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Lorraine
Alsace Lorraine Cruise
Canal
de la Marne au Rhin and Canal du Rhône au Rhin
The Lorraine is an elegant
boat accommodating 22 passengers in great comfort. It is a modern vessel
equipped with a sundeck wreathed in flowers, with chairs and parasols, a cozy
lounge leading to the bar and a separate dining-room. On the lower deck
are 11 comfortable cabins with opening windows. The Lorraine navigates in
the very attractive regions of Alsace and Lorraine. A journey through
Alsace, perhaps the most picturesque province in France, means an endless string
of discoveries - art and architecture, gourmet food and wine, history and
heritage.
The Vosges mountains, dotted
here and there with turreted castles, and picture-book villages with brilliant
displays of petunias and geraniums, make this a most memorable cruise.
Saturday, Day 1 Kraft
Meet
at the Strasbourg
rail station at 2:30pm or for those who
have chosen to reserve our transfer option, in the lobby of the Hôtel Régina,
192, Rue de Rivoli in Paris
at 9:30am. Train transfer to Strasbourg
and coach transfer to the
boat moored in the village
of Kraft, some twenty five kilometres to
the South of Strasbourg, close to the junction of the canal with the river Rhine. The crew will welcome you
aboard with “apéritifs” as the luggage is taken to the cabins and there
will be time to settle in before dinner.
Sunday, Day 2
Kraft
to Strasbourg
After
breakfast we cruise on the Canal du Rhône au Rhin, a peaceful waterway that has
seen little use since the building of the
Grand Canal
d’Alsace (the canalisation of the Rhine) in the nineteen-fifties. We
moor during lunch from whence we take the coach
to drive south to Colmar for a
guided tour of the city centre with its magnificent medieval and
Renaissance buildings, 13th century collegiate church and waterside “little
Venice” area. Afterwards there will be free time to explore the city further,
its shops and museums, particularly the Unterlinden
museum, famous for its collection of Renaissance art works and
specifically for the masterpiece of Mathias Grünewald, the Issenheim
altarpiece. Towards the end of the afternoon we shall head back northwards along
the “Route des Vins”, a small road running at the base of the foothills of
the Vosges
parallel to the Rhine
through the famous vineyards of Alsace. We pass through several
typical wine growing villages and make a short stop at the famous beauty spot of
Riquewihr for a visit to a cellar to
taste some local vintages before
returning to the boat at Strasbourg.
Monday, Day 3 Strasbourg
to Waltenheim
Cast
off early and cruise over breakfast and through the morning. During lunch we
cruise close to the heart of Strasbourg
and through the commercial
docks before leaving the city to the north, passing the ultra modern buildings
of the European Parliament. We disembark at a lock near here and there will be a
guided walking tour of the principal
sights of Strasbourg including the picturesque “petite France” riverside district and the
remarkable cathedral of Notre Dame whose construction spread over five centuries
from the Romanesque choir to the flamboyant gothic spire. Afterwards there will
be time free to explore the capital of Alsace, perhaps visit one of the museums,
take advantage of the excellent shopping or just stroll through the cobbled
streets of timbered houses before returning to the Lorraine at her mooring close
by in the village of Waltenheim sur Zorn.
Tuesday, Day 4 Waltenheim
to
Lutzelbourg
We
cast off after breakfast and cruise through the morning, passing several typical
Alsatian villages including Hochfelden, where ancient documents prove there was
a brewery as early as 870 A.D., a tradition continued to this day by the Meteor
beer company. We will have a visit here before lunch on board. A
number of locks and the recently restored towpath give excellent opportunities
for walking alongside the boat or maybe cycling into one of the villages to
appreciate the produce of a local brewery in a “Bierstub”. After lunch we
moor in Saverne, an attractive,
bustling town with a population of some ten thousand inhabitants. From our
mooring we have an excellent view of the imposing red sandstone château built
by the Rohan family during the eighteenth century. Our mooring in Saverne,
the typical Alsatian architecture and narrow, winding main street make this a
delightful town for a stroll before dinner.
Wednesday, Day 5 Lutzelbourg
to Hess
After
breakfast we can make a short drive to visit a crystal factory
to see how some of the most famous products of this area are still
individually blown and fashioned by hand. We join the boat a few kilometres
further on and cruise over the border into
Lorraine
where the canal follows the steep-sided, tree-lined valley of the river Zorn to
the famous inclined plane of Arzwiller.
Here a ladder of seventeen locks has been replaced by a counterbalanced barge
lift that hauls us up nearly 150 feet to the summit level of the
Marne
to
Rhine
canal. We then cruise through a cutting and Two tunnels under the peak of the Vosges
Mountains
before mooring for the evening at a quiet spot near the village
of Hess.
Thursday,
Day 6 Hess
to Xouaxange
After
breakfast we continue to cruise along the summit pound, or highest section, of
the
Marne
to
Rhine
canal. This section of some thirty kilometres with no locks passes through the
regional park
of Lorraine,
an officially recognised nature reserve with numerous lakes and vast areas of
woodland. The canal then begins its descent towards the plain of Lorraine
through a series of locks, the
first of which was built in the
nineteen-fifties to replace a flight of seven of the original early nineteenth
century locks and has a drop of nearly fifty feet. After lunch we take the coach
for a drive to Sarrebourg and visit the chapel of the Cordelieres where we can
see the stained glass window created by Marc Chagall.
We return to Lorraine,
moored in Xouaxange for our farewell gala dinner.
Friday, Day 7 Strasbourg
to Paris
Leave the Lorraine
after breakfast and transfer to the Strasbourg train station. For those that bought the Paris transfer, transfer
train ticket included back to Paris.
Note : The route is run
in reverse on alternate weeks and excursion days and mooring places may change
Return
to Barge
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