Chas Hardern BoatsBoat Holidays,  in or near to Tarporley

Canal breaks on UK canals are quite unlike any other experience. Both in the variety of the surroundings and in actually having time to look at them, canal holiday boat hire provides an escape from the rush and monotony of ordinary life.

But there is also a magic at work. Sometimes it is the looking glass magic of familiar scenes viewed from a new angle and in a different light – these are the rural stretches, the fields with the inquisitive sheep and cattle, the swans bringing their dignified selves to accept your bits of bread, the ducks who loudly demand the same, the endless variety of trees and bushes and flowers, of flying and swimming and scuttling wildlife, the nice humpy bridges.

And the industrial stretches have a curious and potent charm all their own – you often have a feeling of having dropped through time straight back into history. Much of the old workmanship is so good and so enduring, the old warehouses and wharfs and tunnels with their beautifully set bricks are memorials of the strength and assurance of a bygone age.

Then there are the huge embankments, the aqueducts, the deep, still cuttings where the trees twist into fantastic shapes as they somehow cling to the rocky sides, and bridges incredibly high and slender soaring up into misty shade. Canal holiday boat hire opens up a world only seen in dreams, or occasionally glimpsed in a very old engraving!