The boat a no go so hollow for a locoboat marshall. He arrives around 9.30, cusses and curses for a while then tells up he has to find a new starter motor, hopes to be back around 11.00 am. By now we are starting to look like the real deal of canal riff raff. And we term worse onto some of the other hire boat cowboys who really do not have a clue. Part fitted, underway with morning lost on the water but time does run at a different pace in rural France on the canal ways. It is not dark until 10.00 pm so not to worry.

A number of boats in these areas so form a queue when we route through the long tunnels and at the Arzviller inclined plane ( the biggest transversal boat elevator in the world) . This gives us some time to watch this sucker in action, along with many others as they run pleasure boat cruises from the tunnel to the lift and return. We take our turn with a very large barge boat and enjoy the procedure, drop the 45 metres in one swoop to the new water mark. Take on only four locks in the afternoon before we berth in the beautiful town of Lutzelbourg, it has a renowned restaurant so we are all looking forward to that as pasta so many ways on the water a no go tonight.

Lots of boats including the larger barges with much older (than us) people doing fully escorted and catered canal cruises. Wander through the town for a look see, the CoOp in our sights for a few provisions, it is Wednesday afternoon , open every afternoon except which one, yes you guessed it - closed on this afternoon. That's fine so we make do with the local Boulanger, also makes an array of sweets and chocolates. The two older girls became very excited with one particular item within the chocolate range but felt they have had enough over the journey so knocked back the temptation .

The restaurant looks good so decide to check out the menu and book a table. My mouth starts to water up with some fine french fare on the menu, as we are looking the chef comes to the door, we say bonjour and are looking forward to his fine french fare. He looks at us with despair and says - closed Wednesdays. It is time for the closed god to move on as this is now way beyond being funny!

Lucky that the local bar come pub come eatery is open, we go there - guess what, so does everyone else. We sit and watch as all our fellow canal boaters make their way from said closed fine French fare restaurant to the last chance cafe. By the way the food was at my expectations - very average so look out Paris.

Decide to have a later night tonight and make it to after dark. Our fifth night sleeping in a "bed" the size of a small cot but tomorrow night luxury awaits, pity it is on the sixth floor also with no lift but I am sure you will here more regarding this peril in due course.