"France by boat!" France by bertje

In Spring this year (2002) we went sailing through the French canals.
It was a wonderfull experience!
It took us 10 weeks to travel from Tholen ( Netherlands ) via Antwerp
(belgium) Maastricht (Netherlands)
Luik or Liege (Belgium again) Dinant (Belgium) Namur (Belgium)
Givet (France) Reims (France)
Epernay (France) to paris (France)
and back a different route!
We saw About 200!! locks and we sailed for about 5 hrs. a day!
I can recommend it to anyone who loves sailing!

Hand operated lock

We encountered lots of friendly Frenchmen and women (yes really!)
and had a ball going through all the locks!

The boat we did the trip on is a traditional dutch design called a "Friesche zeeschouw" it's a flatbottom boat with a length of 7,5mtrs.
This type of boat was used for fishing in the "ijselmeer" and on the "waddenzee".
We had it checked out thoroughly before we "set sail" because spare parts for this kind of boat are difficult to find in France.
She carried us without any major problems through the journey of about 1000 kms !!

• Pros:Friendly people,peace and quiet, relaxed, good food and wine!
• Cons:you need Time, time and more time! fairly expensive!
• In a nutshell:Great!