Charleville-Mézières is the capital of the Ardennes region. We arrived there on 25 August after a short trip from Bogny-sur-Meuse (3 hours, 17.5kms, 3 locks) and took up a mooring at a quay beside the camping park Camping du Mont Olympe, an attractive, treed area just across the Meuse from the main city centre. One crazy aspect is that a hundred metres further along there is a beautifully constructed modern harbour with quays and pontoons and really excellent facilities, but it is virtually empty, because it also has a footbridge across the entrance that prevents anything other than small boats getting through!

Originally two towns (Charleville and Mézières) on opposite banks of the river, the city is now a conurbation linked by bridges. Charleville was founded in the early 17th century by the decidedly odd Charles Gonzaga, 8th Duke of Mantua, Duke of Montferrat, Duke of Nevers, Duke of Rethel and Prince of Arche and Charleville. Charles commissioned the architect Clément Métezeau to construct the Place Ducale, one of the finest squares in France, between 1612 and 1628. The grand square is surrounded by 27 sumptuous Louis XIII-style pavilions, which today house chic shops, cafes, restaurants and offices. It’s a great gathering place and a spot to sip a cafe or apéritif and watch the world.

Charleville-Mézières has two significant claims to fame: it is considered the world capital of puppetry, with a major biennial festival of puppet theatre and the headquarters of the International Association of Puppetry and the International Institute of Puppetry. The latter houses a remarkable automaton puppeteer which stages an automated puppet show every hour during daytime, featuring scenes from Ardennes folk tales of the four sons of Aymon (also known as the story of Renaud Montauban). The city is also famous as the birthplace of the poet Arthur Rimbaud and there is an interesting, minimalist museum devoted to him in an old water mill on the river opposite our mooring.

While in Charleville-Mézières we befriended an English couple, Brett and Sandy who lived year-round on their lovely big old barge Rival, exploring the waterways from their base in Bruges. Sandy had taken up a hobby of turning used Nestlé coffee pods into earrings and necklaces which, whatever one’s aesthetic opinion, is certainly better than landfill!

We spent some time with Brett and Sandy, shopping, drinking coffee in the Place Ducale and, one evening, joining them for dinner at the swanky restaurant Le Manoir du Mont Olympe, above the park and mooring quay. The company was excellent, the terrace pleasant, the service efficient and the food quite good – scallops in lobster bisque, duck parmentier in a white comté gratin, beef carpaccio, and a substantial wine list – but in our opinion the place was over-priced.

We also ran into another English group we had met before in Fumay, on their sleek, expensive Linssen motor yacht. The most memorable feature of this group was their aged but friendly black labrador, who was the first point of attention for the skipper and crew at each port…. the poor fellow was nearly crippled in the hind legs and had to be (gently) heaved onto shore first thing at each stop.

On the subject of nature’s call, and knowing that this group had probably gone past the same human sludge we avoided at Monthermé, and knowing their swanky yacht would have holding tanks, we asked the skipper how he solved that problem. He responded that it wasn’t a problem, he just waited to empty until he found someone he didn’t like. I guessed this was an example of his dry, sarcastic British humour, but I’m still not quite sure…..