A little story from Venice

Our on-the-spot reporter reliably informs us that the Bond girl did not in fact do any of the sailing (because she can't sail!) and the stand-in was the wife of the owner of Spirit Yachts, who built the vessel.

When the main scene was shot on the Grand Canal, the mast of the sailing boat had to be unstepped to pass under the Rialto Bridge (this is the first time a sailing boat has been on the Grand Canal for 350 years).

You can imagine the excitement, and when filming began the local Carabinieri held-up dozens of vaporetti, gondolas, water taxi and the usual assortment of watercraft found on the canal in the high summer, so as not to intrude on the scene. When the first rehearsal was finished, and the director shouted out "cut!", the police interpreted this to mean that the filming was over and released a torrent of assorted river craft on the Bond sailing machine!

Fortunately you don't have to be Bond to enjoy the delights of Venice! A week on board La Dolce Vita will enable you to relive the romance of the Bond movie and see the lagoon at a much more elegant pace. Visit our website for details of her unique itinerary.

Saint LOUIS
CRUISING IN SOUTH WEST FRANCE

We are now proud to introduce you to the latest vessel to join our Go Barging fleet, Saint Louis, a beautiful barge run by Barbara and Alasdair Wyllie, which cruises two routes in the Garonne valley, from Castets to Agen and from Agen to Montauban. The Saint Louis was built in Holland in 1923. Some ten years ago she was expertly renovated into a luxury hotel barge, keeping all her original lines, while converting her interior into modern accommodation for six passengers, including central heating and air conditioning.

The three cabins are spacious (127 square feet each), light and airy, can be configured as twins or queen-sized doubles and are equipped with wardrobes, full-length mirrors, dressing-tables and storage. All have fully tiled en-suite bathrooms with roomy showers.

The beautifully decorated saloon has a well stocked bar, a dining area and a "sitting room" area, a small library and music centre.

The large sun deck has loungers for lazing away those sunny afternoons, and tables and chairs for all those alfresco meals, all prepared by Barbara, a talented cook, who uses nothing but the freshest regional produce and whose repertoire is full and imaginative.

For more information about Saint Louis and her two cruise routes, please visit our website or contact us here.   back to top

Secrets of The Shipyard
La Belle Epoque in the Dry Dock

This time we chose the De Schroef yard in Sluiskil, Holland, which has a very substantial slipway arrangement. Every winter we work on our barges. They are made of iron and are extremely strong with the oldest, dating from 1894, being La Dolce Vita in Italy.

La Belle Epoque is 128 feet long and weighs 200 tons. The shipyard can take 300 feet and 1000 tons, so we are small fry!

De Schroef Shipyard in Sluiskil, Holland	View from La Belle Epoque in the shipyard	Danger Bridge opens Automatically.!	A large Danish ferry - it's amazing how much seagoing traffic uses the inland waterways	2 tugs move a real biggie into position. It was so heavy, they had to pump out 150 tons of water ballast
2 small tug boats do the final manoeuvring for us	La Belle Epoque waiting with a Dutch tug for the shipyard slip	A tight squeeze for La Belle Epoque	You can just see Belle Epoque in the shadow of the Green vessel!	This 1000 tonner followed us up the slipway and took about 15 minutes to come out of the water

See a slideshow of these images online.   back to top

BORDEAUX WINE

Saint Louis cruises through an interesting and varied landscape, which yields a cornucopia of treasures. In the east it is hilly, in the west it is wooded, and in between its a flat area into which the many tributaries of the Garonne, flowing down from the Massif Central, have brought fertile soil.

With the favourable conditions of a very mild climate and a fertile alluvial soil, fruit and vegetables of high quality grow in abundance: peaches, apples, pears, grapes, tomatoes, asparagus, melons, aubergines and garlic.

One food speciality from the Saint Louis cruise region is Cassoulet, which is a very tasty dish consisting of haricot beans, goose confit, bacon rind and sausages. A favourite of Rick Stein's, this dish requires long, slow cooking and is ideally accompanied by a glass of Bordeaux wine!

Bordeaux is probably the most internationally well-known wine region of France, with the historic city of Bordeaux and the river Gironde at its western extremity, stretching out eastwards and southwards between the Garonne and the Dordogne rivers.

This large area produces more fine red wine than any other French region, with around 580 million bottles of red wine produced each year. Bordeaux reds divide themselves into “right” and “left” bank wines. On the left bank of the Gironde estuary the Cabernet Sauvignon grape dominates and the right bank is Merlot’s stronghold. The key areas for Merlot-based wines are St-Emilion and Pomerol.

Having occupied 52% of the vineyard area in 1970, white wines now represent only 15% of the present 115,200 ha (284,500 acres) of vines. Dry, medium and sweet wines are all available and the most important white grapes are Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, which are usually blended together. Bordeaux's most famous whites are its sweet wines made from grapes affected by noble rot, particularly those from Sauternes and Barsac.

To learn more about the wines of Bordeaux, why not book a cruise on Saint Louis and see and learn everything first hand from your fascinating crew and the area’s wine producers.

October Competition

November Competition

Although it’s only 4 weeks off, Dan, Captain of Scottish Highlander, has already placed his order for all that delicious Christmas and Hogmanay fare for the Christmas and New Year cruises where you can get away from all the commercialism, enjoy beautiful scenery and have everything done for you. There’s still space if you would like to book!

Here is the second of our trilogy of articles on Festive traditions in Scotland – First Footing.

“First Footing” is a night-time door-to-door New Year tradition probably with origins deriving from the time of the ancient Celts. Custom dictates that at the run-up to midnight between the old and the new year, if you receive a visit from a “tall, dark stranger”, bearing a lump of coal, a cake or a coin, you are assured of good luck and prosperity in the coming year.

It’s very enjoyable, whether you are the first-footer or the person being visited!

The required physical attributes of prospective first footers are that they must be tall and dark-haired (and preferably male) and of such a calibre so as not to buckle under the obligations of the evening! The ability to pace oneself is of utmost importance as you’ll see in a moment…

People who are still in a reasonable state of repair to be able to open their front door at midnight, on being faced with this tall dark stranger, invite him in, accept his gift/s and, in exchange, offer him food, wine or whisky (or maybe a concoction of ale, nutmeg and whisky). The first-footer definitely seems to have the better end of the deal and, as you can imagine, can become fairly inebriated after having visited just a few houses!

Why does the tall stranger have to be dark, I hear you ask? Well, apparently that dates back to the Viking raids on Scotland between the 4th and 12th centuries, where those blond Vikings were definitely “persona non grata”, so, apologies to those fair-haired folk out there, but you’re not “First Footer” material!

To be a first footer used to be, as you can see, a bit of a solitary role, but modern footers are often more fortunate, accompanied by a little band of groupies which makes perambulation around the houses a little easier with assistance being available in case the old legs give way!

Find out more about our Scottish Highlander Christmas and New Year cruises here.

Next month: Auld Lang Syne   back to top

back to top