- A HOLIDAY TO – float your boat
A canal cruiser split between a group of friends can put a trip to France well within reach. The editor of Popular Mechanics tells us how it all works
We’re still friends – me, my wife Theda, and Frank and Nina van der Velde – nearly two decades after passing the ultimate friendship test: holidaying together, cruising the canals of France for a memorable week in August 1998. Fast-forward to 2016. Through chilly April showers, eight of us are puttering eastwards, cooped up inside a 14,5-metre cruiser that seems increasingly cramped. This has the potential to shred, never mind strain, the bonds of friendship. Probably not the best time to remind my wife that it was her brainwave that got us here. Fortunately, the sun came out. The sense of humour was rebooted. And we really started cruisin’. We’re a family of runners, and the idea had been to introduce our daughter to the big leagues with the Paris Marathon. Why not drag along the son-in-law and make it a real family holiday, stretch it to two weeks and take in a canal trip? Four of our running-group friends agreed. They insisted on coming along too. Which is why, on post-marathon Monday, 450 kilometres from Paris, a travel-weary but manically grinning eight stepped on to a Salsa 40 cruiser. And by sheer coincidence, out of all the many canal routes available, just one suited our early April Monday afternoon departure: the Arzviller Experience, the exact route we’d done in 1998. Think of a canal cruiser as a big motorhome, only without wheels. There are two steering positions – one inside and our preferred one, up on the flying bridge. Armed with a pre-trip briefing, hands-on demonstration and a comprehensive boat book, you’re almost, but not quite, mentally prepared for the mildly unnerving experience a few days later of floating through two narrow tunnels close by, a total of three kilometres long, in the dark.
‘Part of the off-boat experience is haggling for fresh produce from canalfacing back gardens’
Most of our party had a go at piloting, and some clearly took to it more than others. There are plenty of bends – and traffic, at times. With a speed limit of eight kilometres per hour, you’ll find out soon enough that a leisure boat responds sluggishly to steering inputs and needs constant minor corrections and countersteering to stay on course. Bigger models like the Salsa 40 have the advantage of bow thrusters. Still, you’ll be grateful for those fenders. There’s a lot more to it than driving; the locks will keep you busy, even though access in this region is now largely automated. The system employs a variety
of sensors (including radar, infrared beams, remote controls and clearly signposted pull-rope actuators) to prepare for a boat’s approach. The sensors trigger simple green/red traffic light-style indicators. Once you’re in the lock and tied up firmly fore and aft, the engine running in neutral, a tug on the actuation rod alongside sets the process in motion automatically. The entry gates close, the water level adjusts and once it’s at the right level, the exit gates open. Which doesn’t adequately set the scene for the huge lift at Arzviller – this mechanical marvel can hoist or lower 900 tons in 25 minutes, from mooring to exit. It eliminates 17 locks and what used to be an eight-hour ordeal. If cabin fever strikes, you can hit the smoothly tarred former towpaths, which are closed to motorised traffic. We saw runners, riders, walkers and rollerbladers. Towns and supermarkets are often within walking distance, and bicycles are a great help in bringing back local produce, which is usually of excellent quality – with prices that didn’t scare us off – plus the variety is staggering. In summer, part of the off-boat experience is haggling for fresh produce from canal-facing back gardens. Back in ’98 we bought gigantic marrows from a stout riparian we dubbed Mrs Boathook on account of my remembering, way too late, that I had left said hook by her back gate. For this trip we’d planned two big stops, in Saverne and Strasbourg. At the first, an impressive view of the town along the arrow-straight entry is interrupted by a vertiginous lock, at 5,43 metres it’s more than double the standard 2,6-metre depth. It’s an eerie sensation, rising out of the dripping gloom until you’re able to eyeball passers-by. For the most part, people don’t pay much attention to the canal boats – but activity at a lock always seemed to draw a few spectators. Back in 1998, it was here in Saverne that we first discovered that tasty Alsatian speciality, tarte flambée.
‘Perched over the water, we watched a glorious Saturday gracefully fade to black’
We also pedalled to the ‘eye of Alsace’, the medieval Château de Haut Barr, which overlooks the Alsace plain. This time, with 42,2 Paris Marathon kays in our legs, our party opted for a stroll around town instead. Saverne’s sloping cobbled main drag is an aesthetic treat lined with characterful buildings and, in spring, colourful flowering plants – notably geraniums – in street and window boxes. The entry to the capital of Alsace, Strasbourg – ‘town at the crossroads’ – is a different level of awe-inspiring. You waft past the glass edifice of the European Parliament building, turn right at the imposing gate holding back the Rhine, and your world expands into an intimidating basin traversed by seriously grown-up boats. We found secure mooring for three nights at the Quai des Belges, run by an outfit called Koejak. It’s close enough to the centre of town to explore sights such as the historic quarter of Petite France and indulge in some tourist shopping amid cherry blossoms and characteristic purplypink magnolias. It’s also where we met Bernadette and Heinz, a Swiss couple who have been travelling the canals since 2010. The weather in Strasbourg was good enough for me to head out on a run across the border to Kehl in Germany. To celebrate our last night in the city, we splashed out on dinner at the popular Au Pont SaintMartin restaurant. Perched over the water, we watched a glorious Saturday gracefully fade to black. After Strasbourg, the route can be a bit of an anti-climax as it threads its way through a flat region of wetlands known as the Grand Ried. It’s quiet, with not much activity. On a sunny morning, we made a spur-of-the-moment brunch stop, taking advantage of our ability to park practically anywhere we could hammer our mooring stakes into the ground. Our holiday quietly ebbed away on a golden Sunday evening at Boofzheim. Nothing useful was open there, or at the two neighbouring towns I cycled to. Fortunately, if French cuisine is regarded as superior, it follows that French leftovers are a cut above too. Our cobbled-together farewell supper (baguettes, two cheeses, salami, brinjal bake and crisps) left a warm glow to match the surroundings. We even had sufficient for the next day’s breakfast. It seemed like an appropriate time to remind my wife that it was her brainwave that got us all here in the first place. So far, we’re still friends.