absolute essential for enjoying the experience, however . Such a tiny motor and the flimsy-looking construction would not normally inspire confidence…

We did eventually move out of Christian’s place last Friday (he was probably delighted that he’d arranged to go away for the long weekend!) but not before he had extended his hospitality even further. Jo Higgins, our first visitor for 2009, stayed at Christian’s for the first night of her stay… We can’t even think now how he managed to talk us into that! But it was another most enjoyable evening.

We’ve also returned the car and there is no doubt that having it made our many parts of the return so much easier! We were able to do a big supermarket shop with it, including putting in an initial wine stack, and bring the shopping to within metres of the boat. We were also able to go and fill up our fuel cans (5 x 20 litres) and our gas bottle, which weighs an absolute ton, and bring them back to Blanquart’s shed, so they were easily available to bring on board as soon as we were put in the water. It also meant that we could take Jo on a trip to Beaune and the surrounding vineyards - but more of that another day.

We know Christian expects nothing in return for all this generosity. He is, however, talking of coming to New Zealand next summer, so we do hope that we will be able to return the hospitality in some way - I’m not sure we’ll be able to come up with anything to match the micro light experience, though….

Merci mille fois, cher Christian!
Catherine (et Jeanette)

Green legs and ham

The part of the hull below the waterline of Erewhon was scungy last year and obviously a little worse this year as you can see from our first post of the year. We decided to bite the bullet and give it a good sand and the recommended paint job. We rolled up to the office on a Sunday morning and asked to use the pneumatic sander. David Blanquart responded to this request by saying that Sunday is for God, we should go for a walk in the forest as the temperature later in the day would be well into the thirties. Anyway, he said, it is against the law to make a noise on a Sunday, and this is so. Sundays are blissfully quiet and peaceful in this part of France and we weren‘t going to be the ones to disturb the peace so we engaged in the quiet activity of sanding (by hand) and painting in the main cabin of the boat instead.

The following day we were handed the pneumatic palm sander and given instructions on how to use it with the rider that we should take it in turns and do no more than 15 minutes each. Well, this ‘palm’ sander has two switches that must be engaged before it kicks into action. It might fit comfortably into the palm of a bloke but for us it was a two-handed operation. The sander is quite heavy, not too difficult to use in a standing position but altogether a different prospect when under the boat. In a kneeling or prone position (on your back) it was necessary to take a big breath, raise the sander above your head onto the hull, do as much sanding as you could while your breath lasted then lower the sander to start breathing again. One learnt quite quickly to make sure the head of the sander wasn’t still revolving when you lowered it onto your leg and to keep your eyes only just open when sanding above your head. We had ear muffs and masks but because a lot of the paint we were removing was green, we were rapidly covered from top to toe in green dust, hence the ‘green legs’ in the title. We had ham in one form or another for lunch on each of the two days it took to complete the job. (Catherine did say, that out of respect to Dr Seuss, I should be writing this in rhyming couplets but I decided that was far too hard!)

In our ignorance we had thought that we could sand the boat down in one morning and put the first coat on in the afternoon. Nevertheless we did a good job and the finish we achieved was admired by those whose opinions we respect. Guy did the repairs that needed to be done to the fibre glass surface and we then gave the hull three and a bit coats of the recommended antifouling paint. Jeanette has declared that if the hull is ever in that state again someone will be paid to do the sanding! We would have liked the antifouling to be green to fit in with our exterior colour scheme but had only had a choice of red, blue or black. We opted for black and as it happens it does look very smart.

The French pronounce - and some have been known to spell - antifouling as “antifooling“. We are rather tickled with the idea that a boat could be antifooled. Now wouldn’t that be a popular product!

Applying the "antifooling" paint

There were times when the boat seemd to go on forever!

Commenting on our blog

Having learned a few things about blogs over the past few months, we have changed the settings to make it easier for friends and family to communicate with us through the blog by adding comments to any posts. You don't now need a gmail address to do this (as seemed to be the case last year) but remember that anyone reading the blog will be able to read your comments. If your comments are meant for our eyes only, email will be a better option. Either way, we'll look forward to hearing from you.

A tale of two hotels

We chose to fly with Korean Air (again) because they offered the best return fare from Wellington to Paris. It involves an overnight stopover in Seoul and we were fortunate enough to be taken to the Hyatt Incheon which is a 3-minute shuttle bus ride from the airport. This is the third time we have stayed at this hotel and it is a very pleasurable experience. Some people have to endure a 1 hour drive into a hotel in Seoul city, which is not really what you want between two long-haul flights, when you don't have enough time to explore.

The number of staff who pleasantly do all they can to be of immediate service is a real joy. There is nothing obsequious about the attention, just a real desire to help in any way possible. In remarkably quick time, a bus load of people have been checked in and have access to their rooms, as well as getting any assistance they want with their luggage. The hotel is modern and in keeping with Hyatt Regency standards - it must hve at lest four, if not five, stars. The rooms are large, with big picture windows. They are light and tastefully furnished with a super king sized bed. There are tea and coffee making facilities, and a fridge with bar options (not covered by Korean Air, of course!) The bathroom is similarly large and luxurious - plenty of room for cat-swinging here! There's a shower over the bath, a good vanity arrangement and a toilet with features that most of us are not used to. The toilet seat is heated and the bidet has two spray options both of which use warm water. A muted light at ground level lights your way to the toilet if you have to get up at night. Perhaps the oddest feature was the window between the shower and the bedroom next door. It did have a blind drawn down over it, which we left in place but those with more exhibitionist tendancies could have a field day!

Three meals are included in this arrangement: a dinner and breakfast at the hotel, and vouchers for lunch at the airport. This is a good arrangement because if you have to check in luggage, and we did, you can do that and then go and fill in some time having lunch. The breakfast is a stunning series of smorgasbords with every eastern and western breakfast options imaginable. Eggs are cooked to your specifications while you wait.

The Hyatt is a relatively new hotel and so there was the luxury of being able to plan every detail and build on a large site. We don't know how much it would cost to stay for one night if we had to pay separately and so the following description is meant to give a comparison rather than be a criticism.

By the time we reached Paris we had been awake for 20 hours, the last 12 in the air. Before we left NZ, Catherine had spent hours on the internet trying to find affordable accommodation. She booked us into a hotel near the Gare de Lyon because that was the station we would travel from on our way to Dijon. It involved a fairly painless train journey from the airport to the Hotel de France near the middle of Paris. We have stayed in a few 2 star hotels in France so we have knew more or less what to expect. Our room pretty much was representative of other stays. (Remember these are very old buildings!)

Checking in was easy, if somewhat off-hand in terms of approach. Our room was on the 4th floor. The lift stopped at the third floor. The stairs to the 4th floor were narrow, windy and very steep. It was hard work lugging the suitcases up to the room, especially when we were so tired. Unlike Seoul, there was no-one to offer to help cart the suitcases up the stairs.

When we opened the door to the room, we were unable to see the promised bathroom. Catherine searched the floor to see where the 'shared' bathroom might be but couldn't find one. Eventually we found our bathroom behind the 'front' door, which when we opened it hid the bathroom door entirely. Really it was a mini en suite, absolutely tiny. All plumbing was visible and with bath, shower and toilet crammed into a confined space - no room to even share with a cat, let alone try and swing it! Cleaning the various nooks and crannies would be almost impossible, assuming there was a will in the first place. The bath was less than a metre long with very high sides (a real mission for the short legged one to get into and equally difficult for the long-legged one to fit in). The shower was over the bath. There was no shower curtain and the rose had to be held all the time. True to the spirit of French hotel plumbing, the hot water took an absolute age to come through and filling the bath (even with its reduced dimensions) would have taken the best part of a day.

The main room was big enough, larger than some we have been in, but utterly airless when we arrived. It was necessary to go back downstairs to get a handle to open the window. With a bit of less-than-gentle persuasion, it eventaully opened out onto 3m x 3m 4 story high shaft, allowing in a lovely dose of fresh air. It was quite safe to leave the window open all the time. That was a real bonus as was the fact that it was surprisingly quiet given that we were in the middle of a big city.

We opted not to pay 8 euro for breakfast in the dark, windowless room on the ground floor, choosing instead to pay little less to sit in the sun at the Terminus Cafe enjoying a breakfast of fresh orange juice, baguette, croissant and lovely hot coffee.

We spent some time wandering the streets nearby and didn't find a similarly priced hotel that was any better. We had room number 403 and would be prepared to stay there again but if we do, we'll certainly ask not to be on the 4th floor.