In the morning, Rita took the train back to Auxonne to collect the car, which we thought might be useful while our guests are here over the next several days. In the meantime, I gave the deck a bit of a scrubbing, even though the Kartcher pressure washer kept cutting out. While Rita was away, I got a notification that the batteries were being delivered this morning, and a while later got a phone call from the delivery driver, but he couldn't speak English and I couldn't understand his French over the noise of his truck and the traffic. He then sent a message saying he couldn't find where to deliver the batteries. So I sent him a message in French saying that they should go to the Port Capitainerie in Besançon. I didn't hear anything for a while, and then got a message saying that the lady at the Capitainerie wouldn't sign for the delivery, and that I had to come and sign for them. But since I was over the other side of town, that didn't seem practical. In the meantime, Rita rang and I told her the story, so she rang the Capitainerie and explained the situation. It turned out that "the lady" was a stand-in capitain and had not been told anything about delivery of the batteries. In the end, she signed for them.

While waiting for the car to come, I removed the old batteries and put them in the wheelhouse. They each weighed a ton, so I won't be disposing of them permanently until I can get the car very close to the boat to avoid having to carry them too far. When the car arrived from Auxonne, I took it across town to collect the batteries. But when I got to Pont de Republique, the street containing the entrance to the port, it had "No Entry" signs at each end of the street - so how was I meant to get to the port (I now understood why the delivery driver might have been having difficulties this morning). So I short-term-parked (illegally) and walked to the port to see how I might get a car into the port area. The port has an interesting workforce, with many handicapped people working there. So I had a bit of trouble communicating initially, but the guy behind the counter had the idea and handed me his phone and asked me to type my question into Google Translate. I tried his phone, but it had a French keyboard so I used mine instead, and soon we worked out that the batteries had been delivered and I could bring my car by just ignoring the "No Entry" signs and driving slowly with my emergency lights blinking (in true French style). Which I did, and soon picked up the batteries with lots of willing helpers.

I got the batteries back to the boat (they were much lighter than the old ones) and soon had them fitted. Turned on the bowthrusters and tried the joystick and Voila!  Now we have full-strength bowthrusters. So after a quick lunch, I did a quick u-turn away from the VNF pontoon and headed for Ecluse 51 for a second attempt, which was a piece of cake with bowthrusters!

We had to wait a little while at Ecluse 50 at the entrance to the tunnel because of a tourist boat coming the other way, so I did a neat reverse journey (with the help of bowthrusters) and tied up at the waiting pontoon. Then it was our turn to go through the tunnel. As we went through, I kept humming the old Slim Dusty tune "Looking Forward, Looking Back". The photos below perhaps show why.

We tied up at the same place as in 2019, right in front of the Convervatorium at the Cite des Artes.

I couldn't resist taking a photo of this aerial photo poster for Besançon, which clearly shows the layout of the old town within the bend of the River Doubs, with our mooring on the left and the Citadel at top-centre..

One of the nice things about mooring next to the Conservatorium is that you can hear music rehearsals any time of the day, any day of the week. So as I sat down with a cold beer on the rear deck, I heard singing, initially with just a few voices and then more. So I went up to investigate, as I started to hear the sound of an audience as well as performers. When I got there, I realised that a concert performance was about to start with performers from the Conservatorium, starting with a bit of Circle Singing.

While they were performing this song, it started to rain heavily, followed by thunder and lightning (as evidenced by some concerned faces in the audience at about the 1:00 mark in the video). But it was short-lived and by the end of the performance, the sun had reappeared, creating a double rainbow across the Doubs.

As we left this performance, I saw something (which typifies France, in my mind at least), when across the road from the Conservatorium there was a wall of community-accepted graffiti. Lots of different styles, and all a lot more interesting than a blank factory wall.

Given that it was June 21, the Summer Solstice, we figured there would be a lot more music around the town tonight, since most towns in France manage to have one or more concerts on June 21 - the day of Music. So, after the graffiti, we just kept walking towards the centre of the old town, and followed whatever path led to the next music. It didn't take long to find a bunch of young boys doing rap to an audience of about 30, and then we continued on from there. Over the course of the next few hours, we must have found 20 different sites where music was being played, just outside of earshot of the next group of musicians. We kept sampling until we realised we were hungry, and headed for a quieter eating area. We decided on Thai, just opposite La Plancha where we ate last night. We then continued strolling and found the main stage which was occupied by a loud rock band. With all its students, Besançon is a very young city, and the choice of music acts reflected this demographic.

We continued walking until we heard a brass band performing on the steps of Eglise Saint-Pierre, in Place du 8 Septembre. But just as we got there, they finished their act. However, they were immediately replaced by a Batucada drumming band, which really got the crowd up and moving. While it was now getting late at night and the video of the band was a bit dark, it's really the sound that counts!

We wandered back to the boat and were left sitting on the rear deck in a cool breeze around midnight, thinking just what a day this had been. From bowthrusterless desperation in the morning, to the sweet sounds of Circle Singing in the late afternoon to the rousing rhythms of Batucada in the late evening, Besançon has provided lots of contrasts.