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Funnily enough we were only discussing this last night. We cannot remember seeing anyone canoeing/kayaking when we were at the Loire several years ago, however we were at the Gien end of the river and possibly pre-season as it was the end of May. The Loire is a large river at this point wth quite a bit of commercial traffic.

As to thinking that because it is French it will be "as regulated as can be" I find that hard to be believed. We have canoed the Dordogne and the Vezere and found that the regulations are much less than in the UK. My husband is a qualified Kayak/canoe instructor and could not believe the low level of regulation. Saying that, the Dordogne and the Vezere in summer are normally quite shallow and slow flowing with little or no other traffic on (other than the Gabares!!) and you can see many families canoing along the river, often using the boyancy aids as cushions rather than their true purpose. No experience is necessary either.

Janet

I agree about the lack of regulation - almost everywhere you can take a canoe (we have our own) to a river and launch it and then canoe up and down for as long as you want.  Even on the Ardeche (which has a lot of white water rapids) there are loads of people offering canoeing, and again there's no regulation about taking your own canoe on the water.

I wouldn't think the Loire (certainly in the lower regions) would be great for canoeing - there are some enormous commercial barges travelling up and down some sections - we've seen them with their own car on the top and ramps to drive the car off along the way.  Perhaps higher up in the valleys it may be nicer, but it's a wide river and most of its charms are the Chateaux along the banks, rather than the river itself.

Emhh not sure on this,im sure I read somewhere that canoeing on the Loire is not recommended for any but the most experienced due to underlying currents.

There are places if you google but may be worth looking into a bit.

We stayed at Chateau Des Marais close to the Loire with our friends who had Kayaks & open canoes, river was quite fast flowing but we are novices & we did a lot of canoeing while we were there & there were a couple of companys there that did escorted trips, 1 even took canoes upstream on trailer so all you had to do was float along with current.