YodelOut! Paris

You are here: Home / Waterways of Paris / Tugboats And Barges In Paris

Tugboats And Barges In Paris

There are boats tugboats and barges on the river, and they may serve very well as a lesson in French. At Paris, a Seine barge may be anything from a berrichon, a mar-gota, a flute, to a chaland. It all depends upon the size, and the sizes range from those a hundred to those one hundred and fifty feet long, from fifteen feet broad to twenty-five; they range from two hundred and fifty to six hundred tons, and the tugs from one hundred to two hundred and fifty tons.

You will discover a numbered series of tugs called Guèpes (Wasps); at Rouen they are called Abeilles (Bees). There is a series named for birds. One amusing series of barges is named for the cities of the world, the clumsiest I have yet seen being called Carthage. Then there are those named for French provinces, and others which show sentiment : Fructidor, which suggests historical admiration; Alea Jacta Est (the die is cast), with only a canal waiting to play its rôle of Rubicon.

The Solitaire denotes an attitude of mind; the Oxus and the Aetna must be of foreign breed. Jupiter seemed to be out of the running when I saw him, but not so the tug Neptunus which had as so often happens in Paris Phoebus in tow.

There is a great deal of sentiment in anything which floats, and the slower it floats, the greater the sentiment.

Quotes About Paris

  • I was born in Paris in the mid-1960s, and by the time I was 12 I had started going to the movies by myself. Most of the movies of that period never appealed to me. I didn’t like the ‘naturalism,’ the sad or the ‘down-to-earth’ characters. What I wanted from film was fantasy, dreams, funny situations, extravagant decor – and beautiful women. Christian Louboutin

Paris Facts

  • Paris has many buses and local trains (called the RER), but the main mode of travel around Paris is the Metro or subway. No place in Paris is less than 500 meters (1500 feet) away from a metro stop.

Copyright © 2013 YodelOut · Log in