Further Southward, August 22

It's not time to head into the winter storage yard yet so we passed the Canal des Ardennes and continued south. The weather has been real spotty, not much rain but overcast and some windy days. Doesn't seem much like August! It's really unfortunate, too, because the scenery is beautiful. The river winds up a valley between the forested hills of the Ardennes, little hillside villages along the way. Sunshine would make it much nicer.
One of the smaller towns had a real nice tie up with this peculiar statue at the end of the ramp. We're not quite sure what to make of it. Any suggestions?

Out next stop was in the town of Sedan. It has a great old fort/castle whose construction was begun in 1424.

Just across the channel from the marina was apparently one of the city's best fishing holes. This guy looked like he was really enjoying his "fishing."

We wandered around town the afternoon we arrived and planned to do some more the following day but when we got up is started to rain and it rained all day long, heavy at times. Much reading was accomplished.
Saturday is market day in Sedan so while I did the pre-departure chores, Cathy Jo mixed it up at the market (sharpen your elbows if you go early!), and we pulled out of town about 10 am.
It cleared throughout the day and by the time we pulled into Mouzon about 1 pm it was pretty nice.

You can just see our bow at the city tie up on that little side channel.

This is Mouzon from the top of one of the old city gates.
Our plan was to be in Pont a Bar around September 7 so we planned our most southern point this year as Verdun. There's supposedly a great free city tie up with water and electricity right in the center of town. We'll spend a couple of days there and then head back down the Meuse to the Canal des Ardennes.
We spent Sunday night in Stenay (a really small town and nothing but cafes and bars are open on Sunday; a nice cheap pontoon with services on a small side channel)) and Monday night in Consenvoye (even smaller than Stenay; there wasn't anything to be open but the tie up was in a nice city park) and arrived in Verdun on Tuesday to find it as advertised-a free, city-center tie up with water and electricity! Thank you VNF (Voies Navigables du France)!