So far the weather this year has been pretty marginal. There's been some rain almost every day, although at least until we got to Nancy it had been warm.
Thursday morning we waited for a shower to pass and then shoved off from the canal bank and headed west, retracing our trip down the canal. Last year the first night out from Lagarde we just stopped along the bank at the town of Sommerviller. This year we passed through one more lock to the town mooring basin to spend the night. Friday morning the skies had cleared a bit as we headed for our stop in Nancy.
The locks along this part of the canal are all automated. A "garage door opener" device triggers the lock's operation and, just like last year, until the last three locks before Nancy, it had worked perfectly. Just like last year, the locks stopped "seeing" the "telecommand" just before Nancy and we had to call the lockkeepers to operate them. There is a call box at each lock and the mobile "eclusiers" are good about showing up quickly. We never had to wait more than twenty minutes but it was a little annoying. We made a quick stop for groceries at the convenient waterside supermarket and by 2:30 we were tied up along the bank in Nancy. We made a quick trip to the tourist office at the beautiful Place Stanislaus (see last year's pictures) and made our plans for a couple of days.
Saturday morning we walked over to the big covered market to stock up on more groceries and then spent the afternoon at the Musee des Beaux Artes. The "School of Nancy" was one of the principal originators of the Art Deco movement and the museum contains a huge collection of art glass from the Daum company that is located in Nancy.
We'd made reservations at a restaurant we wanted to visit last year (it was closed - August!) and had a great meal at Pissenlits (Dandelions).
Every year the city of Nancy puts on their "Son et Lumiere" (sound and light show) in Place Stanislaus. They use high-tech projectors to show scenes on the buildings surrounding the square. Lucky for us, Saturday night was the first night of this year's show and it stopped raining long enough for the show to proceed. Very impressive! It was cold, though. Jackets were required.
Sunday the weather was just plain nasty; cold, windy and rainy. Books were read. Tomorrow we'd enter some new territory.
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