Lutzelbourg and Beyond, June 28 to 30

After a night in Saverne, this time after the deep lock and in front of the waterways office instead of the marina, we made our way to very picturesque Lutzelbourg. To get there we once again traveled the portion of the Canal de la Marne au Rhine that is one of the most pleasant in France, following the Zorn river through it’s heavily wooded valley.

There are three mooring in the town, the lower and middle run by the village. The upper port is a hireboat base and charges for parking but the village spots are free with a charge for water and electricity. We’d filled the water tank in Strasbourg and between running the engine and the solar panels, we didn’t need to plug in. We found a nice shady spot in the middle port and set off into town.

The view from our mooring.

“Downtown Lutzelbourg” is through the lock.

As usual it was time to hike up to the ruined 11th century chateau that we had visited our last time here. 

Some of the buildings are still relatively intact.

 On the way up the hill you can also get a good look at Lutzelbourg and it’s surroundings.

There’s Oldtimer in the middle port.

Wednesday morning we were off again. After four locks we once again used the Plan Incliné, this time stopping briefly at the top to see if we could purchase a Plan Incliné snow globe in the gift shop. Nope.

Our stop for the night was a basin near the large lakes used to feed the canal where we experienced on of those cultural disconnects that occasionally set us back. People on one of the three hireboats that joined us in the basin jumped off the boat immediately after tying up and wandered off into the forest, returning with arms full of sticks, and proceeded to start a fire on the ground. We’ve seen fishing camps with fires (The French seem to think that it is essential. They’re not necessarily cooking on it and it’s daytime so no need for warmth, there just has to be a fire.) but where we’re from that kind of activity will certainly get you a fine and maybe jail time. Here it’s just the regular course of events. We had to get over ourselves.

Thursday morning it was off again to negotiate the deep Rechicourt lock and then on to Lagarde where we had left Odysseus for the winter in 2010