St Florentin is a lovely small town in Burgundy and sits on two rivers as well as the Burgundy Canal. As usual it is dominated by a large and very interesting 13 century church. We arrived here after a series of trains over two days from Venice, via Lausanne in Switzerland and Dijon. The train service was fast, comfortable and on time. What more could you ask for? The scenery in Switzerland was as special as you'd expect, particularly on the approach to Lake Geneva, with just a little bit of snow capping the mountains. Once we hit St Florentin we stocked up at the Saturday markets with the usual staples - cheese, wine, bread and vegies, and went and found our boat.

After a quick lesson we were off in our boat. Straight into our first lock and the first of 62 lock maneuvers we would do in the next week. The locks range from small three boat ones to quite large and deep locks which would fit a dozen small boats. Using the locks keeps you very busy. You have to try not to hit anything as you drive in and out (really hard at slow speeds), keep the boat in position while the water surges around you and either drops in level or increases in level (usually by a few metres). We split our nautical roles - Paul drove and climbed up and down lock walls, while Dianne navigated and threw ropes to lock keepers. Fun all round! Our little boat complete with two bikes was neat and a home away from home. You could go where you want when you want, including to explore local villages and to stock up the pantry with wine, pastries etc.

The first afternoon we moored we had a little visitor demanding food. It would have come on board if it could. The canal system is just full of swans and ducks.

We arrived in Auxerre, centre of the Chablis wine growing area on my birthday, complete with a bottle we had bought from a lock keeper. What a way to spend your birthday. This is the view we woke up to the next morning. Pretty OK we thought.

Further on from Auxerre we visited an underground quarry which had provided limestone for Parisian buildings in past centuries. It now stores six million bottles of wine (we counted them - not) including some very nice sparkling wine which we sampled later. We 'toured' the cellars and sampled the wares - nice way to spend an afternoon before motoring on to find a nice mooring spot for the evening.

It was very relaxing to go our own pace - do we really have to return to the real world.

The scenery on the Nivernais Canal is just beautiful. Not too postcardy - just serene. It was like this most days, punctuated by a lock every hour or so.

Finally the villages - real villages with hardly any tourists. Everytime we bought something we would be farewelled with a 'Bon Journee'. We found French people polite and helpful, and somewhat amused at our attempts at French! I was trying to buy a sausage in a Boucherie and neither the Butcher or myself could understand each other at all - but I ended up with the most magnificent smoked sausage in the world. It took me a week to get through it and I still don't know what was in it.

Well, that was our boat trip. One of our best weeks ever!