Rolling on the River – Hamilton Spectator
Kenneth Bagnell
June 9, 2011
“There’s beauty, Bob Dylan once wrote, “in the silver singing river.”
He could have been thinking of one of my most remembered rivers, one in a pastoral region of Europe. It’s the quiet, tree-lined Marne-River Canal of France, slipping past very old villages of the rustic Alsace-Lorraine region, near the German border.It’s a meandering waterway, winding eastward from a village with a name that’s as hard to forget as it was for me to pronounce: Xouxange.
Barbara, my wife/researcher, and I arrived in Paris during late spring when the air was perfumed with the promise of another glorious France summer.We spent the night at a small, affordable Paris hotel then took a two-hour train to a town called Nancy, near the village shore that was our departure. Our vessel The Lorraine was actually a barge, and while the word evokes the image of a grimy tugboat, it was like a large houseboat drifting serenely over the water.
Indeed its speed was so slow it truly did seem to drift: it went at 4 km/h. The dozen cabins were on the small side but we were in ours only to sleep or dress for evening dinner. Mostly we were on the forward deck, relaxed, reading a book as the landscape slipped by: gentle forests, aged villages and strolling families whose children often waved from pathways lined with wildflowers.
Sometimes we’d step off at a lock – - there were about 30 in all and walk to the next one, arriving well before the barge. Once, maybe twice, I used a bicycle aboard to pedal my way, one lock to the next.There’s an atmosphere aboard a riverboat that’s distinct compared with an ocean cruise. The reason is obvious: fewer passengers. There were fewer than 30 men and women, almost all retirees aboard The Lorrraine.
One quality making a riverboat experience memorable is the sound of silence. On the Marne-Rhine Canal, the only sound was the soft, slow break of river watering washing against the bow. It became a silence no one wanted to interrupt, so conversation on the forward deck was hushed.
Not that there were no lively exchanges aboard the Lorraine. When dusk fell, the day’s liveliest hour came at a tasteful bar in a small living room setting, tended by a Scotsman whose martini was special. And of course there were the evening tables. The most famous of Alsace cooking, a blend of French and German, is locally grown pork, done with special finesse and with sauerkraut for unforgettable zest. The food was acquired mostly that morning along the way, village by village, town by town: breads, meats, fish from the markets of deeply French towns: Sarrebourg; Hochfelden and Underlinten.
Here and there, the boat tied up, we went ashore and in the care of a local guide, strolled streets, some rustic, some elegant, all rich in history. One for example, is Sarrebourg, a small town of about 10,000 people, where we and other visitors stood in silent respect before a huge stained glass window in a chapel. It was the work of one of the great artists of stained glass in the 20th century, Marc Chagall. It’s The Tree of Life, with numerous biblical figures meant to depict his sympathy for the human struggle.
The capital of the region and now the headquarters of the European Parliament is Strasbourg; it has a population of half a million who live in privileged and cultured setting, revealed in marvellous architecture. Strasbourg is best known in history for its now high, distant controversy. It’s recalled in the magnificent design of Cathedral Notre Dame. We heard much about its past with the Lorraine’s competent local guide, Giselle Georget who spent a couple of hours with us in the church.
Our Lorraine days ended with dinner that was truly a gala event for a small group who became good friends in such a short time. Our young servers, Megan and Alanna, had by then become old friends.
As we ate and watched the slow fall of another dusk, I told Barbara The Lorraine brought to mind a sentence attributed to the great American of that country’s history, Thomas Jefferson who, became the third president of the United States in 1801. He loved travel and looking toward the end of his earthly day he remembered his many excursions and said that drifting down a canal aboard a barge may well be as nice a way to travel as there is. Barbara and I think he was right.
Special to The Hamilton Spectator
If you go
The Basics: The Lorraine, owned by The Barge Company, is one of more than 30 barges the company runs in Britain and Europe. Cost of the 22-person Lorraine Cruises range from $2,000 to $3,000 per person depending on season. For information: bargecompany.com. Watch the website for special offers.
On all our European trips we travel by train and recommend a Eurail pass. Our France-Italy pass allowed five days travel in two months and is available through ACPRail in Montreal. (It costs in the vicinity of $375.) acprail.com or phone 1-866-938-7245. Hence, after leaving the Lorraine we boarded the train to see more of spring-summer in France and Italy.