Cruising the canals of France, Italy etc

[sidicks]

I'm thinking about a holiday for later in the year (probably late August or September) with some friends crusing on the canals in France (probably Canal du Midi or Canal du Rhone) or maybe around Venice.

The weather should be fairly warm at that time of year, but it would be out of peak season thereby reducing prices somewhat.

I did this type of thing with my parents about 20 - 25 years ago, so I've a rough idea of what to expect, but hoped to get some advice on particular trips to do, places to see, which companies to use etc etc

Thanks

Sidicks

[selwonk]

I desperately want to do this, but the family are having none of it. I would need a fairly big boat with at least two bathrooms and Le Boat have got some cracking kit:

http://www.leboat.co.uk/

If you pull it off, I'd be really interested in some feedback.

[sidicks]

selwonk said:

I desperately want to do this, but the family are having none of it. I would need a fairly big boat with at least two bathrooms and Le Boat have got some cracking kit:

http://www.leboat.co.uk/

If you pull it off, I'd be really interested in some feedback.

"Le boat" was the company that I found first - the Royal Mystique or new Le Boat 15-02 look ideal for 2 couples sharing.

Years ago when travelling with parents we flew to Montpellier and then took the boat from Beacaire all the way to Narbonne.

It is good fun for a family with kids as they can help with the locks etc and if they want some exercise, it is easy for them to ride bikes along the tow path within site of the bike, where it is relatively flat.

It's nice staying overnight in different places and getting off the boat in the morning to find fresh croissants etc.

I'm hoping that it will also work well for 2 couples, enjoying nice food at different places and stopping off for plenty of wine and beer etc !!

Sidicks

[chard]

We used Nicols and very happy with the service. Just don't set an ambitious itinerary, spend a lot of of time sitting about and looking at places, "go with the flow" so to speak.

[fatboy b]

We did this in a big group on 2 boats a few years back on the Canal de Midi. Lovely area, and great fun. However, the canal itself is an open-sewer, so you have to make sure hands are washed after docking & undocking the boat. It wasn't really a problem other than the odd dead dog floating about.

[alfa pint]

fatboy b said:

We did this in a big group on 2 boats a few years back on the Canal de Midi. Lovely area, and great fun. However, the canal itself is an open-sewer, so you have to make sure hands are washed after docking & undocking the boat. It wasn't really a problem other than the odd dead dog floating about.

I went down the canal du midi for my honeymoon. Used Crown Blue Line for the boat hire - slight extra cost to have my car moved from one end of the route to the other, but they really looked after it.

As above, the canal is stinking - you can't swim in it. We were there in April and there were a lot of dead animals in it - one of the games was I Spy and try and guess what species the bloated corpse floating towards you was.

We had a couple of bikes with us too, cheap hire which meant we had a little bit of opportunity to see some of the towns slightly off the beaten track and had a closer look at some of the chateauxs.

The majority of the trip was fecking dull though. 3 kts flat out, in a long straight line, for several hours at a time. We were on 5 bottles of wine a day by the end of it.

Highlight was parking up at Sancerre for a few days and climbing the hill to the town, having a fantastic lunch, some lovely dinners, sampling lots and lots of wine, enjoying the sunshine and eating my weight in some great goats' cheese (crotins). There was also a really cool viaduct, longest in Europe, over the Loire which was a good jaunt.

Steering the canal boats was also an issue initially. Both me and the missus are keen sailors, so it took a while to realise that the tiller on a canal boat doesn't work quite as sharply. This led to some very slow motion 'tank slapping' going on until you got used to it. What you do is turn the wheel and then wait for a minute to see if it's had an effect. What you don't do is turn the wheel, see that there's nothing happen so turn the wheel a bit more. Repeat x 3. Then spend another 10 minutes trying to straighten the thing back up again. My missus was giving me all sorts of st about it until she had a go and promptly bust a fender ramming the lockgate.

Done it. Enjoyed it on the whole. Wouldn't do it again.