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Cheers to Wine, Food & Friendship!
Living the Good Life on a Chartered Barge in Southern France
By Hideaways Member Hunt Harris

It's a long trip from the Mighty Mississippi of Moline, Illinois, to the diminutive Canal du Midi in southern France. But we were four Midwestern couples ready for an adventure. As it turned out, this adventure was many years in the making. Apparently my wife, Diane, and some of her friends had been talking for quite some time about doing a chartered barge trip through one of the wine regions of France. Knowing Hideaways has worked with and highly vetted European Waterways, I finally took the bull by the horns and said, "Well, let's do this then!" A quick phone call to Darcy, our Hideaways Travel Consultant, was all it took to set the gears in motion.

Our group-including Jean and Gary Medd, Mindy and Steve Kruse, and Jenny and Tom Rowe-gathered at our rendezvous spot of Narbonne, France, from various directions and excursions, including a cycling trip through Tuscany and a pre-barging visit to Paris. We all enjoyed an overnight stay at the Clarion Suites Narbonne Ile du Gua, which offers a rustic scene overlooking Canal du Midi's adjacent waterway, Canal de la Robine, and one of its old locks. We ate dinner at a nearby canal-side restaurant and watched the boats go by, quickly getting into the mood for our own barge trip the next day.



Our Adventure Begins

Most of the Canal du Midi is carved out of the rich soil that supports the region's vineyards, so much of the time we were winding through those vineyards as we made our way to the sea. The canal was built in the 1600s, and we were told that women did much of digging-by hand, with pickaxes and shovels-while the men were out working the fields.

One day was spent in transit through the seven stair-stepped locks of Beziers-really an engineering marvel. All the locks on the Canal du Midi essentially operate with the same methodology as in the late 1600s. Having lived on the Mississippi nearly all our lives, and all of us having boated on it at one time or another, it was fascinating to see the system here compared to what we're used to, which is obviously on a much larger scale.

Our chartered boat was the Anjodi, one of the original hotel barges of France and formerly a freight barge on the canals of Holland. It was converted to a passenger barge about 30 years ago. The boat's name is derived from the first two letters of the names of the owner's three daughters: Anna, Joanna, and Diana. She is a beautiful, well-kept vessel with nice woodwork throughout and a good amount of deck space. Our cabins were small but efficient, with comfortable beds, a separate bathroom and shower compartment, good air-conditioning, and a surprising amount of storage. If you're looking for a typical cruise ship cabin you'll be disappointed, but the facilities exceeded our expectations.

On top of that, our crew couldn't have been better. Our captain, Julian, was a Brit and a wine expert. He was so knowledgeable on the subject of wine, he must have been a sommelier in another life. His girlfriend, Nicole, was Dutch and acted as our tour guide. Helen, from New Zealand, was a sort of jack-of-all-trades, keeping our cabins tidy and helping out in other areas. Finally, Emma was our British cook.

If you're like me, you may not think the words "British" and "cook" together would be a good thing, but she was very, very good. The food was gourmet, beautifully presented, and the best we had while in France, including the six days we spent in Paris both pre- and post-barging. Apparently Emma's boyfriend works as a cook on the Anjodi's sister barge, and the two have a friendly competition going to see who can come up with the best recipes.

A lot of provisioning for the trip was done locally as we passed through the small towns and cities lining the Canal du Midi, so everything was good and fresh. One night we had a delicious seafood buffet, while another night it was an appetizer of foie gras with pear jelly and chutney and a main course of guinea fowl paired with a fruity local red. Desserts were equally delicious, including lemon tarts, roasted pears with sweet cream, and warm chocolate cake with an ice-cream-filled waffle cone.

Helen was an expert on cheeses, and this turned out to be one of the best surprises of the whole trip. Every meal she'd describe what was being served-we usually had two or three varieties of mostly French and Dutch cheeses-and then Julian would serve the wines and give a little discourse on what we were having. We really learned a great deal from both of them.


A Taste of the Good Life

I thought the wines of Languedoc-the region through which we were barging-were very good, with a lot of fruit and body to them. They also were a lot more reasonably priced than the wines of other regions in France. When we got home, I immediately ordered a couple of cases.

One afternoon Julian escorted us to his friend's winery, the Chateau de Perdiguier. The estate grounds were beautiful, and it was fun seeing the wine-making process all the way through. The wines, however, weren't that impressive, and I think Julian was somewhat disappointed.

We had chosen a late-September to early-October cruise specifically so we'd be there for the grape harvest season, since all of us love wine and wanted to sample the local varietals. As it turned out, we also were blessed with good weather-low 70s, mostly sunny, and just a couple of misty, rainy days toward the end that weren't bad enough to dampen our enthusiasm.

Serendipitously, we also chose the time of year when most tourists have headed home, which meant we avoided a lot of the self-captained barge traffic. Julian explained that the canal can be something of a zoo when the uninitiated, or under-initiated, take over the helm of a barge. In fact, our trip was slightly delayed when a 92-year-old man on a self-captained boat fell into the canal and our crew had to fish him out.

Our days unfolded pretty much as we wanted, starting with a morning jog along the canal for some or a relaxing cup of coffee on the open deck for others. Most mornings we eventually packed into the van that the crew shuttled from mooring to mooring and set off for an excursion to one of the small towns along the way. One of my favorites was Carcassonne, a medieval city founded in the 300s A.D. Its two outer walls were built a thousand years apart, attesting to the age of the place. Carcassonne is a UNESCO World Heritage site and the most complete medieval fortified city in Europe-a really interesting and unique destination.

We also visited the medieval town of Minerve, which has only about 100 inhabitants and is much more a tourist spot than anything. Its 12th -century hilltop fort was quite impressive, and winding through the vineyards and limestone hills to get there made for a really scenic drive.

A highlight of most days was riding bicycles along the canal and into the surrounding countryside. There was a bike on board for each passenger, and they were put to good use. One afternoon, Tom, Gary, and I headed off on bikes to explore. We had an uphill ride into the town of Quarante and then a downhill ride to the city of Capestang, where we stopped and enjoyed a well-deserved beer at a local bar.


Saying Goodbye

Our final day took us to the port city of Marseillan. The winds were high, and Captain Julian had a hard time pulling into our mooring. After some shopping and sightseeing at the nearby town of Portiragnes, we settled in for our last evening on board with a delicious and tender lamb fillet followed by a fruity Chateauneuf-du-Pape red. Julian and Nicole joined us at the tightly packed table, and the captain entertained us with jokes and sketches in his mimicking, English-accented voices.

In the middle of dinner, Emma came running past the table toward the cabins, frantically calling for Helen to bring a bucket. Minutes later Julian was called to help. Shortly thereafter, the crew emerged from the cabins with buckets and towels and announced that the problem was under control. They said it was only a small "leak," then pulled a two-foot-long leek vegetable from the bucket. It was a hilarious skit that had all of us fooled.

It was this type of camaraderie that made our trip such fun. Our group was quite compatible, with no hard feelings or harsh words despite the cozy environment. Mealtimes were wonderful, the crew was a delight, and the quaintness of the little towns we visited and biked through-and being there at grape harvest time-made the whole experience really enjoyable. This is a trip we all will remember fondly.



November/December 2013

 
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