''Rosa'' is a French

hotel barge A hotel barge (fr. ''péniche hôtel'') is a barge that has been built or converted to serve as a hotel or other kind of lodging. Hotel barges are generally found on rivers and canals in Europe, and may be used for river cruises or permanently mo ...

of Dutch origin. Since 1990 she has been offering cruises to international tourists on the Canal de Garonne in the Nouvelle Aquitaine region of South West France.. The waterway authority

Voies Navigables de France (VNF, en, Navigable Waterways of France) is the French navigation authority responsible for the management of the majority of France's inland waterways network and the associated facilities—towpaths, commercial and leisure ports, lock-keeper's ...

reported in 2014 that there were around 80 hotel barges operating on the inland waterways. They keep alive the tradition of the boatmen (''mariniers'') who have declined in number from thousands in the post-World War II years to just a few hundred today.

History

''Rosa'' was built in

Dedemsvaart Dedemsvaart ("Dedem's Canal") (Dutch Low Saxon: ''De Voart'') is a town in Overijssel, the Netherlands. Overview The town is located along an old canal, also called , which is the source of the village's name. The canal lost its commercial imp ...

, the Netherlands, in 1907, as a

klipper Klipper is a clipboard manager for the KDE interface. It allows users of Unix-like operating systems An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer ...

style barge. She was converted to a

in 1990, to cruise on the Canal de Garonne. She was initially named ''Renaissance''. She was refurbished in 2010.

Hotel barge

''Rosa'' has four double cabins allowing it to carry up to 8 passengers. She also has separate crew quarters which house the crew of four. The crew consists of the tour director, pilot, chef, and housekeeper. ''Rosa'', along with the '' Anjodi'', was featured in the 10-part BBC Series about Chef Rick Stein's six-week journey from

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...

aboard the ''Rosa'' on the Canal de Garonne and Canal du Midi.

External links

Rosa
the owner's website

References

File:Rosa-cruising-3.jpg File:Rosa-salon-entree.jpg File:Rosa-salon-dining.jpg File:Rosa-floorplan.jpg Hotel barges Barges of France Barges Hotels in France 1907 ships {{France-hotel-struct-stub