Travels with 'Lionel': a small barge in France

Fülszöveg

A short trip in a friend's rented boat on a river in Southern Ontario was enough to hook Hart Massey, retired architect, and his wife Melodie, on the boating life. Holidays on rented boats in Canada and all over Europe led them to the inevitable conclusion - they wanted a boat of their own. Travels with 'Lionel describes their search for a barge, and their subsequent leisurely cruising on Lionel, an old Dutch built sixty-footer. Long months of work were required before Lionel was ready for their trips through the length and breadth of France, with Joss the Dalmatian; trips that took them from Paris to Provence, west almost to Toulouse, returning north up the Rhone and the Saone, then the Moselle and the dauntingly crowded Rhine to Holland. Day trips from the moored boat in a rusting Renault brought them yet closer to the French way of life and they made numerous friends of all nationalities as they moored for lengthy periods - sometimes to effect repairs. For not all went smoothly:... Tovább

Fülszöveg

A short trip in a friend's rented boat on a river in Southern Ontario was enough to hook Hart Massey, retired architect, and his wife Melodie, on the boating life. Holidays on rented boats in Canada and all over Europe led them to the inevitable conclusion - they wanted a boat of their own. Travels with 'Lionel describes their search for a barge, and their subsequent leisurely cruising on Lionel, an old Dutch built sixty-footer. Long months of work were required before Lionel was ready for their trips through the length and breadth of France, with Joss the Dalmatian; trips that took them from Paris to Provence, west almost to Toulouse, returning north up the Rhone and the Saone, then the Moselle and the dauntingly crowded Rhine to Holland. Day trips from the moored boat in a rusting Renault brought them yet closer to the French way of life and they made numerous friends of all nationalities as they moored for lengthy periods - sometimes to effect repairs. For not all went smoothly: they had to contend with persistently malfunctioning equipment, not always aided by the dubious engineering skills of the Captain and chief mechanic! There were hazards such as ice, high winds, floods, low bridges, large barges . . . even once the (apparently legal) diversion of canal water leaving Lionel high and dry and at an alarming angle. But through it all a sense of fun and enthusiasm prevails; this is a delightful book of two people finding comparatively late in life a new interest and new skills, perfected in the beautiful, endlessly varied setting of rural France. [please turn to back flap Vissza