A sailing holiday around Cahors on France's Lot River

By Nick Roe

Bridge of sighs: The striking Pont Cahors cuts across the Lot


Half way through my wine tasting session on the sunny banks of the River Lot, I asked our vineyard host whether it was acceptable to drink and drive a boat in this part of France. Bernard Bouyssou offered a short answer. 'Pfft!' he said.

'Pfft!' is the Gallic equivalent of 'Do me a favour' and sums up the nature of all life here in the tranquil Lot Valley, where visiting boaters rule the waves and locals waive the rules.

The Lot doesn't scream tourism so much as murmur the word with some grace, so after testing eight varieties of heavy red, in the blistering sunshine at Bernard's riverside Chateau Armandiere, my small party re-boarded our floating wine-shack - and motored meanderingly back upstream.

It was a moving moment, on that first morning when I awoke on board our jolly boat Salsa, moored at the village of Douelle, and simply stared out across the water. A sheet of shimmering mist hovered just above the river and the thin silver line of a weir's edge stretched right across the glass-like water to walls of a formidable lock.

Stone houses squatted bankside and the silence was profound as a reddish sun rose over vineyards. A quick trip to the boulangerie; a croissant breakfast on a dewy deck and we were off. Putter-putter-put.

The Lot, France's seventh-longest river, slicing east to west well inland from Bordeaux, carries no commercial traffic and the landscape is achingly rural. Boating around the sweet little town of Cahors is filled with this kind of detail and small drama, and genuine French colour.

That wine-tasting came on the first morning - a downstream trip to begin. Then we turned round and passed Douelle again, heading upstream and east. Lovely views, greetings from other boaters and the comfort of a case of wine and a larder crammed with fine market food down below.

Our first night was spent in Cahors - 22,000 people held within a wide meander. We moored on grassy banks near the most elegant bridge in France, the stonily turreted Pont Valentre. It's a small town, yet walking its tight streets with English guide Susan Baxter (who's lived here for 17 years) was intriguing.


Street life: The rural markets offer everything from fruit and vegetables to over 300 different cheeses


The medieval quarter on the eastern side is riddled with small shops, cafes and restaurants. Gloomy passages offer a tiny glimpse of history and human activity. In the market square near the 12th-century cathedral, for instance, we found Marty the dairy man surrounded by a raucous flutter of stalls, offering at least 300 varieties of cheese.

Calling at the small village of Vers, four hours upstream, I met English artists Sally and Jeffery Stride, who live near the water, their garden ablaze with flowers.

They told me how they fetched up here in the Seventies, but their van broke down so they stayed.

The local mayor was so impressed by their artistic credentials he gave them a flat to live in free; so they settled in the valley and raised three children. Their river paintings not only sell to locals and visitors but also hang in Downing Street and the Elysee Palace; not bad for a couple of van-driving hippies.

Mooring at villages was free; 'Stay as long as you like!' said a passer-by and good restaurants were everywhere, with dinner at around £25 a head. La Truite Doree, in Vers, was probably the jolliest.

But the main point of boating holidays is the water itself.

That's where much of the small-time drama came in as we dashed into locks, narrowly missed other boats, or sometimes didn't. The best accident I saw involved a bunch of Britons charging into the mooring at Vers forgetting that they'd laid out a dinner table on the top deck - and that the trees under which they were passing were, in fact, very low indeed.

Watching an entire table of crockery being swept, broken and jangling, into the water while locals applauded wildly was an evil joy. How did we ever rule those waves?


Lovely Lot: Saint Cirque Lapopie is a towering medieval village overlooking the river and very popular with tourists


Finally, we arrived at St Cirque Lapopie, a towering, medieval village clinging to rocks overlooking the Lot, the high water mark of our upstream journey.

It's so exquisitely preserved, it attracts huge numbers of tourists, so one moment I was eating purple figs plucked from wild trees; next there was a deluge of English voices and someone in a cafe playing Purple Rain on a guitar.

Later that evening, the crowds vanished and I was left drinking fenelon, a local aperitif (Cahors red wine, cassis, with a dash of walnut liquor) in silky dark silence.

On my final morning, I borrowed a bike and cycled four miles to the Pech Merle Caves a little inland where guides took us deep into the limestone to view the 25,000-year-old paintings.

They told me a couple of local lads discovered the ancient artwork by accident in 1922; and in the gloom, I imagined their delight, running home to tell their parents what treasures they'd found in the depths of the Lot valley. I felt pretty similar, in fact, cycling back to the boat; casting off, heading back to Douelle.

Travel Facts
A week's cruising, based on a boat sleeping ten, starts at £1,640. Hoseasons (0844 847 1100, www.hoseasons.co.uk). Flybe flies from London to Bergerac (0871 700 2000, www.flybe.com) from £112 return.



source: dailymail