Douai itself. We were told it was not worth a visit - not true. They had the Straights (ex Dire)...

Mooring at Douai was tricky.  It had a "garage", which was only good for a few small boats like us, or with great big poles for great big barges.  Not appealing or practical.  I was thinking of giving up, but Nik had patience and we found a really nice place, well, apart from discarded beer cans & other detritus:

Yes, it was a long cycle into the centre of town, and yes, it had another Belfroi (belfry) that sounded rather like the one in Bethune, but it had a lot of good things about it.  Sadly it didn't seem to welcome boats, despite a huge canal right thru' the middle.  Too big to care I think, just had the waterway as decoration.  Don't need nasty real boats, with real people.  Well, tricky, but there is a general aversion by the Authorities, and by that I mean Residents (Riverains) to converted old commercials, generally referred to as gypsies, although from hippies to low cost housing better covers it.  They like our nice new, touristy boats, who go out for meals, wait a minute, I'm soapboxing, no, here's a picture to take the nasty taste away:

Isn't that yucky!  Imagine having to put your nice clean rope onto it, with nice clean hands, and then getting it off again and onto the next one above it, and another.  Well, it's not easy, but luckily these sort are rare.  I'm going to publish as I need to find the pictures of Douai to set the record straight.  I think they're on Nik's ipad, and she's playing with that!