The town of Dole is remarkable for several reasons. The three most pertinent reasons for me are because:
1) The scientist Louis Pasteur was born here (he was the guy who came up with the food preparing process known as pasteurization, and he also developed a vaccination for anthrax and rabies).
Louis Pasteur
2) It is a stunningly beautiful place, and
Dole Cathedral
3) It is our first stop on our first voyage on our first barge!
My nephew Kieran is great crew
After leaving our health Spar on the hard at St Jean de Losne dry dock, where the fumes supplied a healthy nose bore, emptying out all that crap that’s been sitting there; and where daily skin and teeth exfoliation were complimentary from the neighbouring sandblasting – we finally cast off and moved!
Before departure I confused (and scared) a few people as I decided to inflict a name change on Dole, I told everyone we were going to Dove!
Hidden delights in Dole
Family arrived, mum, dad and nephew Kieran, and they instantly felt at home. They easily fell into the boating way of life and before long we were on another voyage to Ranchot; which was interesting as we did not plan to stop there – until the floods. More on that soon – with some beautiful pictures of a splendid evening on our unplanned visit.
I want one! A sneak peek at Ranchot.
Jackie Parry - author 
July 24, 2014 at 8:40 am
Looks gorgeous!!
What are the depth of the canals like? I want to make sure that when we buy a yacht we get one that has a shallow enough keel to go through the French canals, but decent enough to get across the ocean too. The Jeanneau Sun Odyssey has a good looking shoal draft version.
Have some vin rouge and camembert for me!
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July 24, 2014 at 5:03 pm
Thanks Viki, it is so lovely here. We have a 1 metre draft and a few times we have stirred up the bottom. We did the main canals from (near) Marseille to Dunkirk 13 years ago in our sailboat with a 5ft draft – was okay, ran aground a few times, but the lockkeepers let out some water – or we tied to a tree and went to the vin yard! 🙂 So it is doable. It will be hard, but I’ll certainly do that for you – camembert and wine . . . life is tough! 😉
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July 26, 2014 at 5:46 pm
Glad to hear you are underway. It must be great to have your family members there to discover all the new sights, sounds, smells and tastes with you. I am enjoying the experiences from afar via you writings. Bon voyage 🙂
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July 27, 2014 at 3:40 pm
Glad to have you along for the ride – we arrived in Besancon last night – it looks wonderful, can’t wait to explore.
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July 28, 2014 at 8:42 am
I just got an email from a friend who just finished up a week on a small boat they rented to cruise up the Canal Du Midi. All I know is that is in France and they had a wonderful time. Your photos helped me to imagine what my friend and his girlfriend experienced. Merci beaucoup!
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July 28, 2014 at 5:11 pm
That’s just lovely Michael – thank you. We have not made it to the Canal Du Midi – yet. We hear it is the most beautiful of the canals. Hopefully we’ll post some pics of it one day.
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