TRAVELING IN STYLE : EXCELLENT ADVENTURES : A Family Afloat in France : A languorous barge cruise introduces two jet-age, video-minded youngsters to a world of low-key, real-life pleasures

It’s not the expense. Nor is it the fact that they have the metabolism of hummingbirds, requiring food every 75 minutes. No, the hardest part about taking your kids to Europe on a vacation--the greatest challenge--is to find a place on the Continent where they (and you) can escape the clutches of the video arcade.

This is where a barge trip comes in. Since Double Dragon and its ilk took over the world, circa A.D. 1985, it has become distinctly more difficult to expose youngsters to the pleasures once provided by family travel: a glimpse into other modes of being, a slower pace of living, the Non-Electronic Path to Enlightenment. As I discovered when I took my own two sons--Marshall, 9, and Alex, 12--to Europe last summer, slippery blue video lights are everywhere there, too, from campsites in the Ardennes to horse farms on the Costa Brava, just like at home.

But not along the Canal du Midi. Other parents may well be incredulous, but here is the unvarnished truth: When Marshall and Alex and I cruised slowly in along this waterway, not once in a week of lolling and nibbling and basking and sipping, not once did the subject of joysticks come up.

There was, by way of explaining this phenomenon, the location first of all. The Languedoc, through which the Canal du Midi flows, is the deep south of France, a land of medieval fortresses and misty churches, a land that feels anchored in another century, alive with troubadours, crusaders, the ghost of things pre-Pacman. The canal stretches between the Mediterranean port of Sete and the metropolis of Toulouse in the southwestern French heartland, part of a chain of manmade waterways extending all the way from the mouth of the Rhone (on the Mediterranean) to Bordeaux (on the Atlantic coast). On our own leg of the canal, as we traveled southwestward from Beziers to Carcassonne (a distance of about 50 miles), we were reminded, with a whoosh, of our own century only when a French Mirage jet would periodically scorch the sky about four feet above our scalps. (Toulouse is the capital of the French aerospace industry.)

But time-tripping was only half the pleasure. A number of passenger barges of different sizes ply the canal: Ours was a homey 100-foot-long, ten-passenger pet water-monster with four cabins, a dining area, a galley, and crew quarters. The sundeck was like a floating outdoor cafe with elbow room--a beamy arena railed like a playpen and dotted with life-preservers (a bit overguardedly so, I thought, since the canal is only about five feet deep). For some mysterious reason, this proved to be one of the only domesticated spaces my kids didn’t mind being confined in. With me reading under my umbrella at one wrought iron table, and they sprawled to draw at another, the perfect traveling distance between us was afforded: within earshot but out of each others’ hair.

Then there was the question of company. The clientele for such barge trips is getting younger every year, and gone are the days when these vessels catered only to rich widows and sun-happy retirees. At my request, the barge company had booked us for a week when a young couple with three kids of their own, more or less in my sons’ age group, would be coming too.

Afloat, our cheery British skipper, Nick, was more than happy to teach us all to cheat at Dirty Mary, tutor us in history (the Canal du Midi is the oldest canal in Gaul, with some humpbacked bridges bearing original dates from the 1600’s), and prop up the kids with fishing poles and straw hats so that they looked--for hours!--like French Huck Finns. What evolved were recreations I thought had vanished a generation ago: Conversation; without micro-chip hypno-stimulation, the kids were actually talking to each other. Non-wheeley biking; the kids’ greatest treat was pedaling along the towpaths under the lush sycamore shade on either side of the canal. (Moving along at six kilometers--about 3 3/4 miles--per hour, the barge maintained approximately the same speed at which a child bikes, not to mention the pace at which a parent jogs.) Even non-power boating: Alas, swimming in the canal was out--microbes and water snakes--but all the kids took turns steering the barge from its stern--a sensation, they reported, akin to maneuvering an armored horse with its visor down. What it all added up to was something unprecedented in my travel experience with kids--a truly languorous time. One day we passed a sign announcing that the next town was only 12 kilometers (about 7 1/2 miles) away; though they were used to jet-age speeds, Marshall and Alex calculated with with a relaxed yawn that it would take all afternoon to get there, and didn’t mind a bit. Of all things, these creatures of the 1990s were becoming calm.

Not that it was boring. As we glided along, the canal itself took on suspense as each twisted mile brought painterly views my kids had theretofore experienced only in museums: green tufted rolls of hay (not as picturesque as the stacked constructions of the Impressionists, but nice enough); a field of Van Gogh sunflowers, all slowly rotating their gaze toward us as we proceeded westward with the setting sun. One of the most delightful sensations they experienced, they informed me, was also one of the most ordinary: feeling air currents of different temperatures on their skin, from smoky-cool when the water darkened under a passing cloud to brazen-hot when sunlight recurred, darned by blue dragonflies. Snacking on avocado mousse to the hoarse choir of locusts, my kids sat spellbound on deck each evening as the world turned pale sunburn shades, delicate gradations of hue and shadow the likes of which they’d seen on no video screen.

Then there was the food. “Dad, you ought to see our steakroom!” cried my 12-year-old upon encountering our twin cabin. The malapropism was apt in light of the fact that we had been living on bread and Roquefort for two weeks before boarding. Nor were we alone in that: With France seemingly twice as expensive to visit as it was a few years ago, everywhere we turned we saw the sobering spectacle of well-heeled American families secreting baguettes in their camera bags at hotel breakfast tables. No such measures were necessary on our barge.

The Languedoc not only grows such cheap sunny crops such as olives and grapes, but is also home to one of the finest famly dishes in the world: cassoulet, a rich ragout of white beans, goose, lamb, and sausage--all of which Nick’s wife, the chef, bought along the way to make her own delicious version. When it wasn’t cassoulet, it was something else equally as satisfying--for instance, a lunch we had one day of turkey with tarragon, pasta with peppers, three-bean salad, and brown bread pudding with rum ice cream. (You couldn’t eat this ice cream and drive.) And not long after this repast, I remember, as we lazed on the deck, Nick’s wife chef popped out again with a snack-- grapefruit and kiwi sponge cakes--”Just in case you’re feeling peckish,” she explained.

And the wine....Disdained for years as plonk, Languedoc wines are at last coming into their own. Vineyards grow right up to the banks of the canal; wine cellars compete to lure travelers in for tastings. Up-and-coming whites, roses in fighting trim, these wines make up in freshness what they lack in subtlety. You drink the wines young here.

Yet another advantage of barge travel: A van follows the craft in case such wanderlust hits. Our own side trips included excursions to pre-Roman ruins dating from the sixth century B.C., and to Narbonne’s Cathedral of St. Just, designed to be the grandest in the world but was never completed. And to Carcassonne, the largest double-walled city in Europe, looking suspiciously like a Disney set. It’s the kind of cotton-candy-smelling place where they sell miniature coats of arms for paperweights and backlight the ramparts with rainbow fireworks. The kids’ verdict: “Awesome.”

But the unpretentious tiny towns lining the route that, surprisingly, proved the biggest hit of the trip. Except during midday when they took on a guarded mien, presenting nothing but a shuttered exterior to the deserted streets, these places were far friendlier than the larger French cities. “Bonjour, messieurs,” said the village shopkeepers, tipping their berets to my sons; “Quack,” said the family of mallards screened behind the chicken wire in someone’s living room window.

It was also in one of these towns, though--a medieval stone-walled village-- on the last night of our trip, in which, from the local pool hall, we heard for the first time in days that dreaded sound: the blips, jangles, and bells of a video game. We went to investigate. The noise came from what was literally the only (video) game in town, a five-year-old MunchMan machine. I was the only one who wanted to play.

GUIDEBOOK: BARGING THROUGH FRANCE

Author Rose and family cruised on the barge Bonjour, run by a company that has since gone out of business. The agencies listed below, though, book similar voyages. Prices given are for 1991; operators say they expect next year’s prices to reflect only a small increase.

Brock’s Tours of Chatham, Mass.: Brock’s runs a four-cabin charter barge between Beziers and Carcassonne (one of the cabins offers facilities for the disabled), housing eight passengers. Rates in 1991 were$1,500 per person for eight, $1,800 per person for fewer. Brock’s will taylor cruises for special-interest groups, and offers two one-week rivergoing French-language trips each fall. For more information, call (508) 945-9687.

European Waterways in Visalia, Calif.: The company runs one 10-passenger barge between Montpellier and Agde, a portion of the distance on the Canal du Midi. Rates vary seasonally, ranging in 1991 from $1,895 per person double occupancy and $2,445 single to $2,295 and $3,045 respectively. The company may be reached at (800) 727-4748.

Abercrombe & Kent: This firm operates an eight-passenger charter-only barge on two stretches of the Canal du Midi. Flat (1991) fee for the cruise is $17,500, no matter how many passengers (up to eight) are aboard. Abercrombie’s number is (800) 628-4893.

The Barge Lady in Chicago: She books a four-passenger charter barge which usually cruises out of Bordeaux but will ply the Canal du Midi on special request. In 1991, the cost was a flat $11,000. Children (even infants) are welcome on this barge--and the owner can sometimes arrange cruise-along child care. The Barge Lady books other barges all over Europe and is experienced in working with travelers with children. Call (800) 525-1599 for more information.

General information: Barges in the Canal du Midi operate annually from April through October or November. Exact iteneraries may vary, depending on local canal conditions. Cruises last six nights except by special arrangement, and prices include meals, excursions, beverages (always beer and wine, sometimes hard liquor), bicycles, etc. To help keep down the costs of traveling in France with children, Rose notes that The Accor hotel group (Sofitel, Novotel, Ibis, etc.) offers free accommodations for youngsters under certain cercumstances. Call Brice International Marketing Group at (800) 221-4542 for details.