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Festival de Loire, Orleans


magpie patrick

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Folks (and Folkies!)

 

The short version - I'm almost certainly going to the Festival de Loire this year in Orleans, it's 18th-22nd September in Orleans. The Songbird is keen on coming with me, which is a delight, but before Sara commits, Sara is not as interested in boats and waterways as I am, but is very interested in music and live music, at almost any level from buskers to stadium concerts (a passion I also share). I'd love Sara to come but not on a false premise.   

 

The festival itself is about waterways and boats, but I'm assuming that at a festival this size, and in a town like Orleans, some live music won't be hard to come by, but does anyone know? Has anyone been?

 

Now, the slightly longer version, we're organising a riverside music festival in Chateau Gontier for summer 2020 and aiming to meet the French contingent (whom we already know through Twinning, CG is Frome's twin town - they have had Sara headline charity concerts in CG) and whilst it's a three hour drive to CG from Orleans, ya know, it's just a good excuse... 

Edited by magpie patrick
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Thanks for the information about the Festival de la Loire. We've been to the New version of Orleans but never, I think, to the original one, so we'll keep it in mind.

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The canal itself is not open to navigation so I don't know what boats use it if any, the Loire is a beautiful river (or all the bits I've seen are anyway) As for music France is a funny place for music, casual music in pubs does not really seem to happen, open mics are very rare and the French seem to prefer a stage set up in the town square and bands playing on it. Having said that I've never been to Orleans so I could be talking total nonsense! Have a nice time though and see if you can persuade them to re open the canal whilst you're there.

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There is the possibility of an historic narrow boat attending as well. Both the L&LC Society and The Waterways Museum Society will also be there promoting historic boats on English canals. The event is held every two years, with the theme coming from one country - this year the Thames and English canals. It lasts for 5 days, 19-22 September, and at the previous event they estimate they had 750,000 visitors, including 30,000 school children over the first two and a half days. There is a 45 minute firework display on Friday evening, and lots of music and performances, besides around 200 historic craft. Many of the towns on the Loire have had replicas of their local traditional craft built, and this year the area around St Omer is the French theme, though I suspect they are not bringing their boatlift, though perhaps there will be something in the puppet line, who knows. I was there for the second festival in 2005, as shown below, and I am assured it has grown significantly since then.

Orleans 2005.JPG

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8 minutes ago, Pluto said:

There is a 45 minute firework display on Friday evening, and lots of music and performances, besides around 200 historic craft. Many of the towns on the Loire have had replicas of their local traditional craft built, and this year the area around St Omer is the French theme

Thanks Pluto - that's exactly what I'd hoped to hear!

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We were invited to this a few years ago. The organisers offered to lift out and truck us from the nearest waterway that we could get to and then put us back in after the festival! Can't remember now why we didn't do it.

What we did take part in was the equally fantastic Oostende voor Anker festival, held every year, see  https://www.oostendevooranker.be/en/. Out of 600 mainly historic boats attending, we were the only narrowboat, see photo. It was a wonderful experience, highly recommend getting there if you can.

244.JPG

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14 hours ago, wandering snail said:

Probably deep enough for a narrowboat but sadly no interconnecting waterway.

 

The problem with the Loire is that it is an unregulated river which suffers from high flows in spring, and very low flows at other times. It is unlikely that a narrowboat could navigate it in summer. There are isolated deep sections, however, where boats can remain afloat. Traffic by commercial vessels in earlier days was very much seasonal.

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Yes, hence the construction of the Canal Latéral A La Loire which could, of course, operate all year round. Apparently the original intention was to improve the actual river navigation, but I think it was considered too big a task.

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There was a canal that went to Orleans which is now abandoned. It left the Briare  canal near Montargis. The river is very shallow most of the year with wiers in many places. A few years ago we were in St Satur when some Boy Scouts from uk came to the barge asking if I had some tools to fix their rudder. They were trying to go down the whole length of the Loire in their rowing boat they had brought over. 

Photo is of junction with canal Orleans.

8045B4A6-A754-4481-9063-A649153B997F.jpeg

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St. Satur, home of what may be the ugliest "public moorings" in France - beside a group of rusting grain silos, with the moorings themselves neglected and overgrown (we did spot one bollard peeping out from amidst the weeds). Apparently the arm which branches off opposite these "moorings" is much pleasanter.

   

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You are right about the moorings on the main line. I was in the arm which has a lock at the end which lead down into the Loire but is now used as a dry dock for shallow draughted vessels. There was a narrow boat in it last time there. My barge at 22m could just turn if there was space in the mooring but otherwise backing out no fun so usually stopped at Menentrol.

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We didn't see any actual narrowboats during our week on the canal - but we did spot a 45-footish widebeam Springer moored in one of the "ports".

Commercial craft on the waterway seemed to be limited to a few hotel boats, including a 38 metre monstrosity called Anna Maria which caused quite a commotion when it turned up late one afternoon at Ménétréols only to find that its (not very well marked) "designated" mooring had been taken up by several hire boats. Frank exchanges of view and a bit of shuffling ensued. Luckily we were parked a bit further along. We did see a working-condition péniche moored under the silo loading chutes at St. Chapelle, but it was still there when we came back three days later so there may not be much trade for it.

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