Our last few days in Migennes, on the River Yonne, Burgundy

We arrived back at our winter base, always with sadness to finish the barging. Now it is the packing, cleaning, organising for the winterisation of the barge and our departures.

We moored next to a lovely barge, Rysland, and met the delightful English, French, Swiss owner Sophie, who is the Captain and sometimes her own crew as well. A great feat in the handling of her 23m barge! We enjoyed pre-dinner drink with her and her friend who was visiting from London, both live on their barges there as well!

The next evening was our last night with John and Margaret, so we decided not to cook, mainly because there was not much food left for us anyway!

So we set off to a small hotel restaurant, Aux rives de l’Yonne, a 15 minute walk down the river out of Migennes, recommended by the boat mariner. I think it is the only restaurant in the neighbourhood, so our hopes we not high.

We had a pleasant dinner overlooking the river which provided a very pretty setting. The food was fine. They served gougères as an amuse bouche! Michael ordered Burgundian escargots, which have been totally outshone by the sensational escargots he had in Paris on Thursday night, more of that dinner later.

My entrée was oeufs en meurette, a favourite of mine, poached eggs in a red wine sauce, another dish to be added to our classes at Cooking on the Bay.

My dessert was Île flottante*, which was also nice, if quite ‘rustic’! I never order this dessert and so I was really pleasantly surprised at how nice it actually was. But again, unfortunately, it was totally surpassed by the Île flottante we made in the class at the Ritz Escoffier last Saturday, we you would expect, I might add!

Now, my Île flottante will be added to the dessert repertoire at Cooking on the Bay!

*Île flottante, floating island and œufs à la neige, eggs in snow, are sometimes used interchangeably, with the former being the source of the English name.