An artistic visit

Isle-Adam to Rueil-Malmaison

We slipped away from our raft-up hosts quite early, and after only half an hour we reached Auvers-sur-Oise. The village is famed for being the place Van Gogh lived in his final years, producing a couple of dozen paintings or more. Nowadays that is the industry – Van Gogh trails, museums, everything. In the Van Gogh park we came across this rather modern sculpture of him:

In the town centre, they have placed a reproduction of his painting of the Mairie so that you can cleverly take a picture of the painting and the real thing. We obliged:

Just across the road was the auberge where he lived for 3.50 francs a day:

Normally you can pay (rather more than that, I fear) to visit his room! However, we had chosen to come on a Monday, when everything was closed, so no business from us, unfortunately.

We wandered up some attractive little lanes and finally reached the old steps up to the church:

We circled the church, which is a handsome building, until we found, more or less, the spot from which he must have painted his well-known scene:

On the way down, there was a statue of his painter friend Charles Daubigny:

After the cultural interlude, it was back to the river. One more lock to negotiate at Pontoise:

Then we turned on to the Seine, heading upstream after many miles enjoying the modest current on the Oise in our favour. We had feared that after all the flooding earlier in the year, there might be a problem. However, the current turned out to be more or less negligible. This is the turn at Conflans Ste Honorine:

For quite a while the river runs between high banks, which were most attractive. Nearer to Paris it will be more industrial, I fear.

After a large lock with a large barge, we looked for a mooring. There are not too many on the Seine, although we had found a convenient pontoon to tie up for lunch. The small halte fluviale just after the lock was blocked off by a selfish barge, so we progressed a few kilometres to Rueil-Malmaison, and found ourselves docked beside some friendly Brits.

Tomorrow we'll be in Paris, where we've  booked ourselves a place in the Arsenal port for three nights.