Bonne Fete National! July 13 and 14

We returned to Gray, all tied up by a little after noon.  Gray has three different places to tie up; the municipal marina above the lock (which costs, but not much) and below the lock on both sides of the river (free).  The east side has some power and water hookups and quite a few rings on the quay so it’s much more popular. On the west side, no services and many fewer rings but much more water depth.  That’s where we tied up this time. We made a quick trip toward town.  Arc le Gray, the town on the west side would be having their celebration on the 13th, music and entertainment (food and drink) at the stadium with fireworks about 11 pm.  Gray would have their fireworks on Sunday night. We’d have front row seats for them both.

Gray on the right, Arc le Gray on our side.

Where that truck is to the left of the bridge is the fireworks launch pad for Sunday.

After dinner we wandered over to the Arc le Gray stadium to join the crowd of a couple thousand people just in time to catch a couple musical acts on their big stage. The last one was this very French chanteuse called “Desireless.”  I think if you google her you’ll find some youtube videos.  Here's one. Verrrrry interesting!

The fireworks were great!  We sere sitting right under them as they exploded and it looked like they were shooting right down at us.  The show lasted about 20 minutes and was one of the best we’d seen.

Sunday we walked along the quay to check out the fireworks setup for Gray’s display.

That big speaker tower will be blasting music timed to the fireworks.

By 10:30 the quay was packed with people on both sides of the river.  Again we had front row seats.  We didn’t think the show was as good as Arc’s but it was still enjoyed by all.

Wednesday morning is was off, but not very far.  We were just heading about 14 k down the river to Mantoche.  We had liked the look of their quay when we were heading up the river.  It had trees and picnic tables in a grassy area.  We figured we’d stop for a couple of days.