Cluny

Today our tour is back on track. The Saonne River is navigable again so on Sunday we sailed up to Macon. So today’s excursion to the Abbey at Cluny took a lot less time on the coach than it would have from Lyon.

We drove to Cluny in beautiful sunshine on a lovely mild day. This is just the weather we have been waiting for! The town of Cluny is very pretty and very French provincial. The remains of the old Abbey are particularly impressive. The Abbey was built in stages starting in the 10^th century and reached its full size in the year 1130. Most of it was destroyed during and following the French Revolution but the remainder is still pretty big. The photo below of the model of the Abbey at its greatest extent gives an idea of what it must have been like. In fact for a long time it was the biggest church in the world!

Speaking of photos, we have had more issues uploading them to the blog, which is why we only posted four yesterday when more would have given you a much better idea of what we saw. So today we are posting as many photos of this wonderful Abbey as we can.

Sue comments: for all you chef’s out there…we were told the secret ingredients of making  yummy Boeuf Boignon (and I know that is not the correct spelling!!).  10 minutes before serving add either 1 tablespoon of Crème de Cassis (blackcurrant  liqueur) or 2 generous squares of dark chocolate.  I have no idea what either would taste like, but will try when we get home,

We had such a great night last night.  They bought a 3 piece band on board.  They sang music from mainly the 70’s and 80’s, and after a drink or 3 everyone got up and danced.  I have a full 2 minutes of Phil thinking he was Fred Astaire reborn and making some interesting moves on the floor. He kept us all in fits!!!  I would add it for you to laugh at, but the file is too big. Bugger!!!  Despite dancing for the best part of an hour (and Phil making his 10,000 steps yesterday) we all pulled up relatively well.  We all decided we were not so old after all!!!