Canals

Man-made channels have existed for thousands of years, ever since people first formed settlements. They are of two kinds: aqueducts (to convey water) and boat canals (to convey goods and people).

The first sizeable boat canals in France were built in the seventeenth century, starting with the Briare-Montargis canal (1642), whose purpose was to join the Loire river with the Seine. Soon afterwards (1666), the great project of the Canal du Midi was begun, leading eventually to the linking of the Mediterranean with the Atlantic.

A network of other canals was constructed during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as the industrial revolution gained momentum.

Nobody could have foreseen that the railways, which began to appear from the 1830s, would so quickly render canal transport uneconomic. Today many of the smaller canals are used only for pleasure boats.

Boat canals provide the walker with many excellent routes, as they are always accompanied by a towpath, which makes a pleasant off-road track, and have the added virtues of flatness, shade and an abundance of villages along the way.

However it must be said that canal walking can become rather tiresome, as there is so little variation. Although we normally defend walking as a better way to go than cycling, we admit that a long trip beside a canal is better done by bicycle.

The individual maps of these walks show accommodation icons for each night. By zooming in on a particular icon you can see the precise location of the establishment where we stayed.

To identify a walk, click a red line on this map to get a brief description.

The canal walks selected so far are:

Canal de Berry (9 days total)

Lateral Canal of the Loire (3 days)

Canal du Midi (4 days)

Canal du Nivernais (5 days)

Canal d’Orléans (1 day)