Canal Boat — November 2017

56 November 2017 Canal Boat canalboat.co.uk

FRANCE

T

he incentive for most people
deciding to holiday on a boat in
France is the promise of
dependably hot summer days, of
chilled white wine on the deck and lunches
in little red-roofed villages tucked among
vineyards. What determined it for me was
something entirely different: it was my knee.
I’d woken up one morning with a
fully-fledged cartilage problem that
immobilised me so much I hadn’t been able
to set foot on a boat in months. I was
getting withdrawal symptoms. As I wrote in
one of my Canal Boat columns, what I’d
started to fantasise about was a waterway
with no locks, yet one wide enough to
accommodate large craft so I could
requisition a crew who could carry me off
the boat every now and again to a pub
where I could be comforted by limitless
supplies of analgesic. You know the sort: it
generally comes in pint or half-pint glasses.
Then somebody suggested France. Okay,
there are no pubs in France – but there are
enough bars. And though there are locks,
there are also lock-keepers to operate them
for you. The idea of France touched a chord
with Moira and me because, like Aileen and
Mike Queenan who have just written about

doing it in the last two issues of this

magazine, we’ve been thinking about

taking our boat to France for years. Now

it looked as if my crocked knee might give

us the opportunity for a scouting mission.

Of course, the first decision for hiring

in France is where to do it from. The

extensive French waterway system is,

roughly speaking, split into two. Most

navigable rivers and canals are in the

centre and north; the rest, separated

by more than 400 kilometres of the

sometimes treacherous River Rhone,

comprise the River Garonne and the Canal

du Midi, which together link the

Mediterranean to the Bay of Biscay.

On the basis that if we took our own

boat to France we might not venture that

far south, we plumped for the Canal du

Midi which has been substantially

developed in recent years for holiday

travel. Our crew secured, we chose to

rent from Minervois Cruisers, an offshoot

of Napton Narrowboats whose fleet is

well-known to anyone familiar with

English canals.

Now, remember, we were paying for this

trip; it wasn’t a journalistic freebee. So

Thinking about taking your boat to France? It’s worthwhile exploring

its waterways and lifestyle first – and a trip makes a great break

FRANCE: PART 3

Many barges are now holiday boats

Testing the waters

WORDS & PICTURES STEVE HAYWOOD