Renting and piloting a boat and cruising the canals in France

We have done this a number of times, and it has been a wonderful way to see the real France at an affordable price. There are a number of companies that rent boats, so do your searching on line for the vessel that suits your need in the region that interests you. One is Barging In France. http://www.barginginfrance.com/EN/in/fra/ Another would be Le Boat http://www.leboat.com/ The advantages are that you are able to go where you please at your own pace. One disadvantage is that you are confined to the particular river or canal you happen to be in. Of course there are a LOT of choices; there are over 5,000 miles of navigable waterways in France alone, plus those in Belgium, and the Netherlands. I have friends who liked that sort of adventure so much they bought a canal boat in Holland, and have spent the past nine summers in Europe. Watch it, it can become addictive.

Hotels Afloat sounds like a really great company to use also.

I was not familiar with Hotels Afloat, so I looked at it. It might be a good place to start, as it lists most of the bigger hire boat firms, but I would think that dealing directly with those firms, i.e., Nichols, Locaboat, etc., might get you better service. Perhaps a lower price, as well.

We did this once and highly recommend it. We rented from Locaboat in Agen, and cruised down the River Baise. Absolutely gorgeous little towns, very quiet. We were there in mid-September and weather was perfect. It was the 3rd week of our 4-week French vacation, and it was a wonderful break in the routine.

In case you haven't searched the Helpline for previous posts about barging, here's a link to a great article that really captures the experience: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1298&dat=20020208&id=XzIzAAAAIBAJ&sjid=iggGAAAAIBAJ&pg=6807,2229568 Barging really is an adventure, and each river & canal has its own quirks. We didn't see any flies, and very little traffic, but we did have a dinner adventure (all the shops & restaurants in the little town where we tied up were closed that day, so we had a lovely meal of apples & wine!). We had no lock-keepers; most of our locks operated electronically (as the lock-opener, I wore a card-key around my neck, so I would just climb up to the mechanism and insert the key). It was truly a memorable week!