Slow Glide on Canals of France

A barge trip through Burgundy is like sailing through the luminous paradise of an Impressionist painting: Sunlight filters through the poplar trees edging the canal and dapples the clay-green water with pointillist dots of gold. Lush fields by Monet roll like ocean swells under a vast blue sky.

It was autumn, there were few boats on the canal and the blue chicory was in bloom.

The pace is slow on the Canal du Nivernais. It is not a commercial canal crowded with working barges; only pleasure boats ply the water and there is never a problem finding a place to moor. In fact, there is nothing more difficult to navigate than around a bend or under a bridge where the sudden beauty of a red-roofed village brings sighs of pleasure and thoughts of Cezanne.

Four of us took bags of books we intended to read during our week’s trip along this canal in central France. But instead we couldn’t take our eyes off the countryside we were slowly gliding through.

Our barge was our floating home. We lounged on deck, cooked on the gas stove in the well-equipped galley when we felt like it, showered, and slept in comfortable bunk beds, linens all provided.

Rented Bikes

Tow paths paralleling the canal on either side connected with country roads. We explored them on bikes rented from the barge company and carried on the deck. The bikes were small, with balloon tires, wonderfully easy to pedal along the flat tow paths or up gentle hills to view rolling farmlands.

The white Charolais and Nivernais cattle grazing in front of small chateaux reminded us of medieval scenes. With such splendid agricultural domains, it was easy to see why the dukes of Burgundy were so rich and the region renowned for its gastronomy.

A barge trip in France works for people of all ages and all tastes, primarily because of the flexibility you have if you drive the boat yourself. You have the luxury of answering to no timetables except your own inner tickings; you are not confined to the space of the barge, but can moor anywhere along the canal anytime you want to stretch your legs, explore the countryside or have a meal.

We chose a self-drive barge because of its flexibility and because it was less expensive than other options and quite roomy. Self-drive cruisers also have sleeker lines. There is a wide selection of crafts in either category. Luxurious hotel barges, where a crew cooks, serves and caters to your every need, are more expensive.

In the Countryside

Of the many canals in France we chose the Nivernais because it is reputedly one of the most beautiful and is easily accessible from Paris, about four hours by train or an easy drive by car to Cercy-la-Tour just south of Auxerre. At the same time it is, as the French say, “off road,” deep in the countryside, away from tourist centers.

The canal was cut in the 18th Century, mainly to float timber from the Morvan forests to the Loire River basin and then to Paris where it was in great demand for building.

By the turn of the century the market for timber was gone. The canal was in great disrepair and about to be condemned. Along came P. P. Zivy, a great sailing enthusiast. Zivy fell in love with the canal landscape and devoted himself to saving the waterway for boaters. We raised our glasses in gratitude to P. P. Zivy.

My husband and I speak a type of French understood by very few Frenchmen, so were greatly relieved when we arrived at the boat yard to hear the manager reply to our “Bon jour” with a “Hello there!”

The rental company we used is run by Englishmen; their demonstration of how to operate the barge presented no difficulties in communication. And it’s really very easy.

Barging Like Driving

You drive a barge with a steering wheel the way you do a car. There is a hand throttle for acceleration and a gear for forward or reverse. The only trick to remember is that a barge is very slow to respond to the movement of its propeller or rudder when you change speeds or directions.

Even when you cut the power to glide into a lock, the momentum of a 38-by-11-foot steel boat in the nearly frictionless water carries you forward with a good deal of force. We were thankful for that steel hull when we banged into the locks--as all beginners do.

The lock keeper gives a Gallic shrug at your ineptitude and points to the bollard on the side of the lock that you should tie up to. The most nimble in the party hops off the boat and races up the lock stairs to catch the rope thrown up from the barge (when you are climbing to higher elevations going up the canal), or jauntily steps from the deck to the lock side, rope in hand, when going down the canal.

All of the lock keepers on the Canal du Nivernais are women wearing house dresses. On English canals men with beards and captains’ hats stroll out from the plain little lock houses where they live, but here in France domesticity reigns.

Rosy-cheeked, Renoir-like children run out to stare at the boats. Cats stretch in the sun, chickens scratch, geese waddle about and dogs trot busily up and down the lock side.

Lock Keeper’s Produce

Next to her square stucco house, with the date it was built over the door, the lock keeper hangs her wash to dry and cultivates her produce garden. While the water rises in the lock, she smilingly sells you her luscious, sun-ripened fruits and vegetables.

It’s customary to help lock keepers wind the locks open and closed. And as everywhere else in France, the lunch hour is sacrosanct on the canal. The locks are closed from noon until 1 o’clock. This is when you moor under the shade of a tree and picnic on pate and cheese or go below to fry pommes frites in the barge galley. Or, if you are near a village, indulge in an incomparable Burgundian meal.

The cruise company, which provides excellent navigational maps of the canal so you know where every lock, bridge and village is, also lists restaurants and rates them according to its own star system.

The Auberge d’Isenay, not far from Cercy-la-Tour, where we ate dinner the first night, was our favorite for atmosphere and excellence. Our four-course meal with wine, for which we chose entrees of trout meuniere and quail with raisins, was about $12 each.

That night one of us had to make a telephone call to England. We were directed from the auberge at the top of the hill, on our bikes, down a dark country road. Past an old stone barn a single vapor street light shone on a new telephone booth. And the telephone worked.

Obtaining Cash

Almost as surprising was our experience of walking into a little bank in the village of Chatillon-en-Bazois and obtaining cash with our American credit cards more quickly and easily than we had been able to in Paris.

On the fourth day we reached the lake at Baye. The concessions renting boats and windsurfers were closed for the season. It was the end of September, but the sun was warm and we swam in the lake.

At Baye the canal enters a series of long one-way tunnels through the mountains. To enter them, passage time must be reserved with a lock keeper.

Instead, we returned as we had come. We felt as familiar with the countryside as if we had walked through it. Those of us who liked to mess about with boats were happy. So were those who preferred to loll in the sun and look.

And we all were filled with bliss by the discovery that the sensuous, slow-moving world of the Impressionist has not entirely disappeared, at least from Burgundy.

The canals of France are open for tourist barges from April through October. There are canals in Brittany, Anjou, Alsace, Franche-Comte, Charente and the South of France as well as in Burgundy.

To decide whether you prefer a hotel barge, a self-drive barge or a canal cruiser, compare the sizes, costs and services offered. Consult a travel agent or contact the French Government Tourist Office, 9401 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 840, Beverly Hills 90212, (213) 271-6665, and the British Tourist Authority, 612 S. Flower St., Los Angeles 90017, (213) 623-8196.

We booked our self-drive barge through Hoseasons Holidays Abroad Ltd., Sunway House, Lowestoft, United Kingdom NR32 3LT, phone 0502-66622. The cost was about $510 for one week or about $125 per person. All linens, blankets and kitchen equipment were provided.

Rentable Bicycles

Diesel fuel was extra and averaged about 20 gallons for one week of cruising, costing about $30. Bicycles can be rented for $10 to $12 per cycle per week.

The Canal du Nivernais is about a four-hour drive southeast of Paris. Or you can take a train to Cercy-la-Tour. Most of the tour operators will make all travel arrangements from London to any canal you choose by whichever means you wish to travel.

Spring is beautiful but has the risk of rain. Summer and fall are ideal times for sunny days and pleasant nights in Burgundy.

Rubber-soled non-slip shoes are a must. Garden gloves protect uncallused hands from rope burn. As we planned not to cook anything but the simplest meals on board, we limited our pre-departure grocery shopping to bare essentials such as butter, jam, tea and coffee and bought what we needed each day. String bags came in handy for this daily shopping.