A river barge journey in South of France

By Thomas Swick, South Florida Sun-Sentinel Travel Editor
11:41 AM PST, February 27, 2008

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Try this once in your life: Stand on a boat as it moves slowly down the narrow waterway of a foreign country. The world passes by, close and observable, and you watch it with a sense of elevated station. The clarity, the buoyancy, the cushiness make you feel privileged in a way even the sportiest rental car can't. You have moved from tourist to grand marshal.

I know, because I did this last June with my wife, Hania, and our friends, Donnette and Graham from Chicago, and their friends, Dan and Barb from Melbourne, Fla. We picked up our boat from Rive de France in the little town of Colombiers on the Canal du Midi in the South of France. The port was full of what looked like pleasure boats: gleaming white 42-footers with pointed bows. I had envisioned dark, boxy, old-fashioned barges. There was one model that approximated the shape, but Graham hadn't chosen it because the steering wheel was inside. Our model had two wheels: one inside and one outside, which is where you want to be if the weather is good. It also had three cabins and three heads.

We took a quick trial run. Since both Graham and Dan were longtime boaters, their wives excellent cooks, we had no need of a crew. (Hania and I would serve as interpreters.) Then we were on our way, gliding slowly down an alley of plane trees. A village floated by, a bridge crept up and made us all duck. The movement was as lovely as that of a ship -- contemplative and unhurried -- but with the added advantage that everything was at eye level. Those first few kilometers were a revelation, and I wondered why everyone didn't see France in this fashion.

We reached the first town, Capestang, a little before 7, and pulled in front of a long row of boats, including a couple of old-fashioned barges. It was an idyllic spot: shaded, just beyond an old stone bridge and a waterfront cafe. This is the other nice thing about a boat: You see a fine location and you install your hotel.

The table on the open deck filled with sausages, cheeses, bottles of rose. What a change from your usual arrival in a new town: the search for lodgings, the stares from locals. Dan sat back with his glass of wine (literally, as Barb had packed two wine glasses in her suitcase) and announced, "It's nice to be king."

We crossed the bridge and headed into town. It was the first in a series of quaintly drab settlements drained of life. It was hard to tell if this was the result of depopulation or simply French disinclination toward public life. We wandered the streets like an invading army, coming to the fortress church. We stopped by a restaurant cave and bought two bottles of rose from a smiling waitress.

In the morning, a community yard sale --vide grenier ("empty the attic") -- stretched along the canal. The table in front of our boat had boxed LPs of Charles Aznavour, Jacques Brel, Edith Piaf. In town, a market filled the square in front of the church. This being France, it included a bookstall. The owner spoke to us in American English; she had spent part of her childhood in Iowa, where her father had worked for John Deere. I asked where her bookstore was; she said she didn't have one; she traveled from town to town, catching them all on market day. Hania purchased a novel by Georges Simenon.

We bought a roasted chicken (plucked from its spit) and roasted potatoes with a little sack of gravy; olives and tapenade; local cheeses from a man whose white sideburns dramatically and luxuriantly connected to his mustache. Then we carried our booty back to the boat.

I assumed that would be our lunch, but we stopped a little before noon at a pretty restaurant along the canal, L'Auberge de la Croisade. We were led to a table for six by the front window. Hania explained to the waiter, who spoke good English, that both she and Donnette were celiacs and couldn't eat anything that contained wheat, barley or rye.

The amuse bouche was a delicate pea soup with a hint of mint. The delicious seafood appetizer hid bits of barley, so I had to force down two. For dessert, Hania ordered the creme brulee.

"No," the waiter told her. "It has flour."

"The creme brulee has flour?" she asked, astonished.

"Madame," he said, with an almost mock-Gallic flourish, "we do what we WANT!"

A cake was presented to a woman who had just turned 90. We all sang "Happy Birthday." Three hours and several bottles of wine after we were seated, we returned to our boat.

"Ninety percent of boating accidents," Dan said helpfully, "happen on the dock."

And then the lazy float through unsullied countryside. It wasn't just the slowness of the boat that transported us. (The speed limit on the canal was 8 kilometers -- or about 5 miles -- an hour.) We were getting a backyard view of rural France, from which highways, factories, used-car lots, billboards -- all the depressing clutter of modern life -- had magically been deleted. The world was reduced to its ancient elements: village, vineyard, farmhouse, tow path. The straight lines of plane trees on either side painted our passage in a dappled light. It was like sailing through the 17th century, the one in which the canal had been built.

We stopped to fill our water tank at a charming cafe called Le Chat Qui Peche (its shingle a painting of a cat with a fishing pole). A short while later, we sailed across a stone aqueduct over a river. We docked for the night in the little town of Ventenac-en-Minervois, under plane trees just down from the chateau.

"It's strange to be on a boat and see trees overhead," said Dan.

"It usually means you did something wrong," said Graham.

We climbed the hill to the town hall. The streets all had two names -- French and Langue d'Oc (reminding us that we were in Languedoc) -- and no pedestrians. This seemed to be the place for those who say that France would be a wonderful country if it weren't for the French. For along with all the other things that had dropped out of our world were people.

Though the cafe down by the canal was packed. We ordered pastis, which arrived in signature Pastis 51 glasses. Graham asked me to ask the bartender if he could buy his. I did, and the man reached beneath the bar and pulled up a box containing six glasses.

"Souvenir de Ventenac," he said, handing me the box.

In the morning, Graham, Dan, Barb and I took a tour of the chateau followed by a tasting. White. Rose. Red. I watched as they swirled and sniffed and swished with great seriousness, and then followed suit, concluding that it was the only way to drink guiltlessly at 10 a.m. We bought three bottles.

While we were gone, Hania and Donnette had hung the wash.

"Now we look like a real Bahamian boat," said Graham.

A short while later, we came to our first lock. Navigating it was easier than understanding its keeper. The second lock was a double, which we shared with two boats, one a sailboat whose

horizontal mast threatened to ram our stern as the water surged in.

I found these first locks educational. It was interesting to watch the gates close slowly behind us, and then hold tightly to the lines as a waterfall was switched on. Your world expanded from scum-stuck stone and soft blue sky to include, gradually, a tan house with green shutters, a man, or sometimes woman, standing at the controls, a flower garden, and a dog (frequently a Brittany spaniel) as endlessly fascinated by everything as you were.

But the novelty soon wore off. The fourth lock was a nuisance, breaking the contemplative spell.

We docked for the night in the town of Homps. To get into town we had to walk through a small marina, past a group of young men in lawn chairs, and then over a modern bridge under which small children swam. On our way back from the market, one of the men eyed Hania carrying the eggs.

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