Waking up on a boat is always a bit of a surprise because you don't necessarily know what you will wake up to. Sometimes it's a dirty old dock, and sometimes it's a lovely view such as this...
(Pont Saint-Laurent)
This is the pretty town of Mačon - home to wine.... lots of wine!
The hillside is full of holiday chateaus like these ones...
The tower on the left was to home the pigeons that they would use their poop for fertiliser, then they'd eat them, probably in some sort of pigeon pie.
This little shack has been owned by the same family for over 100 years and still live in it today. There's probably only 2 of them!
Our excursion today was to, what was left of, Cluny Abbey. It was founded in 910 and home to the Benedictine Monks. It was sold to a builder by greedy little Napolean and the only way the builder could make any money was to dismantle it and sell the stones to make houses around the area. It used to be a massive building, but now only 5% of the Abbey remains. What a shame!
I'm thinking that the monks must have been tiny little people, otherwise there would have been some very bruised heads and there would have perhaps been some swearing going on when going through the doors!
(hard to get the scale from the picture, but the top of the door would have come up to my shoulder! - So roughly 5ft tall)
But to lighten the mood a little..... here's Jenny's favourite joke....
There was once a new monk who had just joined a silent order, where they were only allowed to say one thing once a year. The first year he prayed and did his duty and when the first 12 months was up, he went to Father Abbot who asked, "It has been 12 months, what have you got to say?"
The monk replied, "My bed is too hard."
The Abbott reminded him that suffering and going without comforts was what being a monk was all about and the monk returned to his duties.
Another 12 months went by and the monk went to Father Abbot who asked, "It has been 12 months, what have you got to say?"
The monk replied, "My cell is too cold."
The Abbott reminded him that suffering and going without comforts was what being a monk was all about and the monk returned to his duties.
Another 12 months went by and the monk went to Father Abbot who asked, "It has been 12 months, what have you got to say?"
The monk replied, "I haven't got enough to eat."
The Abbott reminded him that suffering and going without comforts was what being a monk was all about and the monk returned to his duties.
Another 12 months went by and the monk went to Father Abbot who asked, "It has been 12 months, what have you got to say?"
The monk replied, "I think I'm going to leave."
The Abbott replied, "I think that's a good idea, because honestly, you haven't stopped complaining since you got here!"
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There were four bus loads of tourists with us there this morning. They organised it quite well moving through different sections at different times. Apparently, this guide was great and made the information very interesting by telling stories and sharing anecdotes..... our guide, on the other hand, sprouted facts and dates, which were interesting to a point, but it becomes very hard to retain all that dot point information without a relevant story to go with it.
The only story she told was that the Abbot of the day didn't care too much about following the religious rules as he was more interested in the money side of being a monk.... "what's that?" you say? Well, back in those days, the monks used to own the abbey and all the surrounding land. You could tell that he didn't care, because he had a chapel built for himself off the regular one, complete with a fireplace. And as monks aren't meant to enjoy comfort of any kind, the historians decided that he couldn't have cared too much for those rules.
The rules are (when you're the Abbott) there are no rules!
It worked for Fight Club, it can work for the monks - or at least this one monk!
All around the Abbey there are sweet little hotels and restaurants and also the fields are now leased out to horse schools for stables and training and jump practice etc, and the roads were understandably covered in horse poop!
And the Abbey is still a working university.
After our tour there was time for a little wander around the village of Cluny which was full of Tabac stationary shops, gift shops, pharmacies, patisseries and oddly enough, knife shops!
Back in Mačon, we had a little wander around the town where you could have shot a cannon. We're finding that most of the little village towns are very quiet. We can't work out if it's the time of day we're there, perhaps everyone has gone home for lunch or that everybody has a job, leaving nobody to be walking in the street except Australian and Canadian tourists?
It does help for taking photos without unwitting photo bombers though - so silver lining.
(The Church of Saint Pierre)
This was another type of river boat slowly chugging past us as we docked in Mačon. This one, we worked out, would have only held about 64 passengers - about a 3rd of the size of our boat, which would have been good if you could choose your fellow passengers!
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