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Self-drive Boat
Rental in Central France
Perhaps less
luxurious than holiday cruising
on a canal barge, but for some a self-drive boat can be a lot more fun.
Since
the Loire River
itself is free of dams and locks, its waters rise
and fall with the seasons — raging at times and dwindling  to
a mere brook at others. If a boat’s draft is shallow enough,
however, it can go places where the long barges cannot. We
did see some fairly small houseboats on the Loire as far
upriver as Nevers,
although they would not be going past that city since there is a low
dam and spillway adjacent to the bridge.
Navigating
among the
sandbars at that
point in the river would call for far more experience than would a
leisurely cruise on the Canal Latéral à la Loire.
The sandbars bring up a point which 
often is unmentioned. Unlike
many rivers of the world which have muddy banks or perhaps rocks and
gravel, the Loire has some very inviting sandy beaches. Much like those
of
the
Lower Rhine between Kleve
and Nijmegen, they make
for riverside picnicking and sunbathing that rivals a trip to the sea.
One principal
advantage of a self-drive cruise is that
you have the benefit of being in control of your itinerary. Of course,
this control also implies that you have the responsibility for
negotiating
— both nautically and monetarily — the locks
and
canal bridges.
 
Shown here are
private vessels crossing the Allier River at Le
Guétin, between Apremont-sur-Allier
and Nevers.
This crossing over the Loire follows a route south toward
Decize, where the Canal Latéral à the Loire joins with the Canal du
Nivernais, providing a route north to
Auxerre
and
beyond to Paris and Normandy via the Yonne and Seine rivers.
The self-drive boat
captain may find it helpful to
learn a little French boating terminology, but a special
license to pilot the boat is not required. Self-drive boats
available from various companies which have berths to accommodate from
two to 12
people, fully equipped with head, shower and galley.
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Self-drive
boats
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