Photography-Life in Alaska-Random Thoughts
Photography highlighting Alaska, the most beautiful place on earth.
Woke to an absolutely gorgeous day in Lumes so we took advantage of the weather and did a long bike ride along the river up to Charleville-Mezieres and then back to the boat for one final stretch back to the rental base at Pont-à-Bar. We will turn in the boat in the morning and then hop the train to Paris for a couple of days visiting old haunts. Thanks for coming along with us.
We woke up in Lumes to fog coming off the canal after a chilly night, but the sun is out and there’s no rain in the forecast! It ended up being a beautiful day, only interrupted by a couple of locks that weren’t working correctly, but the canal tech was jumping ahead of us in his car and we didn’t have any major delays. We pulled into the village dock at Lumes around 3pm and took the opportunity for a long bike ride along the canal in the sun and warmth.
It rained all night, and it rained again most of the day as we headed towards Mouzon. We ran into another non-functioning lock and had to call a technician who was there within 20 minutes. Just as we got to Mouzon the rain stopped and it turned into a beautiful late afternoon.
Mouzon was at one time the center of felt production, so of course we had to visit the felt museum, which honestly, was pretty fascinating. We did a walk-about around the village and ended the day with a gorgeous sunset.
We have begun our return journey by leaving Verdun and heading downstream now, back through the 9 manually operated locks and some increasingly heavy downpours at times. It’s interesting to return on the same river and see all things you missed behind you on the way upstream.
Some of the heaviest rain so far on this leg of the journey, but it was nice enough to turn into a light drizzle at most of the locks and it quit raining completely just long enough for us to dock for the night back in Dun-sur-Meuse. Time to dry out.
We slept late, then headed up to see the Monument de la Victoire, built in 1926 to honor all of the soldiers who fought at Verdun during WWI.
Next up the hill was the amazing Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Verdun, started in, believe it or not, 457 a.d. A much larger version was begun in 990 a.d. The history just seeps out of this place.
A then we did a walk-around of the Citadel of Verdun. The citadel was built around 1624. From 1890 to 1914, an underground system with a total length of 7 kilometers was built underneath the citadel. This underground system served as headquarters of the French army during the Battle of Verdun. It is absolutely huge. We did not go inside for the tour, but the history is fascinating. Google is your friend on this one.
Skies started to threaten rain again, so we abandoned our plans to try to get up to the Verdun War Memorial and the Douaumont Ossuary outside of town that holds the remains of 130,000 soldiers who died during the battle of Verdun and were not identified. 800,000 perished in the battle of Verdun. It’s impossible to get your head around something like that.
We got back to the boat just as the fat rain drops started falling. Perfect timing for a change.
