{"id":19858,"date":"2014-03-03T09:55:55","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T09:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/spotlight-on-the-best-villages-for-a-boat-trip-in-france\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T21:01:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T21:01:47","slug":"spotlight-on-the-best-villages-for-a-boat-trip-in-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/blog\/spotlight-on-the-best-villages-for-a-boat-trip-in-france\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotlight on the best villages for a boat trip in France"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Although we sometimes forget it, France is the number one tourist destination in the world. That gives you a good idea of how many gems there are to discover here. For instance\u2026 have you been to the villages of Brittany, Burgundy, or down in the south? On your next\u00a0<strong>canal boat holiday<\/strong>, plan your route to visit (or re-visit) some of France\u2019s most wonderful heritage spots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you head for Burgundy, you\u2019re bound to pass through Tonnerre, a village full of narrow streets with three very old churches to visit and several local specialities to try. Another listed village is Ch\u00e2teauneuf-en-Auxois, perched on a hill to the south of Montbard. Its chateau overlooks the\u00a0<strong>Burgundy Canal<\/strong>\u00a0and the Morvan hills. Travelling between Paray-le-Monial and V\u00e9zelay, you can\u2019t help but be moved by the spirituality of the sacred places that used to be centres of devotion in Medieval times, on the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a title=\"Holidays in Brittany\" href=\"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/boating-holidays\/france\/brittany\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Brittany\u00a0<\/a>has its share of pretty villages to visit. Gacilly, of course, is the stronghold of the Yves Rocher brand, where all kinds of rare and ancient plants are grown. You drift gently along past old houses built in the traditional style, town squares, fountains, wells, and Breton roadside crosses dating back to the times of our ancestors. You\u2019ll pass through the attractive village of Josselin on the banks of the river Oust, a major stopping-off point on the Dukes\u2019 way, to visit the Gothic chateau that is still occupied by the descendants of those who built it in the 11th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Heading East, from\u00a0<a title=\"A cruise from Alsace to Lorraine\" href=\"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/boating-holidays\/france\/alsace-ardennes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alsace to Lorraine<\/a>, your route takes you through picturesque towns and villages such as Saverne, with its half-timbered facades, imposing 18th century chateau and buildings of pink stone; and Liverdun with its fortified towers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then to the south, along the\u00a0<strong>Canal du Midi<\/strong>\u00a0which is itself a listed Unesco World Heritage site, in the land of pastis where the cicadas sing, and where you\u2019ll find little towns straight out of the Middle Ages. There\u2019s\u00a0<strong>Argens, where Locaboat has its base<\/strong>, and also Puich\u00e9ric, Carcassonne, Narbonne, not forgetting Aigues-Mortes\u2026 so many places, whose names alone are enough to set your pulse racing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>France is the number one tourist destination in the world. That gives you a good idea of how many gems there are to discover here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[345],"tags":[374],"class_list":["post-19858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bucket-list","tag-france"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19859,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19858\/revisions\/19859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.riverly.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}