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It's 4pm on a mid-summer Sunday afternoon in the belly of the Burgundy vineyards. Heat crowds the old town square. Barely a whisper carries across it. It's so still that the slam of a door now would seem like an earthquake.

We are sitting in the shade of a purple, white and black striped awning at the edge of Santenay square. What might prosaically be described as lunch (duck pate, boeuff bourgignon and guinea fowl among other dishes) is drawing to a close and I am contemplating a selection of runny country cheeses as a last drop of primrose coloured wine falls into my glass with a hollow glug.

Lunch in Santenay is on the second full day of an eight day journey from the old mining town of Montchanin, on the Canal du Centre, to Branges near the end of the rustic River Seille. We had set off from the Connoisseur cruisers base at Montchanin on a finally cooling July Friday evening. We hadn't got far that night, just far enough to be taught the basics of manoeuvring our 42ft (12.73 metres) long craft by Ian, the English base-manager, and to moor up at the canal side ready for our first attempts at cooking in the boat's galley. Our cruiser's sliding canopy enables us to eat al fresco (which we continue to do throughout the trip, stocking up from supermarkets along the way) and then to close up as darkness descends and mosquitos threaten.

Our first full day on the canal is somewhat a baptism of fire, or rather of water, as we negotiate no less than eighteen locks on our way downstream to a picturesque port in the village of St Leger. We have our inevitable crash early, at the second lock, as I try to compensate for a slight side swell by steering too far into it, and end up hitting the entrance to the lock with the boat's back end. Still, there's no damage done and the young female lock-keeper's smile is reassuring, rather than long-suffering.

Going through the locks soon becomes a familiar ritual. On approach you wait for a green traffic light before entering the lock and then ease the boat in (using reverse to slow once you're fully in), before lassoing a couple of lockside bollards with on-board ropes. These are then used to keep the cruiser steady as water sluices out of (or into) the lock. You need at least two able-bodied adults aboard for this process and it can be quite hard work, especially when you reach the eighteenth of the day.

Generally, however, on this canal, there's a lock-keeper on hand to oversee what you're doing and give you a hand. They're an eclectic bunch, occasionally laconic but never unfriendly. If you can chat with them a little in French so much the better - they're often a useful source of local information like which is the best restaurant in the next village or where to buy fresh bread for breakfast.

Drifting along at no more than 6 kilometres per hour - unofficial canal cruising etiquette is "Don't make waves" - it takes no time at all to get in sync with the relaxing rhythms of the Burgundy countryside. Although it is France's oldest working canal, opened in 1794 to service the area's mining industry, the Canal du Centre progresses prettily South-east toward Santenay and beyond to its confluence with the river Saone. At first its banks are lined with campion, vetch, roses, bulrushes and meadowsweet and later with poplar trees heavy with overhanging mistletoe. No wonder France is the country of lovers.

Moored at the village of St Leger, on our second night, we share a sublime sunset with hot air balloonists gliding above the nearby vineyards in the slim evening light, excited guests at a country wedding, and a surprisingly fetching rat traversing the canal in search of dinner! This latter sighting's a timely reminder that while the canal's murky water may look inviting in the heat of the day, swimming's not an option for cooling off.

Actually, by now, performing involuntary yoga to shower aboard the boat is becoming part of the treat of a life on a canal ripple. We're settling into a daily routine, which begins not long after sun rise (well, around 7.30am) with a jaunt to the nearest boulangerie (either by foot or using the on-board bikes) to pick up the obligatory baguettes, crumbly croissants and painfully tempting pains-au-chocolat. Gourmand's breakfast over it's time for some idle cruising, the odd lock (we're getting the hang of them now) and ahm, lunch, either in an auberge with its own pontoon, or on board, tied to a grassy bank. For a holiday which is supposedly all about movement it's remarkable how much time you can spend sitting still. But then, why hurry? It's neither a marathon nor a sprint and Branges, our destination, is no more than a total of three full days cruising away anyhow.

So, afternoons usually follow the same pattern as mornings with a short dawdle downstream (two hours maximum), mooring near a small village and as the day loses its fire, the performing of tasks such as shopping, filling up with fresh water (the tank needs replenishing every other day) and scrubbing the decks. Evenings loll on in a similarly demanding fashion with aperitifs, dinners (at home or at large) and candlelit conversations as night falls. Our cruiser's three bedrooms (and settee conversion) comfortably accommodates four adults (although the children's bunks are a squeeze for a six footer) and the jiggle of the cruiser in the water (and the fresh air and the wine) soon usher in sleep.

If it sounds like one long round of gastronomic experiences that's exactly what it is. What else would you expect of Burgundy? The area around Santenay is home to the smooth, delicate red Cote de Beaune wines and golden whites like Pouilly-Fuisse, Bourgogne Aligote and Rully also abound. And there are caves (wine cellars) all along this route to sell them to you.

But it would be a mistake to suggest that eating, drinking fine wine and the odd bit of lock-negotiation is the whole story of a trip like this. After a couple more days on the Canal du Centre we reach the broad sweep of a real river, the Saone - by dropping down eleven metres in the Mother of all locks - and it's the equivalent of turning off an unsealed road onto a freeway. It's on this river that we find our Burgundian history, at the cobbled medieval town of Chalon-sur Saone, and further south in Romanesque Tournus.

Chalon's winding pedestrianised streets, timbered facades, eleventh century cathedral and old market square - once the venue for thriving Middle Ages pelt fairs - could alone fill a day. But the town's most exciting claim to fame is as the birthplace of the father of photography Joseph Nicephore Niepce (born 1865) and Chalon celebrates that fact in an intriguing photography museum. You'll find some of the earliest cameras ever made here, including that with which Niepce captured the first ever negative photographic image in 1816, even the odd latter-day anomaly such as a camera in the shape of a tuna, all in a display that's encouragingly interactive. Downriver in Tournus the old town houses are equally entertaining, with their spouting gargoyles, rickety spiral staircases and their tricky transoms and mullions. The town also has an imposing Romanesque Abbey (of St Philibert) but the real star here is the Musee Bourgignon, housed in a seventeenth century mansion, which recreates past scenes of rural and urban Burgundy life using wax models wearing insane hats and even more insane grins.

If turning onto the Saone from the Canal du Centre was like joining a three lane highway from an unsealed road, then leaving the Saone to navigate the tiny Seille river to the end of our journey is like turning off the freeway onto a footpath. If it's possible then this dribble of water encourages an even slower tempo and we leave ourselves three nights and two full days to enjoy it intimately. Here we tackle our first non-automatic locks (with strong-arm tactics) and cruise upstream between banks of willow herb, yellow water lilies and ragwort. Here we watch gaggles of famous (so-named by local guide books) white Burgundy cows swish, gangly grey herons flit and swallows swoop. Here, in riverside restaurants, we dine on local specialities like Bressian (country) chicken and frogs legs, as the sun dips pink and the landscape is reflected like a Monet painting in the water.

Reflecting on a trip, sensual images just keep recurring. Like the oven-hot afternoon my partner and I cycled into a field full of sunflowers...

Unfortunately, this journey is no longer possible with any cruising company - a great loss.

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