Peaceful and serene - that's the Canal du Loing, the Canal de Briare and the Canal latéral à la Loire, built with one aim in mind: providing boats with a link between the rivers Loire and Seine. 
Locks, canal viaduct and reservoirs are solid reminders of the heyday of waterway navigation, which provided whole generations of watermen with livelihood. 
The memory of those times will stay with you on your journey, accompanying you from bank to bank, like a permanent invitation to step back in time… 

The feat of linking the Loire and the Seine was made possible by the successive construction of the Canal de Briare, the Canal du Loire, and finally the Canal latéral à la Loire. Three stories which made considerable changes to France's economic landscape as well as the physical landscape on the banks of the Loire and nearby.

Improving supply to Paris: that was the major task behind the construction of the Canal de Briare, begun on the order of Henri IV and his minister Sully in 1604. Completed in 1642, it was followed by the Canal du Loing, built during the regency of Philippe of Orléans between 1720 and 1723. Over a century later, in 1838, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, the Canal latéral à la Loire extended the waterway network from Briare to Digoin, then to Roanne.