Exploring Pays de la Loire by boat

Regular British visitors like to keep it secret: the best way to explore the unspoiled countryside of the Pays de la Loire is in a boat. With about 250 miles of waterways, all clean, flowing rivers plus the historic Nantes to Brest Canal, the Pays de la Loire is just the place for messing about in a boat.

Rent a cruiser (sometimes referred to as a ‘houseboat’ in French) and go as you please. These are like a home-from-home, with beds and showers, kitchen and sitting room. Boats can sleep from 2-4, right up to 10-12. Easy to steer, no licence required.

Get tips on where to eat and what to see from lock keepers along the way; tie up where you want. Wake up to see cows munching in meadows, kingfishers catching breakfast. Rent bikes so that you can make mini-excursions into the country lanes. This riverboat holiday could be the most relaxing ‘active holiday’ ever!

START ON THE SARTHE
Pick up your cruiser at the marina in Sablé-sur-Sarthe, a classic small French town. Load up with baguettes, pâté and cheese, not forgetting the wine and the town’s famous sablés, shortbread-like biscuits. Then tootle off along the 82-mile long Sarthe, one of France’s prettiest rivers. Attractions include Solesmes, the Benedictine abbey that is a world centre for Gregorian chant, and Malicorne-sur-Sarthe, famous for its faience, decorative pottery. Details: anjou-navigation.fr; tourist board tourisme.sarthe.com

GOING GREEN
From Nantes, there are two ways to explore the Erdre and the Sèvre Nantaise rivers. To do your own thing: rent a Ruban Vert, a ‘green’ and silent boat with an electric engine rubanvert.fr. Or board a Bateaux Nantais for a lunch or dinner cruise. On a warm evening, dinner is particularly romantic - bateaux-nantais.fr.

THE MAYENNE ATTRACTION
Genuinely rural in the north, the Mayenne is the sort of natural river you remember from children’s books, such as Swallows and Amazons. With their neat cottages and gardens, villages along the banks seem unchanged for decades: Ménil, Chenillé-Changé, Grez-Neuville. Mayenne itself has a massive stone bridge and even more massive castle, home of a revamped museum - museeduchateaudemayenne.fr. At Le Lion d’Angers, where the pretty River Oudon joins the Mayenne, you can tour the stables and watch international show jumping at one of France’s national studs - maine-anjou-rivieres.com.

CAN YOU CANOE?
Another easy option is renting a canoe or kayak. Only 20 minutes south-east of Nantes, you are deep in vineyards. See them as you paddle along the Sèvre Nantaise river. There are also small, lesser-known vineyards (Coteaux du Loir, Jasnières) along the banks of Le Loir, the tributary spelled without an ‘e’ on the end – not to be confused with La Loire, its big sister.