Waters and Wines of Aquitaine
Waters and Wines of Aquitaine. The Barge
Waters and Wines of Aquitaine. Serignac-sur-Garonne
Waters and Wines of Aquitaine. Buzet
In Buzet, we decided to leave the channel temporarily and move to Baise river, the feeder of Garonne. Here the channel and the river go side by side, so they are connected just by one huge double lock.
This lock is operated by a human being, so all that you need to do is wave him and waite. The lock operator also gives you a key for river locks.
The lock is ahead of us (the river is significantly lower than the channel) and ready for us.
In the lock.
The river.
If you turn on the left and go downstream, in five kilometres you will meet Garonne.
We are going upstream.
Rivers of different size historically were the main transport system of France, the whole French economic was built around them. The idea of Baise locking was originally proposed by Henry IV (barges cannot use rivers without a system of locks) to refresh commercial life of his own region. Henry IV, actually, is one of the cult persons of the region, I will talk more about him later. Napoleon was not a local guy, but, I believe, he loved cognac and foie gras, so he continued to push this project, and it was completed at the beginning of the XIX century. Baise honestly served to navigation till 1955 (last days of whole France river commercial navigation), after this the locks were sold to private hands and Baise was locked (what a joke) except the lowest five kilometres between Buzet and Garonne (to keep the connection between the channel and Garonne). However, at the beginning of 90-s local authorities decided that tourism can bring buoyancy in the commercial life of the region, invested 10 million euro, and reconstructed navigation conditions of Baise for 60 km from Buzet. Looks like it was the well-taken decision.
Nice chateau above the river.
Locks on the river are even simpler than locks on the channel. River lock is always open at one of the sides, depending on which direction passed the last boat. If it passed toward you, the lock is open for you. You just drive your boat into the lock, one of the crew climbs on the lock wall, insert the special key into the key-hole, push the button, and wait while the lock working. How I understand, the key is necessary only to protect locks from local fellas who would push the button just to see how the lock works.
If the lock closed, you do about the same, but twice. Just land ship-boy, he/she turns on the lock imitating the passing of toward boat, and repeat the same with your own boat.
The locks are payable (monthly or annual fee, and not expensive). The fee is paid by owners of boats. For rental boats, this fee is included in the rent.
Passing the lock near Vianne. We stayed in Vianne on our way back, and it would be a separate story about Vianne. Now, we on our way to Nerac.
Shipboy at work.
Passing Lavardac.
In Lavardac we landed on the way back for a couple of hours, just to get an impression about the town and eat something. It is a very small town. It was unpleasant to walk in the midday heat, so we just looked on the river from the high bank, walked to the central square and found a little cafe, where thin town population hid from the day heat. The hostess even fed us, although it is difficult to find a meal in France after 2 pm till evening (of course, huge touristic city are the exception of this rule). However, we were foreigners and we were hungry, so she made an exception for us.
Baise from the bank. Our barge.
The central square of Lavardac.
Small details.
We continued our way upstream.
Personal mooring of the pizzeria.
Next Lock.
The place for short landing.
Banks of the channel and the river were covered with wild plum trees. Very tasty.
The boat from Nerac with tourists. They asked to use the lock together with us to avoid wasting time, and I found that lock can accommodate more than one boat.
The lock near Nerac. Nerac will be the next part of our story.
To be continued…
