Clamecy

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We stayed the first night, in Clamecy, at Auberge de la Chapelle, where the chapel has been turned in to a beautiful dining room. Clamecy’s cobblestone streets led us to the Church of St. Martin in Clamecy (Église Saint-Martin), with its ornate flying buttresses and menacing gargoyles. The eroded stone carvings were being slowly restored. We found barges berthed in the pleasant port near the lock on the Yonne River. From Clamecy onward, the Yonne river is navigabe to Paris. Thanks to its position, Clamecy naturally asserted itself as the administrative center of “timber floating” (an activity also referred to as “log driving” or “timber rafting”). Logs were floated down the tributaries of the river Yonne to Clamecy and then on to Paris.