A life of leisure on a slow barge in Languedoc

Anthony Peregrine enjoys scenic splendour and genial company on a luxury canal cruise

Times had been tempestuous. If it wasn’t worries about Brexodus, it was the dishwasher. Clank. Flood. Broke. The pound sterling had disappeared down a hole I hadn’t noticed. The neighbour’s dog, my favourite, had died. The tax bill was in. I needed to relax. It was a challenge – even in bucolic France. I’m so damned idle that a whiff of relaxation stops me at once, and indefinitely. I try to keep going.

So repose needs forcing. I needed a holiday away from roads and places with Wi-Fi. Past experience suggested that the best way forward was a canal cruise. Not one of those where you steer yourself, crash into locks and become the laughing stock of inland navigation. I’d done that and it was as relaxing as a civil war. What I needed was the luxury embrace of a barge hotel, where the driving, and every other single thing, is done for you. This, as I recalled, was relaxation with no escape, ideal for the wannabe sybarite with activity issues. Cruising across the Fresquel aqueduct; a private tasting of sparkling wine in Limoux – what’s not to like?

In less time than it takes to tell, we were by France’s Canal du Midi in the little port of Le Somail, near Narbonne. It’s hailing distance from the Mediterranean. The stone village had bars, a tanned ambience, an unexpected antiquarian bookshop and a sense of continuity back to the days when barges were towed by horses, or women. “The great days of feminism,” I said to my wife, to mixed acclaim.

Awaiting us was the Clair de Lune, a converted cocoa barge 100ft long, 16ft 6in wide. Any bigger and it wouldn’t have fitted in the locks. Even then, it required nous. Driven properly, the boat slid into locks as a cigar into a cigar tube. Also awaiting us were the four crew members, all beaming as if our arrival made their happiness complete. At these prices, of course, you expect a decent beam. But these people: captain Julian, guide Nicole,

The small port of Le Somail, above, where guests embark or disembark depending on the direction of their cruise