Barging Europe
It is not our primary intent to provide a travelogue of our ongoing adventures though we will include pages on our annual forays into the European countryside. We got our introduction to the travel side of living on a barge from the website of Bill and Nancy from San Francisco at www.billandnancy.com who were a great help in answering our questions and who have spent hours maintaining a history of their experiences travelling through the same waters that we intend to visit. We don't want to replicate their effort so we won't devote our energies to this area.
This is more of a "how to" website to enable the reader to make choices related to barging in Europe. We will include a section on Options in which we outline the various choices one can make regarding living on board for a week, a month, half the year, or all year. We will also develop a section on how to construct or fit-out a barge, based on our limited but successful building program.
The first section that we are creating is one on Budgeting. This provides information from our experience on what the various componets and systems can be expected to cost assuming you undertake the fit-out yourself. We provide information on why we made systems choices which allows the reader to determine how much to spend on the configurable options as you go through the building process.
Where we have encountered problems of language, licensing, or day to day needs such as health insurance we will share these experiences. We have included a page on Permits under the Options group which gives some insight into the licensing and residence permits one needs in Holland. As we get familiar with the requirements in France we will upgrade this page. It is our hope that more people will take up this wonderful lifestyle in one of the several ownership or residence options. It is, after all, a great way to keep young and an absolutely marvelous way to enjoy the cultural and scenic pleasures of Europe.
We have recently added a link to both a lovely castle on the Meuse, just south of Namur, and a treasure of photographs taken all over Europe. Click on Great Link, above, and enjoy cruising on the computer.
We welcome your comments and questions, so don't hesitate to contact us. For information on a number of boaters who live on board as we do you may be interested in the book A Home Afloat by Gary Cookson, which gives some insight into our homes, lives, likes and dislikes. Gary's web page is at www.ahomeafloat.com
663 metres across the Loire River.
