The view looks different when seen riding horseback.
Similarly, the countryside looks different when observed from a canal boat gliding along at a few miles an hour.
Above is the boat that was our home for eleven nights as we sailed up and down the Oust River, the Aff River, various canals, and many locks.
The scenery was lovely, not necessarily spectacular but beautiful stretches of French countryside in the Brittany (Bretagne) region of France.
The people we met, from lock keepers to restaurant owners to ordinary citizens, were invariably friendly and welcoming to visitors.
Above are Ellyn and Greg with two local residents, Jean and Bruno. They stepped up to help when our two got lost on a shopping expedition.
They ended up escorting Ellyn and Greg all the way back to the boat. We took them out for dinner as a small thank you, including Jean’s wife. Google Translate in our phones kept the conversation lively and made for a splendid evening.
Occasionally traversing a lock even attracted a small crowd of spectators.
Most of the time, it was just the five of us - brother Tom, brother Greg, sister Kathy, in-laws Ellyn and Brian - and the lock keeper.
As the photos above show, we encountered hand-cranked locks and electrically powered locks, but none of the self-service locks we encountered years ago in Burgundy.
Greg was our captain and the rest of us were generally co-second mates. With years of experience running houseboats on Southwest lakes, Greg found our 38-foot Pénichette-style canal boat, with its diesel engine and bow thrusters, to be easy going.
Greg had no problem utilizing the bow thrusters to slip us in and out of locks, and through narrow bridge pillars without touching.
The scenery was amazing in its own way and surprisingly varied, from open river to swamp-like canals.
Our boat was mechanically flawless. The diesel engine started immediately and ran quietly.
What, then, were the less attractive aspects? In a word, the boat’s accommodations.
We had rented one of the larger boats with three cabins, each with its own bathroom. As experienced boaters, we should have known that the “cabins” are more accurately described as sleeping areas with doors, two forward and one aft.
As Brian said, they’re so small that you have to step outside to change your mind (rim shot).
As to the bathrooms, the combination of toilet, wash basin, and shower nozzle and hose made a shower in particular a challenge.
The black basin fixture pulls out and doubles as the shower nozzle. Some would call it convenient and compact.
Our consensus was that five days aboard would be more than enough.
As to cost, dividing the expenses among three of us on an off-season special worked out roughly to be the daily equivalent of a reasonably priced hotel room, so it didn’t break the bank.
We found restaurants available for lunch and dinner most of the time, and will share some photos in a subsequent post.
In the meantime, we have fond memories of the scenery and the people we encountered along the way.
We rented from Locaboat, which is now Riverly. There are rentals available from various companies throughout Europe.
Despite the claims, we all agree it would be a good idea for someone in your party to have boating experience.
