We could have taken a taxi.
Seven of us checked out of the Hotel Le Sauvage on the evening of April 16, gathered our luggage, readied ourselves for a group photo and then prepared for the walk. Thirteen minutes, mostly downhill, on an early spring evening. Rolling suitcases over cobblestones, wrangling our bags down a series of stairs and arriving at the gangway full of anticipation and already a group of adventurous travelers ready for what lay ahead.
That walk set the tone for everything that followed. On a barge, the small decisions tend to be the right ones. Slow down. Stay curious. Walk the towpaths. See how life unfolds.
Christophe, our cruise director, welcomed us aboard. Once we were settled, he gave the welcome briefing with the easy warmth of someone who has done this many times and still enjoys it. There were laughs, particularly as he introduced the other five crew members who came parading in to the lounge..This was their moment to shine. Some waltzed in comically, like Laszlo, who keeps our cabins refreshed. He walked in cowboy-style, holstering his cleaning bottles as if they were smoking six-shooters. His comical entry set the mood for the evening.
The crew aboard Daniele is exceptional, and for me, seeing a few familiar faces among them made stepping aboard feel less like boarding a vessel and more like walking into a room where people were already glad you’d arrived.
I’ll be honest: I had a moment of doubt during the introductions.
When I saw that our chef lacked a belly, I felt a small, irrational disappointment. I had been expecting someone else entirely. A certain archetype. A French chef of a certain age and build who clearly loved cooking because he also clearly loved eating. What we got instead was a surprise. A young French Vietnamese gentleman with a pleasant smile and fun demeanor. And slim. Too slim of a frame, in my view, to put out the wonderful dishes he served.
Tim and Ann joined Marucia and me at a table for four, and over the course of the evening, what marched from that galley was as good as anything we’d eaten in a week of very good eating in France. We started with a melon salad — fresh, bright, draped in Serrano-style ham — followed by a chicken dish that prompted Tim to say what I’ve heard guests say on nearly every trip I’ve hosted: “This is the best meal I’ve had in France.”
We all agreed. Talk about tasteful beginnings.
The next morning, breakfast came early. To keep our schedule, we needed to transit a tunnel beneath Besançon’s citadel to begin the first leg of our journey. The transit was a spectacle that brought everyone out on deck. At the end of the tunnel, guests disembarked for their first tour, the Saline Royale at Arc-et-Senans, or the Royal Saltworks. Everyone disembarked — except for me.
I’ve been to the saltworks before — it’s worth every minute, and I’d encourage anyone who hasn’t seen it to go — but this morning was too good to leave the Doubs, a wild river glistening in the morning sunlight. And so I sailed — through beautiful countryside as the songbirds serenaded us. I stood on the front deck with Sylvie, Daniele’s sailor (and wife of the captain), watching the canal ahead with the quiet contentment of someone who has the best job — and knows it.
The canal narrowed. On one side, a stone wall, close enough that I could have reached out and dragged my fingers along it (a no-no on a moving vessel, by the way). On the other side, maybe ten feet of open water, no more. Daniele moved at something slower than a walking pace. On the towpath to the left, a skater glided by. Then a cyclist. Then nobody, just the trees and the melodies of songbirds.
It is early spring here, and the trees are doing that thing they do for only a few weeks — that particular green, tender and almost luminous, that you spend the rest of the year trying to remember accurately. The sun came through the branches in long, broken lines. The birds were loud and entirely unbothered by our passage.
Sylvie glanced over and smiled. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. We both knew that there are mornings on a barge that remind you why you came. This was one of them.
More dispatches to follow as the Daniele makes her way toward Dijon.
