A Week on Bordeaux’s Canal de Garonne - By Ray Hoover

It is Fall in the French Bordeaux. Ahead we spot a lone figure. It is Nichole peddling her bike down the tree-lined towpath towards us. She is not only our sommelier and tour guide but also an efficient “herder” of lost, late, or errant passengers. After a morning tour in the village of Nérac and lunch at Le Moulin des Saveurs, five of us needed a walk. Ahead our barge is within the lock and has almost lowered to the discharge point before continuing its trip down the canal.

We would need to quicken our pace if we hoped to re-board. The late afternoon sun streams through the trees, creating patches of dappled light on the ground. The gravel towpath we had strolled along for the last mile and a half is strewn with the dry, brittle brown leaves falling from sycamores along the path. The crunch of gravel and the rustle of leaves underfoot was a sound we didn’t hear back home in the South Carolina Lowcountry, but that is not where we are now. Instead, we’re along the Canal de Garonne a few miles upstream of the tiny village of Le Mas-d’Agenais, sixty miles southeast of Bordeaux. The Barge Rosa is waiting for us — we had better hurry.

The fragrance of autumn was in the air. The sky was blue and clear, with only a few wispy white clouds, and the temperature was pleasantly crisp. With the unseasonably dry weather, the wine grapes and much of the local farm produce had already been harvested. Once standing defiantly proud, the fields of sunflowers were slumped, colorless, and lifeless, their seed pods awaiting to be collected. Only rows of ripening apples in the carefully groomed orchards remained to be gathered.

The fourth night of gastronomic adventure awaited us in an hour and a half; it would be another evening of indulgence with Chef Stéphane’s unique culinary talent. With each creation, he had outdone those that preceded the days before, all somehow magically prepared in a kitchen the size of a small closet. But first, affable Agatha was awaiting with plates of nibbles and chilled glasses of French white wine. Life in Bordeaux during the second week of October 2022 was good.

Back onboard the Rosa, a flock of bright white egrets flew low over the river’s placid surface as a nearby church bell in the nearby village of Le Mas-d’Agenais announced the 7:00 evening hour; the time when Captain Julian is required to moor our barge and when activity through the numerous locks on the canal ceases before resuming at 9:00 AM the next morning. The day’s activities are officially over, and soon it would be time for Agatha to ply us with a new round of tempting appetizers and aperitifs before dinner. And this was just one afternoon in a week of adventurous gastronomy, exploration of the French countryside, bike rides, strolls along the canal’s tree-lined towpath, and precious hours of camaraderie with dear friends.

The idea of a canal cruise in Bordeaux was born exactly a year before on a yellow houseboat moored in Sausalito, California, within San Francisco Bay. Instead of a few days on the stationary houseboat, on this adventure, three couples would transverse the Canal de Garonne for 55 miles from Boé to Castets-en-Dorthe through the French countryside. And best yet, there would be a dedicated onboard crew of four, including a personal French chef.

Our floating home and principal means of transportation for the week would be the Rosa; a 100-ton barge converted from a sailing vessel some years back. Painted in a deep cobalt blue color with red and yellow accents, the Rosa reflected the idealized image of the ubiquitous European river bateau: pretending to be regal but comfortably homey instead. Her nose proudly points up slightly with the pretense of sassiness underlying her Dutch pedigree but with an adoring grandmother’s warm, matronly embrace. The old girl tried her best to convey an air of aloof old-world continental arrogance but couldn’t; it was just not in her friendly, welcoming nature.

For the week, Kelly and Thad Peterson, Inger and Derek Fyfe, and Lucy and I would become immersed within southwestern France’s countryside, discovering charming, quaint, warm tan-colored villages, wall-encapsulated medieval bastides, winding farm roads, artisan wine, goat cheese, and Armagnac producers and a Rembrandt masterpiece hidden within a tiny church. We would cruise through hectares of Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec, and Semillon vineyards and fields of red apple and purple plum orchards. Over thirty vintages of local whites, reds, and roses from the French regions’ wine appellations were selected to complement multiple hors-d’œuvres and 32 uniquely prepared entrée, plat principale, fromage, and dessert courses. Opportunities for le digestif always followed. Over the week, our talented crew made sure that our appreciation of fine Michelin-quality French haute-cuisine and local wine increased as much as our waistlines were destined to expand.

It was an international affair, with six passengers from the South Carolina Lowcountry, all with previous roots in Atlanta but who had never met before relocating to Seabrook Island. But there was also Captain Julian from East London; his wife, Dutch-born Nichole, sommelier, and guide extraordinaire; attentive and personable Agatha from Poland and French-trained culinary master Chef Stéphane. Committed to ensuring our adventure would be memorable, our crew delivered beyond the limits of our wildest expectations.

From East London, now living in Ste, France, Cockney accented Captain Julian masterfully orchestrated our week of adventure. The captain runs a well-organized ship as its pilot, navigator, general manager, quality assurance officer, and chief mechanic who knows his boat’s every square inch, nut, bolt, and oil pan. With an ever-present twinkle of mischief in his eyes, and when not scurrying around his boat, Julian is a witty storyteller luring his unsuspecting audience into hilarious tall tales of total implausibility.

Nichole possesses a magical ability to be everywhere at once. Somehow, she can “transport” herself throughout the Bordeaux in mystical ways. She would help to launch the barge from its overnight mooring, greet us at each new lock along the way, and locate missing passengers hiking or biking along the canal’s towpaths and nearby villages. Her knowledge of all things in the Bordeaux is stunningly impressive. Either on a bike or in her van, Nichole was always there. We accused her of having identical twins, triplets, or even quadruplets strategically positioned along the route — no one could be in all those places simultaneously as Nichole had been that week.

Agatha and Stéphane conspired to make any semblance of gastronomic self-constraint impossible; Agatha’s chronically infectious cheerfulness, breakfast feasts, afternoon appetizers, bottomless wine glasses, pre-dinner cocktails, and luxuriant mid-dinner cheese courses prepared us for the inventive artistry of Chef Stéphane’s masterpieces. Always quiet in voice and reserved in nature, Chef Stéphane spoke instead through the creative genius of his cooking with a week of the best French cuisine any of us have ever had; or will ever have. “Unique” is a word too often overused, but not in connection with Stéphane’s triumphal creations. A young Monet of the kitchen, his dishes’ flavors, and visual presentations were a feast for both the pallet and the eyes.

Echoes will long endure, “May I top that off?” when Julian discovers a nearly empty wine glass, or Agatha’s “Are we ready yet for nibbles?” launching hours of nightly feasting. So will “That’s where you are.” after Nichole finds us miles from the barge or when Stéphane proudly displays two hares to be featured as the “pièce de résistance” during our last dinner. And no one will forget Derek’s nightly guitar strumming or our group’s serenade thanking the crew for a once-in-a-lifetime week with a new creation, “The Twelve Days of Bordeaux.” All will be remembered for years.

This adventure would also profoundly open a new dimension never imagined or anticipated before we boarded our flights from Charleston to Paris. Though Lucy and I had known the Fyfe’s for eight years and the Peterson’s for five, away from the distractions of community and family, we learned more about each other than we had in all those years before. While untethered from the routine obligations of community and family, we shared the circuitous twists and turns that brought us to our little island haven in the South Carolina Lowcountry. From far disparate early childhood roots in England, Denmark, Sweden, Colorado, Texas, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, fate and serendipity brought the six of us together as neighbors. But the experience of sharing life’s litany of joys and challenges while on board a small blue barge on a canal in the French Bordeaux will forever bond us as close friends.

It was a week of enriching friendship, gastronomic overindulgence, and a celebration of the beautifully inspiring southwest corner of the French countryside. Viva the experience together on the Barge Rosa with great friends cruising down the Canal de Garonne through the vineyards of the French Bordeaux!