Bailly - Beauty and Cremant!!

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We instantly fell in love with the Nivernais. The first lock was small, painted prettily, old fashioned and not anywhere near as deep and daunting as the huge ones on the Seine. We passed through with no problem, and I successfully lassoed the bollard with one centre line after a few botched attempts– woo-hoo! Score one for Carly. We emerged from the lock onto a narrow canal surrounded by trees, flowers and an abundance of natural beauty. This was how we'd imagined the inland waterways to look – natural, unspoilt, beautiful. Suddenly the drizzle didn't seem a problem. It was slow going on the Nivernais – it took us almost 3 hours to cover the 13km and 7 locks to Bailly – but the individuality of each lock and the beauty of the surroundings made it enjoyable.
The scene that greeted us at Bailly solidified our love of this canal. We pulled alongside a quay and discovered mooring was free of charge and there was access to water and electricity and a gorgeous rainbow had come out as the drizzle died down and was reflected in the water behind us. Not only that, but we were also only a short walk away from the Bailly crémant caves. We got tied up and Mike went off to test the power to find out which adapter we'd need. Unfortunately the power wasn't working. We decided to BBQ dinner and run off battery power for the night. When he came back mike had a beautiful bunch of wild flowers for me that he'd found. I put them in water and walked up to look at the poster for the Bailly crémant caves. “They close at 7, baby and it's quarter past six now,” I said., “Do we go up there now or wait until the morning and do a proper tour?” “Let's do both, we'll go up now and a bottle to have with dinner then we'll go back tomorrow and do the tour.” sounded like a good idea to me.
The walk to the caves took less than 10 minutes up a hill. The caves themselves are at the site of an old quarry and we walked into a dimly lit, huge rock cave. The air was chill and the walls moist. Posters advertising the crémant hung from the ceiling at intervals and the huge space echoed with our footsteps. It was eerie. Mike soon broke the atmosphere though. As soon as I mentioned the echo a wicked little glint passed in front of his eye. I knew what was coming as it left his mouth. He let rip his best Michael Jackson impression and a very loud, very high pitched “Eee-Heeeee” bounced off the walls just as a group returning from their tour walked past a few hundred meters ahead. One woman jumped and several looked quizzically our way. I looked quickly at the floor and let go of Mike's hand. I debated uttering “Je suis désolée, il est en peut retardée” (I'm sorry, he's a bit retarded) then decided that I would never see these people again so it didn't really matter. “Can't bloody take you anywhere, can I?” I said “We're in champagne caves and you do your MJ impression.” He responded with a “Oww!” and grabbed his crotch.
At the end of the cave corridor was a 'vente et dégustation' area. We tried a little of the rose crémant then bought a bottle of it and headed back to the boat. On the way out I looked at the sign by the door. “The tours are between 2 and 5pm this time of year” I said, “Do you still want to go tomorrow?” “Yeah,” Mike replied “we'll just do a short river trip tomorrow afternoon.”
we got back to the boat and Mike got the BBQ going whilst I prepared salad and poured out a glass of wine each. As the sun set and the meat cooked, the sky changed several times, going from a subtle pinky-purple, to a deep pink and finally to a blazing orange. If Belinda Caryle is right and heaven truly is a place on earth, then this place had to be it. I took a deep swig of my wine, cuddled into Mike and let out a satisfied sigh. This was bliss.
The next morning we awoke fairly early to bright sunshine. “I think I'm going for a swim,” said Mike “Do you want to come?” “Nah, I don't fancy the idea of swimming in a canal,” I replied “Everyone flushes their boat toilets into it and there are a lot of boats around here. I'll stay here and make breakfast.” Mike tried to persuade me a little more, but I really didn't fancy it! He gave up and jumped in, swimming right across to the far bank then back again a couple of times. I put some croissants in to warm and scrambled some eggs ready to cook. I soon heard a thud on the side of the boat. Mike had come back and was grabbing on to the rope hanging from the fender. I looked over. “Good swim?” “Yeah, it's lovely in here, he said with a grin. He looked so happy and relaxed, I grabbed my camera and got a shot of him in the water. “You're a menace with that camera!” Mike laughed and swam round to the quay to get back on board.
After breakfast and some reading in the sunshine, we went for a walk around the woodland and countryside of Bailly. It really was stunning. Vineyards studded the hills and little farms lined the dirt roads. The dogs were the only downside – every house seemed to have one and, no matter what breed, each dog ran barking to the fence or gate and jumped up at us. “The dogs seem more aggressive here.” I commented as a little rat looking thing sprang up a gate and bared its teeth, yapping away. The next house was home to a huge rottweiller who had been sitting camouflaged in the shade. I jumped a mile when it ran at the fence snarling and felt very glad it was chained to the tree it had been sitting under!
We arrived at the caves a little after 2. The tour was just beginning and a group of angry Dutch people were arguing with the guide. From what we could gather, they were telling her off for doing the welcome talk in French (I mean, the cheek of it, speaking French in France!) and when she explained she would speak in French then repeat it in English but that the written guide was in English or Dutch, they complained that they couldn't read it as the light was poor and demanded their money back. She said they were welcome to a refund and sent them back to the ticket desk. We were quite shocked at how rude they had been, and, like the rest of the group, stayed quiet when the Dutch people turned to us to support their argument. Off they went to get their refund. The guide asked if everyone else was OK with the tour layout and asked where everyone was from. It was at this point that we realised we were meant to get tickets at the shop part. She kindly agreed to wait and we dashed back to buy our tickets and get he guide. The saleswoman told us the next tour would begin at 3. I shook my head and tried to tell her that the guide was waiting for us now. She did not understand my limited French and shook her head, pointing at the clock displaying the start time of the next tour and signalling for us to take a seat. I tried again to explain. It still didn’t work and she spoke no English. “I'm not waiting almost an hour, when the guide has said she'll wait for us.” I said. “Let's just go and join the tour,” Mike replied. Off we went. The guide asked if we could read the leaflet OK. “yes, no problem” we smiled. She returned the smile, “You are young and have good eyes, you are not old and grumpy like the others.” she joked.
The tour was fascinating. In the caves there are around 8 million bottles of crémant at any one time and we passed whole walls of bottles. It's made in exactly the same way as champagne, the reason they call it crémant is because its not made in the champagne region. The guide was lovely and took us aside at each stop, explaining again in English what she'd just said in French. At the end of the tour we were given souvenir flutes and treated to free tastes of 4 of their cremant. We bought 2 bottles of the rose, a bottle of sweet crémant and a bottle of medium crémant then headed back to the boat to head off up the Nivernais for an afternoon sunshine cruise.

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