Now that we’d settled a few important things – our winter port, the paperwork for my long stay visa, a bit of maintenance – we could depart Saint-Florentin in a refreshed, relaxed state of mind, knowing we were under no pressure and that we could just cruise and enjoy ourselves. A week to Paris, a fortnight or more there, then a week back to Saint-Florentin. Bliss!

It was just as well we were feeling relaxed. We had advised the VNF that we would be leaving at 9.00am for the first lock on the edge of the port, but they obviously forgot and didn’t turn up until an hour later. Never mind… we had a pleasant cruise on a sunny day. We kept going past Brienon-sur-Armançon, which we were not particularly impressed by – lots of dirty old boats stacked up nearly on top of each other – and kept going another couple of hours to Migennes, the wide basin at the very end of the Canal de Boourgnon. Migennes has a long quay with services as well as a Le Boat hire boat base. As it turned out, it was smelly and noisy (major rail station opposite) and were not particularly impressed… we wondered why many people decided to winter their boats there. But it was handy, and we managed a decent pizza for dinner from the nearby hole-in-the-wall Pizza Mania.

The following day we set off through the last lock on the Canal de Bourgogne, lowering us down onto the Yonne River. Since leaving the Sâone about two months before, we had gone through 189 locks in 22 days of travel, or just under 9 locks in 12 kilometres for the average cruising day. We did a little fist-pump as we floated onto the wide expanse of the river. We would still have a few locks – but they would now be large and wide, as the river ran over weirs and barrages as it wound its way downhill towards the Seine. We could also let the engine out and travel, with the current, at about 12-15kph instead of the maximum 6kph we enjoyed on the canal. Zoom zoom!

It wasn’t all racetrack, though. We still had to pause for lunch inside Lock 4 at Villevallier, since for us the locks did not work through lunchtime, and there were no commercial craft to piggyback on. All the same, we pulled into Villeneuve in good time mid-afternoon, having travelled an amazing 28 kilometres through 6 locks!

The following day we set off originally planning to cruise a similar distance, to Pont sur Yonne but, when we arrived in Sens, there was good space at the quay, the town looked inviting, so we decided to check the place out. We were glad we did… Sens is delightful.

On the way, we came across a new kind of lock at Rosoy, peculiar to the Yonne, with sloping sides. There was a floating pontoon to tie up to, however, so it was no trouble. There are apparently a few of these further downstream, however, without the pontoon, so we weren’t sure how we’d go with those.

Sens proved to be wonderful, with an excellent stone quay with services (although water access was eccentric and some power points were disabled because of recent floods). The town is charming, with a wonderful historic church (for centuries it was superior in the church hierarchy to Paris) and a fantastic covered market hall, which we managed to visit before departing the nest morning – a triumph of art deco ironwork and stained glass, with a marvellous array of vendors inside.

After leaving Sens we had a short hop to Pont sur Yonne, where we moored on modern pontoons without services, before travelling to Montereau-fault-Yonne, the confluence of the Yonne and the Seine. At that time the mooring at Montereau was pleasant and efficient (it has changed since, we can assure you!) and we enjoyed a delightful dinner of moules et frites (mussels and fries) at a little restaurant overlooking the river confluence.

Now we travelled on the Seine, heading towards Paris. It is a big river, but not yet wide enough to mitigate wash, with plentiful commercial traffic. It has to be said, though, that the large locks, of which there were only a few, were easy to navigate. We stopped overnight at Melun, where we felt constantly the weaves and wash and flow of big boats as they passed. Convenient but not delightful.

Our final stop before Paris was at the quai dáttente immediately before Lock 7 on the Seine. It was a somewhat desolate but nevertheless pleasant stopover, without services, but lightened with a delicious barbecue dinner we cooked for ourselves, before the final day’s journey into Paris.

And so it was, that on 12 August 2017 we found ourselves cruising the Seine into the centre of Paris. It was a far from relaxed experience, with a multitude of commercial and tourist boats bobbing up and down and speeding along the river, which was choppy and sloshy with all the traffic as we waited for the go-ahead to enter the lock into the Arsenal boat basin, but we had arrived. We were in the City of Light.