Across and Along the Loire

Briare Aqueduct

Now cruising another jauntily named waterway - the Canal Lateral a la Loire. As the name says it runs alongside the River Loire. At over 1000 km in length this is the longest river in France although the canal is only 196km. The part of the river we are cruising alongside at the moment is extremely wide with the channel meandering and splitting around islands and large sand banks. These islands are an important conservation area and habitat for many types of birds.

River Loire from Briare Aqueduct

River Loire from Briare Aqueduct

We arrived at the Loire at the small town of Briare. Once waterborne traffic had to make a difficult and dangerous river crossing in this stretch but now we can soar over the wide river on a most impressive aqueduct which opened in 1896. Until 2003 this was the longest aqueduct in the world. The lovely ornamental columns at either end and elegant cast iron lamps the length of the broad towpaths which run each side of the 6m wide channel give the crossing a distinctly gracious  and 'other time' feel. All that was missing to complete the illusion of stepping back in time was for the pedestrians promenading on each side to be dressed in Victorian clothes. Sadly for me, due to the lovely weather they were mostly clad in shorts and t shirts.

Briare Aqueduct

Mantelot's Lock, Chatillon sur Loire. Once enabled boats to lock onto the river. Now restored but unused.

Moving swiftly into this century we are moored close to one of the 4 nuclear power plants along the Loire - the Belleville nuclear plant. I cycled near there yesterday along the Loire Velo route and was a little disturbed to see an information board detailing recent floods of the Loire and showing photos of the power station on what seemed to be a little island surrounded by miles of water. According to Wikipedia it is constructed on a 4.6m floodsafe platform. Well, that's ok then.

Belleville Nuclear Power Station

 We've been back on the boat for a week now and have taken things slowly. We are in hire boat country once again and so we've tried to let them all get in front of us instead of fighting for moorings. As I mentioned we've been out cycling in an effort to burn off weeks of full Scottish breakfasts and fish suppers, the evidence of which is stubbornly hanging around our waistlines. 
Hopefully we have secured a winter mooring but as it seems to be a somewhat casual type of arrangement  with a bit of a language gap we won't really know until we pitch up. My meagre French speaking ability seems to have taken a turn for the worse. I don't know if I can blame the haggis and black pudding for that as well - sadly but not surprisingly they seem to be absent from this list.
Next stop is Sancerre - famous for its wine and goats cheese. Oh dear....

Lavoir - Lere