Montargis to Paris: Loing Valley by Barge and Bike

Day 1 – Montargis | Embarkation
Board your barge in Montargis from 2 p.m. and settle into your cabin. The captain, crew and tour leader welcome you, your bike is fitted and you take a short test ride. After dinner your tour leader walks you through Montargis, the second town of the Loiret after Orléans. The 16th-century fire took the royal residence, but the canals are still there, banked with flowers.

Day 2 – Montargis loop | 45 km
You ride out to Château-Renard to see the ruins of a 10th-century castle, then stop at a living apiculture museum where beekeepers work the hives and you taste the honey. The river Ouanne leads you quietly back to Montargis.

Day 3 – Cepoy lock to Néronville | 39 km (46 km long option)
Breakfast while you sail to the lock of Cepoy, then follow the Loing to Ferrières, a medieval town whose old centre has been beautifully kept and whose narrow streets hide a splendid monastery. On to Egréville, a commercial crossroads whose markets and fairs were renowned for centuries, and the sculpture garden Jardin Bourdelle with its 57 monumental bronzes by Antoine Bourdelle. You end the day in rural Néronville.

Day 4 – Néronville to Nemours | 29 km (43 km long option)
Today's country was already farmed in Gallo-Roman times. You climb to Château-Landon, a fortified town set on its rock, with the 13th-century Abbey of St-Séverin. Later the sandstone rocks of Nemours appear and you rejoin the barge in town, where the castle of 1120 now houses the prehistory museum of the Île-de-France.

Day 5 – Nemours to Moret-sur-Loing | 32 km (43 km long option)
You stay in the Loing valley, calling at Grez-sur-Loing, an artists' haunt in the early 1900s, then at Bourron-Marlotte, whose town hall holds a handful of fine impressionist canvases. The night is at Moret-sur-Loing, a walled medieval town on the river where Sisley found his subject.

Day 6 – Moret-sur-Loing to Melun | 40 km
A day in the forest of Fontainebleau. First the town and its palace, long the favourite of French kings for the hunting around it, with a museum devoted to Napoleon. Then Barbizon, where landscape painters settled from the 1830s and founded the Barbizon School; the local museum tells the story. You finish in Melun, once known as the domain of the widowed queens of France. No dinner on board tonight, so pick a restaurant in town.

Day 7 – Melun to Paris | 31 km
The city gets closer and the traffic with it. You ride the banks of the Seine as far as the lock of Evry, rejoin the barge there and sail into Paris with lunch on board. You moor in the centre, a short walk from Notre-Dame. After dinner the tour leader takes you out for a city walk.

Day 8 – Paris | Disembarkation
Breakfast on board, then disembarkation by 9.30 a.m.