Hendrina - Lille and Kortrijk

 Thursday 17/09/26

Charmaine and Nathan are going to over-winter Hendrina in Europe because they are looking after a friend's boat and dog for a few months in London so we decided to meet them along their travels. 

 Conveniently, there is a direct high-speed train connection between Marseilles and Lille so we left our car at the bus stop near Peyrius and caught the bus to Aix-en-Provence TGV station.  The bus was running a bit late so we had to dash through the station to find the correct gate for our boarding.  Once sorted, we settled into our seats and began cruising through the French countryside at 300 km/h.  It's a no-frill train, so all passengers had to sort their own food - packed sandwiches and a flask of coffee for us.

Lille Chamber of Commerce Belltower

Charmaine met us in Lille and we walked to Henny, conveniently moored on the canal alongside the citadel near the city centre. Nathan welcomed us on board and we settled in for a lot of chatting followed by a wonderful fish curry supper, a joint effort between Nathan and Charmaine.

The next morning Toni and I went for a walk around the area and rustled up some bread for lunch and pastries for breakfast.  We had around six hours travel ahead of us, but, as we would find out, timetables on the canals are variable as there can be long delays with a lot of commercial traffic taking precedence.

The very decorative town hall in Comines
We had to wait as there was a large craft coming through the narrow section

The trip reminded us of travelling through the canals in the UK, except the canals and vessels here were a lot bigger and the entire system is better maintained as it is still used for commercial transport.  All the locks are 'hands free', controlled by a voice on the radio, quite different to the windlass winding in the UK.  They are also huge, built to accommodate the 100+m barges we encountered.

Lock doors open, waiting for the green light to drop ropes

We arrived into a lovely mooring as the canal passed through Kortrijk.  Charmaine and Nathan had discovered it on their previous trip and it was well worth the visit.  We had a lovely stroll around the time, sampled a few Belgian beers and had a lovely schnitzel supper.  Superb! 

Kortrijk

The interior of the 13'th century Church of Our Lady of Courtrai
was very decorative, albeit a bit gothic.

Monastery Church of Saint Michael

The following day we planned to head out towards Ghent, most of the trip following the commercial canal but Nathan wanted to follow the Leie river to get into the city, a much more scenic, winding route.