Almost Done, August 24 to 30

We pulled into the moorings at Chatillon-Coligny close to 3 pm on Friday. A nice mooring with a long quay and several finger pontoons; there was plenty of room and water and electricity were provided. There was a notice that we were supposed to check in with the capitanerie/tourist office upon our arrival so we wandered up, wallets in hand. We were asked to provide the name of the boat and our nationality and then wished a “bonne journee.” No charge!

We had been clued into a good restaurant by other bargees so we walked in to town to find Le Coligny and make a reservation for Saturday lunch. That task accomplished we headed into the heart of town. There were flyers in the tourist office for the Fete Insensé that was scheduled to take place on Saturday. We weren’t sure what that was all about since insensé translates as “mad” or “foolish” but we wanted to see what town looked like before madness took over. What we found was a pretty typical small French village in the Gâtanais.

The bell tower tops the old city wall near the church St. Pierre-St. Paul.

On Saturday after our delicious lunch at the moderately fancy Le Coligny we headed into town for the Fete. Booths with all sorts of masseuses, aroma therapy consultants, aura readers and the like were set up around the center of town. One storefront held a make-your-own-music workshop with, shall we say, eccentric instruments (we spent a few minutes banging on things).  In the evening there was the usual food and drink and music, of a sort. We think maybe they gave the local high school garage bands time for a couple of songs on the stage. We could only take so much of that before we had to retreat to the boat.

Sunday morning we made a trek to the grocery store. We had our eye on a mooring just 6 k away that was outside a village but had free water and electricity. The weather was supposed to be reasonable and those painting jobs were calling. We wanted to get started.