Every year, during our season, guests ask what we do during the winter months.  Sometimes the question is entirely open – more often it is loaded, as if to say “you guys must have a wonderful life, only having to work for half the year!”

It is half true.  We do feel that we have a wonderful life, but not because we can put our feet up for six months of the year!  In the first place, the winter months provide us with the time to do things that we cannot do during our cruising season.  This includes all the medical appointments – teeth and eyes to be checked, overall check-ups and screenings – France is very strong on preventative medicine.  We also catch up on the social life that we have to forego during the season, part of which is to do with the walking group in our little village – last week for example we went on a 2-day trek high in the Pyrénées.  We also spend our time on all the essentials to do with the marketing of our small business – trade shows to visit, agents in other countries to meet, and back home all the booking procedures and client enquiries to handle.  Most often, the people who would like to book a cruise on our hotel barge have all sorts of questions first, and it is the way in which we respond to these questions that develops a rapport with our future guests, so that when they arrive on the boat we know them as friends already, and they know what to expect by way of hair dryers, slippers, dressing-gowns, and all the little services that we provide.  All of this information is available on our web site, but the personal contact we have with our guests before their arrival greatly helps to get the week off to a good start.

In the mountains with the walking group

There is, however, another major category of work that takes our time and energy during the winter months, and that is all to do with the maintenance of the barge.  Over the years, each winter we have tackled major works on the boat, bringing it up to a higher and higher standard.  Neither of us like the “last minute panic” style of preparing for the season, and the high level of presentation we achieve is the result of weeks and weeks of work during the winter months.

We had one adventure with the boat last autumn, when we took her to the dry dock in Toulouse.  The journey there and back was fairly routine, but this is not part of the canal system that we normally cruise and so everything was a bit unfamiliar.

We are obliged to put the boat into a dry dock every five years in order to keep our “Permit de Navigation” up to date, and to do routine cleaning and painting of the hull.  This year our surveyor had all sorts of new inspections to do, because a new set of regulations has come into force since our last docking.  I am pleased to report that we passed with flying colours!

The dry dock itself is a remarkable piece of engineering, right in the middle of Toulouse.  The facility was built at the same time as the canal, around 1670, and the covered dock that we were in is a listed building.  Originally, there were four open-air dry dock chambers and one covered one, and it is easy to imagine the bustle that was part of the scene in the days of all the working barges on the canal – it is an important part of the industrial heritage of the country.  Nowadays, only the covered dock and two open-air ones are ever used.

Open air dry dock - Hotel Barge Saint Louis behind

One of the magnificent elements of the dry dock is that no external energy is used for the docking process.  A valve is opened to fill the dock from the basin, which in turn is connected directly to the Canal; water for this comes from reservoirs in the Black Mountains and flows by gravity down the Canal du Midi.  The boat enters the dock and is moored.  Then a floating plug that forms a door to the dock is moved into position, and a big valve on the side of the dock is opened.  The water is emptied from the dry dock and the boat settles on its supports.  One fascinating element of this engineering masterpiece is that the water flowing from the dry dock is channelled down about five kilometres of brick-built vaulted tunnel, to flow into the River Garonne.

The magnificent covered dry dock - complete with magnificent barge!

Fortunately, we both like to be busy!  There never seems to be enough time to do all the things we try to do.  The winter months are busy, varied, and full of promise for the season to come.

Genuine excerpts from the visitors’ book on board the hotel barge the Saint Louis, written during our 2011 season:-

You have broadened our horizons while exciting our palates. 

Paris is fabulous but it can’t beat barging on the Saint Louis! 

Our first barge trip could not have been better. 

This was, quite simply, the best holiday we have had in 40 years  …..  food and wine of the highest quality   …   we are enormously sad to leave. 

We have marvelled at Alasdair’s expert handling of the boat and Barbara’s inspired cuisine.

“Magnifique”.  Everything  -   food, drinks, service, vehicles, tours  –  beyond expectations.

 The only way to go – on the Garonne!  A delicious experience in all respects.  You have created an island of tranquillity on your boat – at least for your guests.  A starting place towards world peace?  At the very least, the perfect vacation. 

Every trip we take is fun and enjoyable but there always seems to be a time when we say “Except for..”   That is, until this one!  Without exception the best ever. 

Hemos pasado unas fantasticas vacaciones – muchas gracias por todo. 

Wow – food, service, boat – fantastic.  Loved it. 

The food, wine and conversation could not have been better  -  wonderful. 

We have loved every minute of every day.  Our meals have been absolutely delicious and our daily tours so interesting and enjoyable. 

It was a dream from start to finish  -  words will not suffice.  Thank you – for the bestest holiday of all time. 

Awesome barge pilot, fabulous wines, breakfasts, lunches and dinners, and best of all genuine hospitality and laughter.  True magic! 

The cruise couldn’t have been better!  The food, the wines, the crew, the weather – all fabulous. 

A week on the Saint Louis was absolutely the best way to enjoy south west France  …  overall an outstanding experience.

Every year, in early August, Valence d’Agen is known for an entirely different reason.  The port is transformed into a theatrical set with a traditional village created on either side of the canal.  Tiered seating for an audience of 2,500 spectators is constructed.  Lighting and sound is installed.  Ancient carts are made ready, and ancient cars are polished.  Costumes are prepared, actors are rehearsed. Valence is ready to enchant once again. 

With our guests, we have just visited the 18^th production of Au Fil de l’Eau – une Histoire.  Each year this extraordinary spectacle is presented on eight nights in the first two weeks of August.  It could be called a son et lumière, but this would be a cruel understatement.   Au Fil de l’Eau is a story, a history, a tragedy, a comedy.  There are scenes that are poignant.  There are scenes that are gripping.  And particularly there are scenes of outstanding beauty, where the whole audience gives off a whispered “wow”.  

It is possible to simply buy tickets for the show, and to arrive shortly before nightfall to enjoy the spectacle.  Much better, though, is to take part in the pre-spectacle long-table traditional meal, and to become a real part of this extraordinary evening.  During the meal, you will be served by people dressed in costume whom you will later recognise as actors during the spectacle, and you will be entertained by accordions and barrel-organs, and by a group of workers called “the forced workers of the threshing machine” who are keen to share their jokes and their wine with you.  Outside, you will find a wide range of entertainments and exhibits.  A magnificent cart-horse is coupled up to a working cart, while the action stops so that a couple of children can have their photographs taken beside the huge animal.  A team of volunteers are working sheaves of wheat through a threshing machine.  A basket-maker is busy working his craft.  A variety of vintage cars are to be found, some of them 100 years old, being shown off by their proud (and very knowledgeable) owners.  And there is a group of Occitane dancers, entertaining the public to traditional dances from this part of France.  All this fair-ground atmosphere serves to entertain, to help pass the evening until nightfall, and to “warm up” the audience to the period of the spectacle they are about to witness. 

The action takes place on three “stages”.  There is the far side of the canal, where the main part of the village is set up.  There is the near side of the canal where scenes take place that allow the actors to take their show into the audience.  And there is the canal itself, where five separate boats are used to present different themes and actions, including the iconic scene at the beginning and the end of the spectacle, where the narrator and his three young charges glide in their punt through a laser-lit tunnel into the past or the future.

 The story-line of the show is not complex.  It is the simple story of the lives of three lads who were born locally in the late 1800’s, with the various events that highlighted their lives including the first and second world wars.  This simple theme allows all sorts of scenes to be woven into the spectacle.  For example, there is the gossip of the village women doing their washing at the canal’s edge, and there is the engagement and marriage of one of the three friends.  One favourite scene is the bustling market, where comedy comes to the fore with one actor bringing a live piglet into the audience, while another who has stolen a live chicken manages to escape into the crowd and to fool the police into arresting an innocent member of the audience. 

The opening scene is stunning.  After the initial journey of the narrator and the three boys in their punt in the tunnel of time, everything goes dark for some seconds, and when the dawn music is introduced and the overall lighting is gently increased the audience see three hundred and fifty actors arranged in groups throughout the set.  The actors are frozen, like statues.  Some ten seconds later, the music changes and all the actors come to life. 

 One of the great things about Au Fil de l’Eau is that it is such a community achievement.  All the actors are volunteers.  Even though we live an hour’s drive from Valence d’Agen, we had a great sense of belonging.  For example, in the winter months Barbara dances with the group who were doing the Occitane dancing, I knew the staff on the stand of the Donzac Conservatoire, we met in the audience a farmer who lives just a hundred yards from our house, and one of our French guests recognised that the man carrying the pig was the President of the regional tourist organisation.  As an art form, as a cultural experience, and as a way of providing real insight into the life of the past in this part of France, we will always be delighted to bring our guests on the barge to this spectacle.  In a way it is the inside knowledge of such an event that is important.  Cruises with us on the hotel barge Saint Louis become even richer when our guests discover this astonishing show.

“South West France” means different things to different people, but to the wine professional it means a very specific area comprising a patchwork quilt of wine producing regions, from Gaillac to the east to Cahors to the north, reaching as far as Jurancon in the western foothills of the Pyrenees. Some of these wine regions are very old, dating back to roman times, and indeed Gaillac is the second oldest wine region in France. One point to bear in mind is that South West France, as a wine area, does not include Bordeaux. In days gone by, however, the producers of wine in these areas found their markets via Bordeaux. Shallow boats were loaded with the precious barrels of wine, and they were sailed down the rivers (including the Lot, the Tarn, the Baïse, and the Garonne) to Bordeaux where the wine was blended, bottled and exported, under the generic name of claret. It was thanks to the delicious full-bodied red wines of South West France that the trading port of Bordeaux became established as the wine capital of the world.

Things have since changed. The huge industrial monoculture of vines of the Bordeaux wine area has been established, and the traditional producers of South West France have diversified. As well as producing the red wines and the clarets that became so well known across the developed world, in the past sixty years many of the producers have added white and rosé wines to their range.

It is interesting to ponder on the differences between the wines from South West France and the wines from Bordeaux. In the most general of terms, Bordeaux producers have the advantage of their internationally-known name and huge advertising budgets, and Bordeaux wines are the subject of countless articles written by countless experts. The wines of South West France, on the other hand, are typically produced by small-scale individual vignerons who have learned their trade over the centuries, and passed it down from father to son. They are part of our “hidden corner” of France, and they are there to be discovered by the slow traveller, by the traveller who has the time and the interest to dig out the skilled artisan producers.  They are there to be discovered during a luxury cruise on the Saint Louis

“What” you may ask “about the quality of these wines?” One of the references we use is Hachet’s Guide. This is a guide published every year following the professional blind tasting of over 35,000 different wines. South West France has a higher percentage of wines listed in Hachet than most other wine areas in France. We carry on the boat, for example, a rosé from Fronton that has twice in the last three years won gold at the international concours at Cannes, competing with wines from some 47 different countries.

On our hotel barge we carry some thirty-six different wines. These wines reflect a good cross-section of the quality wines from South West France. Most of them are award-winning vintages. We take a pride in our wines as a reflection of the wonderful part of France in which we cruise, and we take pleasure in introducing to our guests such secrets of this part of France that they would have great difficulty discovering by themselves.

As an aside, let us consider the Hundred Years War. This war took place in south west France between 1337 and 1453 – and thus lasted for no less than 116 years. What has that to do with the wines of the region? It has been put to me in all seriousness that the combatants on both sides had no interest in seeing the “war” come to an end, for the food and wine of the region provided them with an excellent lifestyle, marred only by the occasional skirmish! Arguably, this was the beginning of wine tourism. Slow warfare has now become slow travel!

For those who prefer to make payment by credit card, we have now registered with PayPal.  Perhaps I can briefly explain how this payment system works, for those who may not be familiar with it. 

Once we have agreed a booking with a client we send a “Request for Payment” by email through the PayPal system.  The email that you receive has a link to a secure payment page, which allows you to make payment by credit card.  The email and the secure link are used to ensure that our account with PayPal is credited, and we receive an email confirming that payment has been received.  We can if we wish go into our PayPal account to check that the funds are actually in our account.

It really is as simple as that.  You do not have to register with PayPal, payment is almost instantaneous, and we pay the PayPal charges!  If a client does not have internet (increasingly rare these days) we can always accept instructions to send the request for payment to a friend’s email address – three minutes in front of the friend’s computer and our future guest can effect payment.  Simple, hassle free and secure!

Not really.  Although we do not welcome price rises, we have to think of the big picture.  Because we have a large, slow-revving engine, and because we travel slowly on the canals, our fuel burn is quite small.  Even including the central heating system and the on-board generator, that delivery of fuel will see us through until the middle of the season. 

As a percentage of our total costs, fuel is well down the list.  It is an interesting fact that we spend about ten times more on wines for our guests than we do on fuel for the boat!!  (This also reflects on how seriously we take our purchasing of the quality wines we carry on the Saint Louis)

There are various definitions for “Eco-Tourism”, none of which are universally agreed.  In general, though, Eco-Tourism can be applied to a tourist enterprise that operates in sympathy with the surrounding countryside, with no negative impact on the natural wildlife and plant life, leaving nature unchanged by the presence of the enterprise, with respect for the environment and with efficient use of Fossil Fuels.  The Saint Louis certainly operates in the category of Eco Tourism.

Many travellers are now finding out about Slow Travel. To travel slowly means that you have time to observe and absorb, to experience the places you come to and to discover the true values of your host country.  Most often, and certainly on a cruise on the Saint Louis, you have these experiences while having a minimum negative impact and a maximum positive impact on the fauna, the flora and the people of the places you are visiting.

 We are both lucky and privileged to operate our Hotel Barge in south west France.  Imagine, for one moment, the scene.  The barge is quietly travelling at walking speed through glorious rural countryside, and our guests are comfortably ensconced on the sun-deck, drinks in hand.  They have the chance to see and experience things that they would probably not see by any other means. 

The wildlife of this area is remarkable, and our enthusiasm for this aspect of our cruises never wanes. 

In my last blog, I described (or rather, tried to describe) the amazing kingfishers that we see so often.  We have guests on our cruises who have never before seen a kingfisher, who have already wanted to see one.  They are in all respects stunning birds.

Every year during May and June we are treated to the song of the nightingales, singing from their canal-side perches day and night.  Definitely one of the most beautiful bird songs in the world.  Another bird with a very distinctive song is the golden oriole.  It is just as well that its song is distinctive, to tell us of its presence, for it is such a secretive bird that it is very rare indeed to catch a sight of it.  But on the rare occasions when we do see it – what a treat that is!  A brilliant golden bird unlike any other.  One evening we were treated to a really exceptional experience –   this was a nightingale and a golden oriole who were taking turns to come up with their best songs – like two musicians jamming.

 Other birds of note are some of the heron family – we see grey herons, purple herons and night herons.  Bullfinches are common here, probably a result of all the apple orchards.  And particularly in Moissac the swifts are very impressive, swirling in close formation over the roof tops.

 Sometimes beside the water, and sometimes in the water, we see the timid water vole, reminding us of Ratty in Wind in the Willows.  And on a more exotic note, we have seen terrapins in different places, happily living in the wild.  As far as land mammals are concerned, foxes, badgers, hedgehogs, hares, wild boar and three sorts of deer  are all among the species that have been seen from the boat – by those who come to us to appreciate our special form of Slow Travel.

Between Agen and Serignac-sur-Garonne the canal is very overgrown, with bushes and undergrowth taking up half the width of the canal.  The birdsong in this area can be remarkable, especially in early summer.  We call this distinctive stretch of water the “Amazon” – the wildlife to be found here is only limited by your imagination!

 Alasdair and Barbara have lived full-time in France for some seven years, and they are now in their sixth season of operation with their Hotel Barge the Saint Louis. They come from the west coast of Scotland, and they each have wide-ranging hospitality experience.  The Saint Louis is a 30-metre converted Dutch barge, providing luxurious accommodation for up to six guests.  Cruises are by the week, in the Garonne valley between Toulouse and Bordeaux.

One way in which I can measure how good a day it has been is to count up the number of kingfishers I see! One kingfisher marks a “good day”, whereas two kingfishers indicate a “really good day”. Imagine how I rated the day just a few weeks ago, when in the course of the morning I sighted SEVEN kingfishers! It is even better when our guests share this sighting – for many of them it is the first time they have seen a European kingfisher, and the stunning iridescent blue-green flash of these uncommon birds never fails to impress. Sight a kingfisher and all is well with the world.

We have just had some days very well spent getting in some firewood for the winter. A fair-sized oak tree beside the canal had died, and I had permission to take it. In three days we had felled the tree, cut it up, transported it, split it, and stacked it under cover. Hard work, but very rewarding! I am reminded of the adage that firewood heats three times – twice when you cut, handle and stack it and once when you burn it.

We are very lucky to live in a community that is both active and welcoming. In our village there is an organisation that sometimes arranges weekend walking expeditions. A couple of weeks ago we joined a group of friends and neighbours for a two-day trek up in the Massif Central. France is such a big country, and there is so much to discover! We enjoyed the stunning scenery and the quaint villages, largely with stone roofing tiles, and we enjoyed the camaraderie. In retrospect, we enjoyed also the exercise, using leg muscles in a way that we do not often manage during the cruising season – so both our muscles and our French toned up a bit. We were walking at over 1,300 metres altitude, in other words over the height of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Britain.

We look back on our 2010 season with a great deal of happiness – we had some fabulous guests on board, and we enjoyed sharing with them our wonderful barge, and our fascination for this beautiful part of France.

We are very often asked “What do we do when the season is finished?” This is probably our most frequently posed question! The answer lies in how busy we have been in the last weeks, since the end of our cruising season. For the first week we had family to stay – three children and their spouses and children, eight guests in all. That was fun, and we were meeting grand-children for the first time. After that – a programme of winterising the boat has been undertaken – all the deck furniture and accessories taken off and put in storage; wooden wheelhouse installed in place of the folding canvas one; wines taken off the boat, stored and listed; fridges and deep freezer emptied and cleaned; all fabrics such as bed linen laundered and bagged; ornamental plants and herbs taken off the deck and placed for the winter; paint damage and rust marks attended to; mooring ropes exchanged for the set of winter ropes; machinery serviced; improvements to the boat researched and orders placed for new items; protective covers ordered, bought and put in place. The list goes on, and I start to feel tired!

I wrote recently about problems associated with “noddy boats”. Here is a photograph that illustrates one of the problems, in that evidently it is really quite difficult for novices to handle these boats; instead of having a lovely relaxing holiday as on the Saint Louis, they have the stress and difficulty of even entering a lock – and boats don’t go in sideways!

We went to the cinema the other day. It was the avant-première of a film called “Le Café du Pont”, about the early life of the famous French singer Pierre Perret. Our house had been selected by the film-makers as the final home of the young Pierre, and it was really something to see our house, which we have done so much work on, disguised in the period of Vichy-France on full-sized screen in the cinema.

We are going to be on French TV for the THIRD time!! Cameras will be on board next week – more details about this to follow.