Day 7 - St. Jean de Losny to Dole

We headed to Dole, which is a detour from the Saone River.  Dole is about 11 miles up a canal, so we will have to retrace our path tomorrow to get back to the Saone.  There are 8 locks between the Saone and Dole and they are self run.  At the first one, the lockmaster gave us a remote control.  As you approach the lock you use the remote to open the door and then you go in and secure your boat to the side wall.  Then there’s a bar you pull to shut the door and start the water filling in.  The other door automatically opens when it’s done.

This is the gizmo for controlling the lock.  Push up the blue (left) bar and the lock doors shut and water comes in (or goes out) 

Under a low bridge! 

Holding our boat steady inside a lock (me above, David below)

The ride to Dole took us about three and a half hours and we docked at the Nichols’ Marina.  Nichols is another boat rental company.  As we got into the town, we discovered a circus right across the street from our marina!  This is a beautiful town, and relatively large compared to the other towns we’ve been to on this trip.  We had heard that there was a street market here on Tuesdays but it had already ended when we got here.  We stopped at a little café for lunch and had lovely salads with different kinds of meats on them.  I had a smoked duck breast and David had cheeses, cold sausage, smoked duck and salami on his.  Just as we were finishing we met the couple at the table next to us – Hugo and Rozin, from Belgium.  We have recently been to Belgium and they’ve been to NY many times so we had  a lot to chat about.  Then we found the tourist office where we got a map for a walking tour of Dole.  Helping us to follow the tour there are little triangular metal plates attached to the sidewalk pointing the direction in which to walk.  On each plate is a picture of a cat!  After the tour we came back to relax on the boat and I bought tickets to the circus for tonite!  Yippee!!  

Entering a lock

Inside a lock

On the way to Dole (above and below) 

Our boat (far back, dark blue bottom) at the Nichols marina in Dole 

Lunch!!

Around Dole

This is one of the metal cat plates we followed on our walking tour of Dole 

A narrow street in Dole 

A sculpture in Dole called "The gossips" 

The circus across from our marina 

We sat on the boat and relaxed for a while, and then it was time to find a place for dinner.  As I think I have stated, most French people don’t eat until at least 8:00, but we had the circus at 8:30.  There was a little place right near our boat that had wifi so I packed the computer and we went there but they didn’t really have food.  They did have wifi, so we sat for a bit and had drinks.  They had a guy singing, and there were about 7 people in the whole place, including the two bartenders and the singer!  He started singing “Country Roads” by John Denver, in French.  Everyone in the place (yes, all 7 of us) started singing along with him, David and I singing in English.  Then  he played “City of New Orleans” (probably not the name of it but you’d know it if you heard it).  He realized that there were Americans in the place (us!) so he started playing a bit of the Star Spangled Banner and then Yankee Doodle Dandy.  We were all laughing and having a good time.   

Soon we left there to find food.  We walked all around trying to find a restaurant that wasn’t too expensive and had more than pizza.  We finally found this cute place and went in.  We were the only ones there.  The waiter spoke almost no English.  I couldn’t recognize a single item on the menu.  I pointed to one part and asked if he could tell me what they were…..  I asked, “Poullet, bouef, poisson?”  (chicken, beef, fish?) and he said, “Cheeses”.  I finally settled on a salad with ham and diced potatoes.  It was good, just not what I had in mind.  David had a fondue with mushrooms in the cheese.  Also good.  

At dinner!

Of course, a pic of the food!!

Next we were off to the circus!  It was actually pretty good for a small traveling circus.  It was kind of like the Big Apple Circus.  There was one ring and they had tigers, horses, elephants, acrobats and clowns.  The two best acts were this guy who was on a wheel attached to a contraption.  The wheel went around and he was running inside it like a hamster.  I kept thinking he’d fall.  The other great act had this giant metal ball and three guys on motorcycles were riding around inside it.  After the circus, we walked right across the bridge and into our marina.

Churros for sale!

A tiger at the circus (we were not this close, I zoomed in!) 

Balancing act!