Today we woke up in Conflans, ready for our morning's excursion to La Malmaison.

Conflans is the traditional home to the barge people, those plying their trade up and down the French rivers. According to our guide most of the barges in France are registered in Conflans, it is here that there is a support set up for retired bargees and their families. whilst we did not get time to visit the town as we were doing the Malmaison tour, others who visited the town commented on how nice it was.

We took a short bus ride to La Malmaison it was the home of Josephine, wife of Napoleon Bonaparte. She purchased it in 1799 a couple of years after they were married and Napoleon approved the purchase on his return from Egypt and hired two architects who started work on the remodeling of the chateau.

Once Napoleon had proclaimed himself emperor she further embellished the chateau building the park and some of the surrounding buildings. Josephine was a very intelligent woman with a keen interest in botany and ornithology, importing lots of parrots and in particular black swans to adorn the gardens.

In 1809 Napoleon moved on divorcing her and marrying again, Josephine then moved into the chateau full time until her death in 1814, however she did not stop changing the chateau or spending on new furnishings etc following her divorce, at her death she had enormous debts which needed to be settled by her heirs.

She had retained her title following the divorce and made friends with many allied rulers, including Czar Alexander I. It was he who came to the aid of her heirs buying all the paintings in the chateau to help settle the debts.

Following the visit it was back to the ship for an afternoon of cruising, and on arriving into our cabin we found the caps had made a new friend.

A couple of pictures are attached from the afternoon, and I am sure a number of you will be as surprised to see the Thales barge, did not know Thales were into shipping.