Beavering away in the lovely Loire

Richard Collins on the wonders of France’s great untamed river.

THERE are hardly any real rivers left in Europe; all of the great watercourses have been tamed. Hemmed in by dykes and their flows controlled by weirs, dams and sluices, they have become glorified canals. The Rhine and Danube burst their banks occasionally but even these mavericks do what they’re told most of the time; it takes gigantic amounts of rainwater to make them lose their tempers and run amuck. For wild and free rivers, you must go to Africa.

But are there a few exceptions to the general rule? It may be the misguided impression of a gullible starry-eyed tourist, but the Loire always seemed to me to have a mind of its own. This, the longest river in France, rises in the Massif Central and flows in a great semi-circular sweep to the Atlantic, west of Nantes. I have visited its banks many times and it has never looked the same on successive occasions.