Strasbourg to Niderviller

July 20 - August 2

On the 20. of July we leave Strasbourg to head up the Canal de la Marne au Rhin.
We will be on this canal for a while as it leads all the way to the Marne, the river leading to Paris. It will bring us very close to our goal for the season, the Champagne region.
This first part describes our cruise from Strasbourg to Niderviller, the first town in the separation pond, the highest point of the east branch of the Canal. The Canal then leads down to Nancy, up the Moselle river and to the highest point of the West branch of the canal in Void.
But more about all this later ...

The cruise leads us through the Alsace into the Lorrain region. Saverne is a major old town still in the Alsace, the castle was built by the Rohan family.

The panorama from our mooring in the port of Saverne.

	As we leave Strasbourg we pass the European Parliament. An impressive building used by the European parliament for a monthly session, so most if the time the building is empty as the administration resides in Belgium. Speaking about administrative spending!
	A draw bridge and lock on the Canal, our first up locks since many weeks.
	We are still in the Alsace, the summer home of many storks. In Hochfelden we saw a group of about 20 storks quietly eating in a field.
	Smaller birds are also present on the banks of the canal, here a duck family.
	The latest contribution of the book of interesting observations: The sign says: "This lifesaver may safe a life" and below someone wrote by hand: "But how does one get to it" as the lifesaver is locked behind glass in the no longer used lock-keepers house.
	Our mooring for the night next to Hochfelden.
	The town hall of Saverne
	The main tourist street of Saverne
	The canal leads through the town-center. A high lock, it is called lock 30 and 31 to show that it is high, leads up and out of town.
	We share the lock with a small cruiser. The lock is about 5 meter high, but has no swim-bollards and very few bollards on top. So we have to use the bollards set into the lock wall and change ropes. Ueli and Betty do a super job and we head up without problems.
	A hot day on the canal, Pikesh and Sebastian take a snooze and share the fan.
	The rail bridge below lock 18. The canal takes a 90 Degree turn under the bridge. The lock chamber is immediately after the bridge and is not visible from below the bridge.
	The 'plan incline' (sliding plane) of Arzviller. The boat lift is basically a large bath-tub with doors on each side. The canal leads towards the left door of the bath-tub. You drive into the tub. The door closes behind the boat and the whole tub slides up. Two huge concrete counter-weights pull the tub 46 m up to the upper level of the Canal.
	A view from half way up the plane. Quite a sight and quite a feeling to be lifted with all 60 tons of Avanti B. The whole process takes about 10 minutes.
	The Arzviller boat lift replaced a flight of 17 locks. The lift was build about 30 years ago when commercial traffic on the canal was still quite heavy; about 40 barges per day passed the lift. Today it is mostly used by rental boats and a few hotel and commercial barges.
	We wait for a commercial barge until we can enter the Arzviller tunnel. It is 2.3 km (about 1.4 miles) long.
	In the VNF yard of Niderviller we see a relic from past times. One of the locomotives that was used to pull barges through the tunnel.
	The train tunnel was built parallel to the Arzviller canal tunnel. Initially a small train pulled the barges through the tunnel; now the boats cruise under their own power through the tunnel. After a few hundred meters we enter the second, shorter, tunnel.
	After the tunnel we pass through a narrow section cut into the hill and enter the separating pond at an altitude of 275 meters.
	Sunset in Niderviller, our mooring for a few days.
	We stay in the port of Niderviller for a little over a week. I use the time to continue with paint work; now the front section is all done, the aft cabin only needs a coat of the blue lack. The blue under the side-board is only a primer color, but at least it is the same color tone as the final blue Epifanes boat-lack. Why all the flags you wonder? Not to celebrate the paint job completion but to celebrate the Swiss National Holiday, the 1st of August.
	So Thomas, how does it look? Passable? He is a good teacher!

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