LOST IN FRANCE
After three glorious days in Mulhouse, we were back on the move. To complete our grand circuit we now had to take the Rhine for 110km down to Strasbourg, with an excursion mid-way to visit Colmar. I had some experience of exploring the Lower Rhine, when our boat, La Strega, was in Holland, fighting the current and meeting massive barges Blue Flagging. This sign meant you had to turn swiftly to port, to allow them to pass to starboard. So, as we motored gently up to the first lock, the joy of getting going again was tempered with a little trepidation.
The fact that this lock had to be booked 24 hours ahead told us that most leisure boaters simply turn around at Mulhouse. We had met only two going our way. One was a lone yachtsman heading back to Norway. The other was a Swiss owner trying to take his steel barge home to Basel from the Med. He had brought it up the Rhone against the spring snow melt to find himself stuck a few miles from home, advised by the authorities that even now, in late June, the Rhine current was too strong for his craft.
We emerged from the lock into a broad expanse of water, the modern port of Mulhouse and start of the 15km Niffer canal connecting to the Rhine. This dates from the 1960s when plans were made to develop a route from the Rhine to
