Questions to ask yourself and your travel agent before booking your river or canal cruise:

Will this be your first visit to the country?

If you’ve never been to France, you may want to see ”don’t miss” sights like Paris, the Loire Valley chateaus, or the Champagne region on your cruise. But if you’ve “been there, done that,” then taking a barge cruise through the Burgundy countryside or the wild landscape of the Camargue will offer a totally new experience.

How many people in your group?

If you have a family or a group of friends, you may want to charter a barge. That will give you the most flexibility to choose how to spend your cruise. The barge captain will have lots of suggestions - all you’ll have to do is agree among yourselves! If you prefer a larger riverboat and have a big enough group (usually 10 or more), you may be able to get a group discount or a free cruise for one person.

If you’re traveling as a couple, you’ll be with other people. So, the question is, do you want to be with a lot of new people or just a few new people? Remember, you’ll be spending a lot of time together on the boat and on the sightseeing excursions.

A single person will want to pay close attention to single supplement fees, which can cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars more up to as much as double the single price. A few barges and riverboats have single cabins, but most do not.

Do you want a luxury experience or do you need to watch your pennies?

Generally speaking, the larger the boat, the cheaper the cruise. Because the ratio of staff to guests is much higher on the smaller barges, they typically aim for the high-end experience. Gourmet meals, fine French wines, and personal attention are the selling points of a luxury barge cruise.

Larger riverboats offer several sizes of cabins, with corresponding price breaks, while barges usually are outfitted with several similar staterooms. In many cases, the cabins on a barge can be made up as either twin or king for maximum flexibility. A few barges even offer staterooms with bathtubs.

There are no inside cabins on riverboats or barges, but window sizes vary considerably, from sliding glass doors opening onto a French balcony to small, fixed porthole-style windows. This is not as big a concern as it might be on an ocean cruise where you spend days at sea. But if you think you will want to spend time alone in your cabin instead of in the lounge area or on the sundeck, it’s something to check out.

Cruises in France are most expensive in the late spring, early summer and early fall because that’s when the weather is usually the best. If you want to save money, plan to go during the low seasons.

Next time, we’ll take up a few more things to think about when deciding on a cruise that’s right for you. In the meantime, you may want to check out our Frequent Questions page.

I had been to the Loire Valley several times before, but my last trip to this region was different. My main goal was to visit a barge that cruises on the river Cher, near Tours. (The Loire River’s waters are usually too irregular or too shallow for commercial navigation.) The boat is a small barge - it accommodates only six passengers. And, with such a small number of guests, the cruises it offers are of the luxury kind, naturally. That day, the captain/owner was working on installing a new heating and air-conditioning system (it was during the off season). I spent some fun time with him. We even had a glass of the local Bourgeuil red wine together. It was a rainy and chilly day, so drinking wine felt good and warmed me up. The next day, I proceeded with my investigation of the area. You might have guessed that this meant… chateaus, more chateaus and yet more chateaus. Not quite to the point of ”a dime a dozen,” but you can find them at just about every turn in that area.

I wouldn’t have missed Chambord (above left) for the world, of course. It is hugely impressive. And, to think that it was used as a lowly “hunting lodge” by King Francis I! It is also a very popular day-trip destination for tourists from Paris. The parking lots are big and there are lots of tour buses. But that’s OK. Remember… the castle is enormous. Ditto for Chenonceau (above right) - a large building and lots of people. But it is so well done architecturally, and it contains so much history. By the way, the river that runs underneath it is the Cher, so cruising under the Chateau of Chenonceau is a high point on the barge cruise I talked about before.

The three pictures below show Cheverny, Chaumont and Ussé from left to right. Unlike Chambord and Chenonceau, Cheverny doesn’t overwhelm you with its size. It is more like a cozy and pretty country retreat - but still in the exquisite and ornate Renaissance style. They raise beagles for fox hunting on the grounds of this castle. I have never seen so many dogs of the same breed in one spot. And the barks of those hounds were something to hear!

Chaumont, another large castle, is known for its International Garden Festival, the French counterpart to the Chelsea Garden Show in England. Exhibitors come from all over the world to demonstrate their horticultural skills at the Chaumont show. Finally, the flamboyant style of Ussé… this castle is the picture postcard for all Renaissance chateaus. It is known to have inspired the author of the fairy tale “Sleeping Beauty.”

I must add Villandry to this list. The castle itself doesn’t compare in architectural sophistication to any of the others, but the gardens pictured below are wonderful: formal French boxwood designs for the “love” and “music garden,” a “jardin potager” (vegetable garden), an herb garden, a labyrinth,  and a peaceful water garden.

As I mentioned, there are many more, and I went on to see Blois, Langeais, Amboise, Chinon and Azay-le-Rideau. I found them all very fascinating! If you are interested in the Renaissance, the place to visit is Florence, of course. But the Loire Valley also played a role in that period’s newly discovered humanism. Leonardo da Vinci lived in the area for three years before his death. He is buried just outside Amboise at Clos de Lucé, where some of his ingenius creations are on display.