Boating in France

t's a chance not only to cruise past splendid scenery, wonder at historic towns and enjoy decent food and wine, but explore rarely frequented French nooks. Joining my group in Douelle, a typical Lot village nestling beneath limestone cliffs just beyond the Dordogne, we're set for seven nights in the Nautila and have 76km of river stretching before us. Settling into our four-cabined houseboat, we're quickly introduced to the warmer, less well-known countryside of the River Lot.

Perhaps a little like the Dordogne of three decades ago, it remains a part of France where time seems to have stood still, with picturesque villages and air as pure as the intoxicating red wine produced in the area.

The Lot is France's seventh-longest river and, chugging through the water at a stately pace, we form an intimate relationship with her virtues and foibles. Summer in the Lot offers a better than average chance of good weather – and we are in luck. For the best part of the week, the sun shines almost incessantly from a near-cloudless sky.

The great pleasure of the much meandering Lot is its variety. With each bend a different view is revealed: a hilltop ruin here, a tiny port there and acres of vineyards of, predominantly, the Malbec grapes for velvety Cahors wine. Another advantage of this mode of transport is being able to stop when the mood dictates. You carry no schedule or latent concerns about finding a hotel room for the night. Your bed travels with you.

River cruising has come a long way since days of damp post-war family boating holidays on the Broads. Modern boats are comfortable, well furnished and equipped (the most important item is probably a decent corkscrew).

With autumn approaching, an early morning mist hangs over the water like a damp blanket. Our routine is always the same. As the sun breaks through, one of the group is deputed to find a boulangerie for fresh rolls and croissants. Over breakfast on deck we plan the day: how far we're going to travel, how many locks we have to negotiate and, of course, this being France, where to stop for lunch.

After breakfast, we're on our way, purring along at a steady 4mph with plenty of time to savour the scenery – dramatic limestone gorges and thick woodland. The stillness of our progress is broken only by the chug of the engine and the occasional splash of a moorhen landing on the water. When a lock looms on the horizon, it's all hands on deck as the boat must be secured by rope to the shore before the "locking through" process can begin.

At such times, patience is a virtue. The time taken getting through the lock depends on the queue. Upon approach on one particular occasion, our captain (not your correspondent, I hasten to add) managed to hit a bank. An overhanging branch upended the deck table, distributing the sun umbrella, sundry plates and glasses overboard, much to the merriment of spectators nearby.

In the riverside village of Vers, we met an English couple, Sally and Jeffery Stride, who arrived here in the 1970s as penniless artists when their van broke down. The local mayor took pity and offered them a rent-free flat. The Strides stayed and prospered to the extent that their work adorns the walls of Number 10 Downing Street.

Another place with instant appeal is Cahors, where the river seems to go back on itself, as if it's forgotten something, leaving the town imprisoned in a tight bend. This impressive town, the capital of the old province of Quercy, is really two places in one. The main drag – Boulevard Gambetta – separates the tightly-packed houses of the eastern medieval part from the more spacious 18th century villas, parks and gardens to the west.

Cahors is a Roman town which prospered in the Middle Ages. It's an easy place to get to know, small and homely, full of cheerfully busy bars and restaurants, a covered market, and impressive buildings like the 12th century cathedral and the Renaissance Archdeacon's House.

Unique to Cahors are les jardins secret (the town's secret gardens). There are more than 20 of these oases of green, created by one Patrick Charoy, the city's enterprising director of open spaces, to use unwanted scraps of land. The gardens all have different themes.

I particularly liked the Jardin Mauresque; Arabesque to a tee with its tinkling fountains and exotic scent of patchouli. There's also a Jardin d'Ivresse – Garden of Inebriation – appropriately a vineyard – and a Jardin du Savoir, in the grounds of Cahors' Blood Transfusion Service where, it will come as no surprise, all flowers are red.

But, after a week on the water, what becomes etched in the memory is not the stunning scenery and towns like Cahors with its secret gardens, memorable though they are. It's the sheer joy of discovering a part of France that is still, surprisingly, something of a closed book to many Francophiles.

GETTING THERE AND HOW TO BOOK

Tim Ware travelled along the Lot with Hoseasons Holidays, which offers seven nights' self-catering on a boat sleeping eight from 1,355, excluding travel costs. The operator also fixes flights into Toulouse/Bordeaux, or Eurotunnel crossings for 500-mile drive to the Lot.

Hoseasons reservations: 0844 847 1170 and www.hoseasons.co.uk.

Destination information from Maison de la France, 300 High Holborn, London WC1V 7JH, on 09068 244 123 (premium rate call) and