Sleep or eat crêpes in a lock
A different option for summer vacations that include water, dry land, nature, rural, cultural and gastronomic tourism. An experience three chic.
Since the end of the trade routes through the canals of France, they began to be used for leisure and recreation with the attraction of their multiple locks that save the unevenness of the rivers of Brittany. For years these canals and their locks in the Breton region have been a charming tourist destination. But only two years ago, they decided to promote, in addition, the r recovery and restoration of the 156 ‘lockers’ houses’ throughout the entire fluvial zone. A project that has included everything from rental of toues cababanées (or cabin boats) to floating hotels, festivals on the river or bike rides along its banks and that this year has new additions.
In the Canal d'Ille-et-Rance , for example, in one of its 11 locks in 37km, in La Petite Madeleine, it has opened L'Ille Floating . Its owner, Catherine Saint-James, offers accommodation in the cabin boats, in the restored stables attached to the main house or on a yacht installed in the garden. Rent bikes, offer picnics with local products and, as the founder of the jazz festival at the locks, organizes cultural tours. For example: a night with a concert, or a night with theater.
Near this riverside rural lodging, is the Crêperie by Myriam Billiard, who converted another of these small and charming lock houses into a restaurant and bar, where she serves the traditional crêpes and galettes, indoors or on her terrace on the edge of the canal. It can be reached by river, but also on foot or by bike.
In addition to accommodation, there are lock houses converted into workshops, such as the one in Laetitia Lavieville, that she uses it to create her iron works and to expose them to all these tourists who do not want a beach or a mountain, but a river.
Your accommodation in a lock in French Brittany