As the boat passed under the bridge on the Seine River entering Paris, fireworks exploded, crowds lining the banks cheered and waved flags, bands played, and even the President of France made a speech. That is how we imagined our triumphant entrance into the city of lights aboard Ziggy B. For some unknown reason, however, Parisians decided to postpone the celebration of our arrival for a few weeks, apparently to coincide with the Olympic Games or something. Anyway, we were appreciative of their delayed adoration for us and you could feel how excited everyone in the city was that we were finally here. Our dream of living in Paris had finally come true.
Before our arrival in Paris, even before we started cruising again, we had quite the whirlwind adventure. Because most French canals do not reopen until April, we opted for some land exploration for our first two months back in Europe. We wanted to go to places we had never been.
If you read the last blog entry about Panama, you know we left the country at the end of January disappointed that we did not sail at all, but happy that the civil unrest situation looked to be settling down. We eagerly planned our return in November, but in the meantime, we had some new places to explore.
We were still on a puppy high from our pet-sitting in Panama, so we applied for a couple of sits in Europe and the UK. We were delighted when we were chosen for a sit in Poland and one in England, two countries that neither of us had ever visited. Just two days after arriving back in Europe, we were on our way to meet our new puppies.
First destination, the village of Imbramowice, Poland. We were greeted with ridiculous, unbridled enthusiasm and mayhem. Screaming, howling, jumping, running around like crazy, sloppy kisses, and even a little peeing! We knew right away that the four dogs would fill our hearts and keep us entertained during our month and a half in Poland. Good thing, too, because we were in a remote, miniscule farming village in the southwestern Polish countryside in the dead of winter.
We spent a cold, drizzly winter by a roaring fire surrounded by some of the biggest lumps of canine love imaginable. No matter how short of a trip we would take to shop for groceries, the welcome home was always a chaotic, boisterous affair. We could not sit on a couch for more than a few seconds before one or more of our charges would crawl on our laps. As anyone with large dogs knows, they believe they are tiny, gentle creatures and have no reservations about crushing you or suffocating you with affection. We were in heaven.
Before and after the dog sit, we had the opportunity to travel around a bit of Poland. The nearest city to our village, Wrocław, is the third largest city in Poland and dates back to the tenth century. Its majestic Main Market Square is lined with historic town houses, shops, and restaurants. The old city features stunning gothic architecture and boasts a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
No visit to Poland is complete without a trip to Krakow. We took a train ride and spent a few days in the historic city center. Krakow simply blew us away with its exquisite architecture, rich history, surprisingly delicious food, and overall friendliness. In traditional European style, it is a completely walkable city, with no need for a car, even in the dead of winter.
We also spent a day touring Auschwitz-Birkenau. Witnessing the locations of some of the most horrific acts of human brutality is impossible to describe in words. Our visit was a solemn, emotional event that will be forever with us. No amount of reading, movies, or even witness accounts can prepare you for the magnitude of the events that unfolded there or the emotional tidal wave that hits you repeatedly throughout your visit.
Our forty-five days in Poland passed surprisingly fast. We bid farewell to our beloved pups and caught a bus headed for the Czech Republic. Next stop, Prague. This is a city that both of us had on our “must visit” list. We had heard from family and friends that Prague is among the most beautiful cities in Europe, and it most certainly lived up to its reputation. We could not believe our eyes as each part of the city was even more grand and picturesque than the previous. As if each neighborhood, each city block, was fiercely competing to mesmerize our eyes and capture our imaginations and hearts. During our short visit, we walked until our feet ached, ate like royalty, drank surprisingly good local wines, and fell in love with everything that is Prague. We don’t say this lightly, and hope that Paris will forgive us for saying it, but Prague is the most stunning city we have visited so far in our travels.
To continue our whirlwind winter extravaganza, we hopped on a flight from Prague to London, rented a car, and bravely (foolishly) confronted all those crazy Brits driving on the wrong side of the road. We made our way to the outskirts of Southampton, where two eager puppies and two independent cats awaited our care for a couple of weeks. We knew we had lucked out again when we were greeted by two yelping, bouncing, licking, dancing-in-circles balls of fur.
We finished our UK trip with a few days touring around London before taking the Eurostar train across the tunnel to Paris and a subsequent train to Ziggy B. For the first time in almost six months, we were home, sleeping in our own bed.
It was now early April and the Canal du Nivernais, where Ziggy B rested, was likely to open soon. We spend the first week aboard re-commissioning all of the boat’s systems, stocking up our fridge and freezer, and getting the boat and ourselves ready to navigate again. We relocated from the small marina to the town mooring pontoons that are much more accessible and hospitable for loading, and offer free water and electricity. The canal opened on April 18th, and by the next day, we were on our way with guests aboard. My sister and her son arrived as our first guests of the season with impeccable timing for the opening of the canal.
We made our way north on the canal back to Auxerre, a city that had become like a second home for us after visiting it several times the previous season. Our guests departed and we continued north beyond the Canal du Nivernais to the Yonne River. We did not realize our luck at the time, because just a few days after leaving the canal, it closed to navigation due to flooding and dangerous currents caused by the excess water flow. It would remain closed off and on for months for the remainder of the year. We heard from many cruisers that were stuck without being able to move their boat and had to cancel all their season’s plans.
Our good fortune continued as we finally heard back from the Paris Marina at The Arsenal. After more than a year of submitting paperwork and pictures of our boat systems, we were approved by the marina and City Hall to stay in Paris during the Summer Olympic Games. Up until now, our aspiration of going to the Olympics was still up in the air. Only one thing to do upon hearing such news, pop open a bottle of champagne and celebrate! Ziggy B was going to Paris!
We still had a couple of months before our reservation in Paris, so we meandered down the Canal du Loing and the Canal de Briare. With the luxury of time on our hands, we stopped at numerous small towns, rode our bicycles along tree-lined paths, and tried as many local restaurants as we could. We might be living in the big city soon, so we relished our time in the countryside between the Seine and Loire rivers.
Upon returning to the Seine River, friends joined us for the two day passage to Paris. On the big river, the locks are few, but they are huge. We often shared them with enormous cargo barges that dwarfed Ziggy B as we moored next to them. The closer we got to Paris, the more frequent and larger the river traffic became. By the time we reached the outskirts of the city, we were encountering seagoing cargo ships. One ship created a wake so large that it completely swamped our bow. We had not anticipated this and had left our front doors open as we normally do while cruising. Big mistake! The ship’s wake flooded the bow and cascaded into our bedroom and splashed all over our bed. We had a soggy mess on our hands, but nothing could dampen our exuberant mood about our impending arrival in the city of lights.
With the final river lock behind us, we reached the confluence of the Seine and the Marne, signaling that we had officially entered Paris. We were just a few bridges downstream from the entrance to the marina where a small, yet tall, final lock would usher us into our new home at The Arsenal. We hailed the port captain on the radio as instructed and were told they would prepare the lock, but it would take a few minutes. Normally, killing time on the water is no problem, but on the river in the middle of Paris it is a madhouse. The current was ripping at three knots or more, cargo ships were crisscrossing in both directions making impressive wakes, several large tour boats carried their merry passengers around the city, and a couple of extremely fast police boats zigzagged about us.
When we finally got the call to enter the lock, we steeled our nerves and headed in. The lock is ninety degrees to the river, only about twice as wide as Ziggy B, and with imposing concrete walls on both sides. With the fast current, we could not make a slow approach or we would be swept downriver onto all sorts of large metal objects on the banks. Once we turned Ziggy B sideways to the current, we basically had one shot to get this right without incident. Kimberly took our largest fender and prepared to deploy it at the bow on whichever side might hit the concrete walls. At the helm, sixty feet behind her, I could not judge our forward distance well. Kimberly would continually call out our distance to the entrance and to both concrete walls. When the current grabbed us in earnest, she told me to speed up. We were now headed at almost six knots towards the narrow entrance, there was no backing down. I calculated the approach almost perfectly; almost. Because Ziggy B is sixty feet long, when we got close to the wall, the current eased in the front of the boat, but not in the back. This caused us to turn enough that we were now aiming straight for the right wall of the lock. Kimberly sprang into action, warned me about the impending impact, and put the fat fender in exactly the right place. I put us into reverse to reduce the force of the impact, but we were still going fairly fast. The expected boom was just a boing as we hit the wall only with the fender. Our bow bounced off the wall, which lined us up perfectly to enter the lock. “Gun it!” Kimberly screamed. I throttled up and we slid into the calm, quiet waters of the lock. The mayhem of the Seine was now, literally and figuratively, behind us.
As the lock doors closed and the water started rising, we noticed that we had a huge crowd of spectators. Naturally, we pretended like we had planned and executed our entrance with skill and finesse. Never mind that we probably looked frazzled and exhausted. We waved at and chatted with the onlookers, a mixture of tourists and Parisians, who were eager to hear our story.
The giant hydraulic arms opened the cathedral-like lock doors and we slowly glided into the port. At the far end of the marina was the iconic column of the Place de la Bastille. Atop was the winged, golden Génie de la Liberté (the “Spirit of Freedom”) welcoming us to Paris. In retrospect, we were a jumble of emotions. Exhilaration, exhaustion, recent panic, relief, and absolute euphoria. We had just achieved a long-time dream of ours, to live in Paris. To have arrived in our own boat was a bit surreal. You know what happened next…champagne!
The Olympic summer in Paris was magical. Flags from around the world were ubiquitous. At any corner, we might hear three or four different languages. Happiness was contagious as we all cheered for whoever was playing at the moment. The French crowds would spontaneously break out into song at the stadiums and other Olympic venues.
Even the infamously glum Parisians were light and joyous. They had anticipated the Olympics with trepidation and skepticism. Yet here was their beloved city, center stage in a spectacular global display of achievement, friendship, and triumph. The French police and military, who were everywhere, were initially taken aback by the outpouring of thanks from visitors. They soon embraced the new dynamic and their traditionally serious façade gave way to smiles. The entirety of Paris was absurdly happy.
When the regular Olympics ended, a weird hush fell on the city. The crowds were gone. There were no more cheerful volunteers at every metro stop eager to help tourists navigate the underground maze. The sluggishness of a hot Parisian summer returned. But just a couple of weeks away were the Paralympic Summer Games.
The city made a concerted effort to treat both games as equally significant events. The Paralympics may not get the press coverage that the regular Olympics do, but the Parisians celebrated both and decorated the city throughout the entirety of the summer. The iconic venues with breathtaking views of the city remained until the final Paralympics game was over. Turns out that the weeks between the games simply became a period of rest between two grand celebrations.
Our reservation at The Arsenal was initially for just one month, from mid-July to mid-August. What were we thinking? It went by in an instant and we were not ready to leave. Paris had seduced us, it was in our blood. We couldn’t tear ourselves away. We wanted more. We needed more. We asked the marina if we could stay longer, held our breath as they checked, and screamed with joy when they said yes. We booked a slip until mid-October, for the remainder of our cruising season. We would only leave in time to reach a suitable winter mooring for Ziggy B.
We knew that the two additional months in the city would slip by in an instant, yet we settled into a local’s routine. No longer were we in a frenzy to see it all immediately. We slipped into the relaxed laziness of city life. We became regulars at the huge bi-weekly market by the Place de la Bastille. Our favorite fruit vendor would greet us by name every time and would insist that we try his latest delicious offerings. We seldom left his stall without him secretly slipping a little gift of his best fruit into our bags. We even had time to do serious scientific explorations. Which boulangerie has the best pain-au-chocolat? Which cheese monger has the creamiest blue cheeses? Which sidewalk is the best to people watch while sipping an Aperol Spritz?
Our three months as Parisians would come to a close, but it genuinely felt like we had lived there for years. We came to the realization that, regardless of where our travels take us, Paris is a home base for us from now on. We connected with the city like no other since New Orleans. We feel at ease there despite the lingering language barrier. But now, we had achieved two milestones that must, somehow, count towards our local status. We had extensive dealings, strictly in French, with both the immigration office that handles our visas and the tax office that processes our annual tax paperwork. It was not easy, but we managed to get it right. We hope!
The chill of autumn was in the air and the leaves on the ground signaled the end of season three. We reluctantly drove Ziggy B out of The Arsenal into the Seine. Our departure from Paris was epic as we rounded the curves of the Seine with stunning views of Notre Dame, the Grand Palais, Pont Alexandre III, the Eiffel Tower, and the small version of the Statue of Liberty. The city scenery gave way to greenery and we were in the countryside surprisingly fast. By mid-afternoon, we were at the confluence of the Seine and the Oise rivers, our turning point for the winter marina. The following day, we slowly made our way up the Oise to the lovely city of L’Isle-Adam. This would be the winter home for Ziggy B and our new official residence in France.
We chose L’Isle-Adam for convenience, inexpensive marina rates, and proximity to Paris. We excitedly discovered on our first day that we had chosen a charming small city with a lively downtown, a bustling covered market, and a youthful vibe. We may have to spend a couple of weeks exploring our new home when we return to France in April 2025.
