Laid back, and loving it!

 Sunday 11th May

Happy Mothers Day at home - but not here in France, not til 25th May.

We've had a very relaxed day. We visited a place called Manufacture Royale - with no idea what to expect except the tourist office said it was open for viewing this weekend. Turns out it was an old metalwork factory which started out making horse shoe nails, then progressed to table cutlery. It was a tinsmiths shop from 1733. It wasn't just a factory but like a little village with the factory, stables, housing for workers, and a chapel. Most of the buildings were built between 1733 and 1787 - and are still in really good nick. You can now stay here in gites and chambres d'hotes on the site (out of our price range).

A beautiful day - it is finally warming up
and we are getting some time without jumpers. 

Small crowd at the market.

The chapel on the site - very small and recently renovated. 

Wanting to make friends with all the passing dogs.

A famous person linked to this place was Julie-Victoire Daubié, (1824 - 1874), born in Bains les Bains, who was a french journalist and womens rights activist. She was the first French woman to register for the baccalaureate exams in Lyon in 1861, and the first to obtain it. She was also the first female literature graduate in 1871 when courses at the Sorbonne were not open to women.

There was a small market on the site - very small - local producers. We bought zucchini soup for dinner, and sat in the sun and had coffee. 

From there we took a winding route back to town checking out the nearby canal and its locks. With Dora's pictures/maps we are able to just drive around like Terry tourist on a Sunday drive. We found a place to visit for lunch later in the week and a museum of embroidery which we will visit after lunch. 

A few canal boats.
We are going to look into these for maybe a future trip.

Hee-haw.

Rob picked up this thinking we could add some Alsacien vocab to our repertoire.
I already speak Alsacien - woof, woof.