Lorraine Canal de L'Est Cruise

Thru the beautiful Vosges Mountains.

 Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page for complete details.

Fontenay Le Chateau To Nancy  Through the beautiful Vosges Mountains of Lorraine

July 24, 2010

The Canal de L'Est travels through some of the most beautiful scenery in France.  Shore Excursions in our air conditioned bus are a given.  This is the ultimate Nature Cruise which combines the beauty of the Canal with some very interesting shore excursions.

Cruise Highlights:

•  Luxeuil Les Bains.  Luxeuil was first colonized by the Romans in the 1^st century who named it Luxovium and established it as a thermal town.     A swim in the old Roman thermal spa waters if you wish.

• Le Musee de la Tour des Echevins.

13th-century Basilique St-Pierre which was  restored in the 14th-century.

• Palais Abbatial, the most famous early medieval monastery in Franche-Comte, founded in 585 A.D. . 

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• Vittel Bottled Water headquarters for a tour of the facility that many think is as interesting as a vineyard tour.

• International Museum of Folk Art in Epinal

• Church of St-Maurice dating from the 13^th century with an 11^th century tower.

•  Parc du Chateau

• Epinal American Cemetery and WWII Memorial. 

• Chatel-sur-Moselle, a medieval fortress built in 1072

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• Chateau at Neuviller-sur-Moselle

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• "École de Nancy"

• "Le Jardin Botanique"which has many different types of plants, including tropical, and many other wonderful types of plants and flowers.

• Cathedral of Nancy , built in 18th Century.

·         Bicycles aboard

• Air Conditioned    

The best way to see France is at 3 MPH

A perennial favorite. Vittel has been drawn since 1863 from a curative spa whose use is documented back to Roman occupation. Vittel is a neutral tasting low Sodium mineral water with balanced levels of Calcium, Potassium, Magnesium, and Sulphate.

Saturday----Meeting at Nancy Railway station at 2:15 p.m.  The bus will wait until all passengers are on board or 3:15 p.m.  Your clients will be provided with a cell phone number of the bus driver in case there is some problem.   (This itinerary is being written in January 2009.  At this time the Dijon railway station is under significant construction.  The exact meeting place can not be assigned yet because the construction is changing the places where buses can wait for clients.  We will  be  back to you prior to your client’s cruise departure.)  Train schedules are subject to change and can be confirmed at www.raileurope.com.

Bus transfer to Lorraine moored in the villiage of Fontenay Le Chateau.and welcome aboard drinks with introduction of the crew.  Feel free to take a bike for a ride or walk around this canal side village.

Luxeuil's Gallo-Roman past is evoked in Le Musee de la Tour des Echevins which also houses 19th-20th-century art and works by the Luxeuil-born painter Jules Adler.  

Luxeuil's historic centre is also worth a foray with its 13th-century Basilique St-Pierre which was  restored in the 14th-century.  However, the Palais Abbatial is probably the main attraction and the most famous early medieval monastery in Franche-Comte.  It was founded in approximately 585 A.D. by the well respected Irish monk, St Columbanus. 

A swim in the spa waters is available for those who wish to swim.  We have packed a lot into this day and will provide enough time to do it all.

This afternoon we will do a tour of Epinal.  Epinal is famous for L’Imagerie, the ancestor of cartoons.  During the 19^th Century the colored prints emerging from Epinal enjoyed world wide sales. A printer and publisher named Pellerin set up a business in Epinal in 1799 and began to produce colored prints on secular themes.  In the past all prints were of religious subjects.  In particular Pellerin targeted children as the audience for his prints.  We will visit the International Museum of Folk Art and the Vosges Departmental Museum.  While touring the city we will make a brief stop at the Church of St-Maurice dating from the 13^th century with an 11^th century tower.  In the Parc du Chateau we will see the ruins of a castle destroyed in 1670.  This afternoon after lunch we will have a brief visit to the Epinal American Cemetery and Memorial.  This 48.6 acre cemetery is sited on a plateau, 100 feet above the Moselle River in the foothills of the Vosges Mountains.  It contains the graves of 5255 of America’s military dead,  most of whom lost their lives in the campaigns across northeastern France to the Rhine and beyond into Germany.

This day we cruise through the Vosges Mountains, a particularly beautiful stretch of canal.  We will leave Lorraine for a visit to Chatel-sur-Moselle, a medieval fortress built in 1072 that has had strategic significance throughout French history including 1940 and 1944.

Lorraine will park near The Place Stanislas.  Place Stanisias, Placede la Carrière, and Place d'Alliance were added on the World Heritage Sites list by the UNESCO in 1983.

We will have a visit to the museum of The "École de Nancy" where a group of artists and architects founded by the glassmaster and furniture maker Émile Gallé, worked in the Art Nouveau style at the end of the 19th century and the early 20th century. It was principally their work which made Nancy a centre of art and architecture that rivaled Paris and helped give the city the nickname "Capitale de l'Est." The city still possesses many Art Nouveau buildings (mostly banks or private homes). The old city centre's heritage dates from the Middle Ages to the 18th century. The Cathedral of Nancy is a fine example of 18th century architecture station are a busy commercial area.

There is also a botanical garden in Nancy, "Le Jardin Botanique"which has many different types of plants, including tropical, and many other wonderful types of plants and flowers.

Tonight is the Gala dinner as we bid farewell to Lorraine tomorrow morning.  The staff of Lorraine set out to make this week the best week of your year.  We hope that goal was realized and we celebrate with this special dinner.

The goal of American Dream Vacations and the crew and staff of Lorraine is to make this the very best week of your year.