Canal St-Martin

Yes, it’s been a while since my last blog.  I’ve been “facebooking” but that’s not a good substitute, I know.  And it’s not that there aren’t any sights and sounds that strike me funny peculiar, interesting or unique any more.  They’re all over the place.  It’s just that I can’t believe our two-year Paris adventure is almost over, since we go back stateside at the end of October.  I am in a panic; so much left to do and so little time.

We have a box of Paris city walks; 50 adventures on foot.  The walks themselves aren’t strenuous; one or two hours.  And the cards explain what sights to look for; the history behind the sights; explanations for the streets and their placement; where to stop for a drink or sandwich; and little tidbits that makes the walks more interesting.

Rather than start at the beginning of the Canal St-Martin walk from the Seine, we decide to do it “backwards,” so we took the Metro to the end-point of the Canal St-Martin walk.  We get off the Metro at Jaurès.  We get lucky.  As we pop up out of the station there is a very large peniche (barge) manoeuvering downstream towards the Seine.  It’s sitting in the lock right by the Metro station.  It’s one thing to look at the locks, it’s another thing to see them in operation.  The first thing you notice is the peniche itself – it’s huge.  On the Seine, along with all the other river traffic, the peniche is just another vessel amongst the many that ply their way up and down the Seine all day long.  But staring down at the lock, you realize just how huge some of these peniches are.  This one is empty but its cargo was sand.  A single peniche like this can transport 250 dump truck loads of sand with one pilot and one engineer.  Definitely the greener solution!

The peniche’s pilot [maybe I am doing him a disservice and should call him “captain”] does all the mooring himself.  He ties the boat onto the lead bollard just before the forward lock gates.  He actually does a double tie-in so that he can push or pull this huge peniche back and forth so as to allow the gates to open in front of him. That is, of course, after the water level has adjusted. It’s amazing to watch how he can move the peniche a few inches hither and thither by pulling on the massive ropes – the engines are turned off at this point since he can’t afford to use them in such a confined space.

Once the water level has adjusted, it’s smooth sailing until the next lock.  Our goal was to follow the peniche down the canal where it meets up with the Seine.   The first two or three locks made that task easy - they were ver

y close together.  The next lock was really down the road or canal, depending on your perspective.  And for a large peniche, it really boogied.  Our expectation of keeping up with it was dashed…until we caught up with it at the fourth lock…

Now there are two major engineering feats you realize as you watch a peniche sail down towards the Seine.  The first feat you realize is the length of these large peniches and the locks themsleves – they are identical.  The largest peniche fits precisely in the lock.  All the more reason to see why the pilot double-ties the barge on the bollard so he can push or pull the barge to allow the lock gates to open without hitting his hull (or smashing the lock gates).

The second thing you realize is the complexity of the lock system.  We are all familiar with “gate” locks.  You see them on the Erie Canal and on the C&O canal in Georgetown & Maryland.  Boat comes in, gates close, water level either raises or lowers; next lock gates open and voilà - boat or barge glides through.  On the Canal St-Martin, there are several different types of locks.  I’m not sure what came first. The canal or the roads that cross over the canal.  Either way, they developed several ingenious ways to accommodate the locks.  It essentially looks as though some very bright engineers (maybe Monsieur Eiffel?) sliced through the roads and turned them into moving locks.    Yes, the entire road is a bridge, which acts as the lock, which ingeniously rotates in the canal, which opens the gate and lets the peniche move on.  Luckily for us we were able to catch up with our big peniche at one of these rotating road locks - you can’t stop road traffic any old time a peniche comes through so the barge had to wait. (In another ingenious move, one of these “road” locks further up the Canal St-Martin, the entire road is hoisted about 15 metres in the air to allow the peniches and other craft to pass underneath!)

There were several of these “road-locks” but even with them slowing down the peniche, we couldn’t keep up.  Eventually the peniche beat us to the Seine.  But once we got to the second-to-last lock…incroyable!  We walked along the canal right beneath La Bastille beside some pretty huge yachts and many “permanent” house peniches  This part of the canal is “private” (and yes, you can rent these peniches) but public access is allowed during daylight hours, so we dove down a long flight of steps to the fancy towpath.  Beautiful.  And we were surprised at how quiet it was, despite the busy traffic approaching La Bastille above.    All boats fully connected to the utilities.  And just in case you need extra facilities, there are toilets and showers just a few steps off your peniche ….maybe next year for us?

But as we got closer to the Seine, we had to walk around a few diversions.  The first was a pedestrian bridge.  It actually was the lock.  It had a green and red flashing lights on it to alert walkers when the lock was going to open.  Nice touch.  I guess there are some completely unaware people walking over the bridge who can’t see the humongous peniche approaching the lock, eager to push out into the wide sweep of the Seine…oh well, it seems to work.

But we crossed back over the bridge since it was leading us westwards along the Seine. We slithered along a tight pass under a bridge, ignoring the “do not enter” sign, and voilà, there we were on the banks of the Seine, ready to head east on the Rive Droite.  In the distance was Notre Dame Cathedral; a few hundred yards from our flat.  It was a great walk.  Tired, thirsty, and hungry, it was time to wind our way through the “familiar” parts of our neighborhood, taking a quick backward glance at the mouth of the Canal St-Martin, wondering how many peniches have bobbed in or out of that lock since the canal was built in 1825.

Footnote:  A few days after the Canal St-Martin walk, we signed up for a week-long barge tour on the Canal de Bourgogne on the “Fandango.”

 Check out: http://canalsoffrance.com/cruisesfandango.html.  We will be gliding through the canals of Burgundy in September, and yes, we expect there will be a lot of “blog” fodder collected on that trip!