| If you look at the map, right, you’ll see the spider’s web of navigable rivers and canals that there is in Western Europe. There are 15,000 kilometres (10,000 miles) of navigable waterways in Europe, 8,000 of them in France. At an average leisurely speed of 5 kilometres an hour, maybe 30 kilometres a day allowing for locks and lunches, plus the days spent exploring all the fascinating places along the way and in extended stays in port, that means there’s many years of happy wandering waiting for you in France alone.
And the concentrated richness of scenery, history, culture, leisure and pleasure is such that even just a few weeks spent voyaging the canals and rivers of one small part of France is an experience you’ll never forget. |
   Europe on comparison scale with Aus/NZ and US |
Such a variety of places, such a variety of scenes, such a variety of different waterway to explore and people to make friends with.
The oldest, the Canal du Midi in Languedoc (southern France), winds its narrow way through vineyards and sunflower fields, edged with an avenue of giant plane trees, is a World Heritage site and is well over 300 years old. The newest canals are straight, wide pieces of contemporary civil engineering designed to accommodate very large commercial barges travelling over long distances. Then there are rivers such as the Seine (through Paris) and the Rhone (through Lyon).
And there are hundreds of waterways – canals and rivers – each with its own character and attractions in between these examples.
You can travel from north to south, the North Sea to the Mediterranean. Or East to West, the Atlantic to the Baltic.
Or you can take your time and get to know perhaps just one rich corner of this fascinating ‘other world’.
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