The canal du midi

Just like everyone else in the Northern hemisphere it's time for our summer cruise and as you all know by now, if there's no pics, there's no cruise.

Over the next few posts we'll give you the background how, what, why and when the canal du Midi canal was built 'Between Two Seas' or as the French call it the 'Entre Deux Mers' from Bordeaux on the Atlantic coast to Sete on the Mediterranean sea.

Hopefully you will find it as enjoyable and interesting as us.

First, this is a photo our boat 'Snow Mouse' on her winter berth in Narbonne, France.
She's a British built Broom 42' round bilge low wash displacement cruiser, designed by the British marine architect John Bennett.
His commission was to design an easily handled 9 berth roomy hire boat cruiser for the Emerald Star hire boat company in Carrick-on-Shannon in Ireland.
Emerald Star was part of the Guinness group, when Guinness was taken over the company felt that hire boats didn't fit their portfolio as a drinks company.
Emerald Star was then sold to Le Boat (a division of the Tui travel group).

We bought her from Le Boat and then transferred her to Belturbet, County Cavan in Ireland for the first part of her transformation into a comfortable liveaboard home.
The following year we cruised her from Belturbet to Dunkirk in France. You can read all about that wonderful adventure here on TF as the post 'Ireland to the Mediterranean Part1, or in my e-book/paperback called 'Encore' from Amazon.
The next spring we cruised her from Dunkirk to, Belgium, Holland, Germany and down to our winter berth in Narbonne in the South of France, that spawned another book 'Windmills and Wine' also available as an e-book or paperback from Amazon.

Photo's.
1, 'Snow Mouse' our floating home.

2,Emeral Star hire boat base in Carrick-on-Shannon.

3. Self explanatory.

Canal du Midi is a very nice place, only pitty is number of Platane trees they had to cut due to trees "decease" along the canal.

L

Looking forward to following...

Welcome all aboard.
As Lou tribal points out there were over 40,000 plain trees cut down due to a disease which was 'suggested' came from American ammunition boxes during WW2, considering this part of Vichy France wasn't invaded I think someone was chancing their arm for compensation during the Obama era. The plane trees (which incidentally, the different coloured patchy bark gave the first idea for military camouflage clothing), were originally planted to a, reduce evaporation, b, the root growth anchor the banks and c, to provide shade for barge operators.

WHO designed the canal du Midi ?
Msr Pierre Paul Riquet from Beziers who was a local farmer and salt tax collector.

WHAT was the purpose ?
To be able to transport goods across the French isthmus to avoid vessels taking the 3,000 mile plus journey though the straits of Gibraltar and to stimulate trade in wine and grain in the region.


WHY was it so strategically important ?
Because the British fleet under the direction of Horatio (later Lord) Nelson kept capturing or blowing up French vessels. Salpetre to manufacture gunpowder for the French naval fleet was a favourite target.

WHEN was the canal started /
Construction began in 1667 and it opened for traffic on the 15th of May 1681.

HOW was it built ?
Using manual labour including many women, Msr Paul Riquet mainly followed the contours of the land and built one of the very first canal aqueducts in the world at Redorte to cross a river. He also built a massive reservoir at the summit to feed both the canal du Midi and as we shall discover later, the canal de Lateral a la Garonne.


The canal is 240 kms long and has 91 locks. The locks are 30.65 metres/100' 6'' long, 5,80 metres/19' wide.

The barges could carry up to 200 metric tonnes and were behemoths in their time when a horse and cart could only manage 5/6 tonnes.

Correction. I said in an earlier post the trees were plain trees, in fact they are correctly named, plane trees. Apologies.

Now lets orientate you so you can understand the descriptions better.

Photo's.
1, Looking at the map you will see the red line depicts the canal du Midi from the Mediterranean port of Sete to Toulouse.
The green line depicts the canal lateral a la Garonne.

2,Here you can see a little better the canal du Midi to Toulouse, then the canal du lateral a la Garonne. Both are known as the 'Entre Deux Mers' the entrance to two seas. Most cruising people refer to the whole thing as the canal du Midi.

3, A more geographical indication.
Looking in the bottom right hand corner you will see a little spur canal going to the Mediterranean sea. This is called the canal du Robine on which, our home port, the ancient Roman town of Narbonne is situated.

So before we leave to start our cruise I will show you some photo's in and around Narbonne.

Photo's.
1, Roman mile marker, the Romans built these not only as mile markers but also to bolster the morale of the marching troops who could count off the miles to the next rest halt.

2, This is a giant Roman Amphorae for display on a roundabout.
Narbonne was the largest garrison town outside of Rome during the occupation around the turn of the century.

3, This is an actual Roman bridge dismantled stone by stone and rebuilt as a feature on a roundabout.

4, Roman sign post.

5, Roman galleys would arrive at the mouth of Port la Nouvelle where the river Aude disgorged into the sea and unload their cargo onto horses and carts for transport up to Narbonne.
The Roman governor of Narbonne, Agrippa (so called because he was born breach birth) decreed that the river bed be excavated so that the Roman galleys could dismast their sails and be pulled up to Narbonne by horse or mule for discharge, thereby cutting out the time consuming double handling and transportation.

6, To cross the river Aude, a bridge was built in Roman style with a road down the centre and lined with shops and houses.
This is one of the finest surviving examples in Europe today.

7,This is the actual foundation of the Roman road, looking dead centre between the buildings is the Roman road, the via Domitia.

8, Roman anchor.

I was still hoping to identify a bunch of French people or resident over here, one should never give up hope about anything . I will enjoy to read your summer cruise along the lovely Canal du Midi, a peaceful waterway winding through the southwest of France.

As we've seen from the previous post Narbonne had enjoyed prosperity since the Roman times and was already connected to the sea.
When the canal opened in 1681 it was originally called the Royal canal du Languedoc and passed some 60 kilometres North of Narbonne and brought untold wealth to the region.
Naturally Narbonne wanted some of the action so a short section of canal was built Northwards from Narbonne to connect with the Royal canal. The town also enjoyed prosperity as can be seen by the fine merchants town houses with ornate masons carvings around windows and doors in the old town.
Narrow side streets kept out the sun and funnelled any breezes to cool the residents.
After the revolution and the communists/socialists took power anything 'Royal' was taboo so the canal was renamed the canal du Midi.
When the canal was dug Northwards to join up with the canal du Midi it passed through the small town of Salleles du Aude, so named because of the nearby river Aude and by chance just 2 kilometres out of town an old Roman pottery.

This pottery was sited here by the Romans because of the argile(clay), as there was no fresh water they did what Romans do and built an aqueduct from the nearby mountains to supply the pottery.

Photo's.
1, Amphorae on display in the museum. These were the Roman equivalent of a pallet. They were made in various sizes and when filled could be laid flat in the bottom of a boat or cart so that they interlocked.

2,These photo's were taken in the museum and show also wicker baskets used to transport goods.

3,These are amphorae that haven't been 'fired' in the ovens.

4,Remains of the small aqueduct that supplied the pottery.

5,This model in the museum shows how the amphorae were stacked for 'firing' in the oven.

6, This is the remains of one of 7 ovens that were used on this site. They used local cut wood and when in use could reach up to 900 degrees. The one intact remaining oven is used occasionally for demonstrations and of course everything thing is monitored and filmed for reference and education purposes.

7, A reconstructed Roman house.

8.If you think bricks and tiles are relatively new inventions you'd be wrong. The Romans also invented concrete which they called Putalanium which was used for building harbours, foundations etc.

9. These is a replica herb garden from that era. Various plants were used for treating things like ladies menstrual problems, gastric sicknesses, headaches and various creams for skin ailments from locally grown plants. These were placed in very small amphorae and the top was hermetically sealed before distribution.

The canal du Robine which we're travelling on at the moment has automated locks, the old lock keepers houses are either vacant or have been bought for a low price by the old lock keepers.
Even with automation humans tend to screw it up from time to time !
Children love to get off the boat to go and push the buttons to operate the lock gates, unfortunately with no guidance.
When they push a button if there's no instant clap of thunder, flashing lights or bells ringing, they push another button which confuses the system, then it stops working.
The roving lock keeper then has to be called to reset the system.
9 times out of 10 people don't read the instructions for lock operation, so adults aren't without fault too.

Why do I rant and complain about it ?

I had to spend 1 and a half hours baking in direct sunlight at 35 degrees centigrade waiting for the lock keeper to finish his lunch break (the locks close from mid-day to 1 o'clock for lunch break, even though they're automatic) before coming to reset the system after a 9/10 year old boy screwed it up.

You may also notice that the stone built locks on the canal du Midi have a concrete extension.
When the canals throughout France were built everyone had a different agenda, no two were exactly the same so goods had to be transhipped from one size of barge to another, typical SNAFU.
In 1877 a minister of public works was appointed called Charles Freycinet who realised how much time/money was being wasted transhipping goods and he gave a million Francs to have all the canals and locks standardised to what is still known today as the Freycinet dimensions.
This also upped the standard payload to 350 tonnes, truly a giant of a transporter in the 1800's.
By 1856 the canal was carrying 111 million tonnes of cargo and over 1 million people.

Charles Freycinet also gave the new fangled railways 3 million of a grant which sounded the death knell for the canals.
Ironically French trains 'drive on the left' because they were designed by an English engineer called Thomas Brassey.

This post refers to the parts of our summer cruise.
If you wish the full description of the whole length of the canal I've written a book called 'How To Cruise Between Two Seas' some 5 years ago which is available from Amazon as an eBook or paperback.
Thank you for your support.

Reaching the 'T' junction we turned to port onto the canal du Midi and our first port of call was La Somail a beautiful village famous for 2 things, its old Roman Auberge (now a hotel) and a bookshop !

The lady who owns the bookshop was originally from Paris and is reputed to have the building and all the books it contained transported to La Somail.
Whatever the truth it's a fabulous tribute to her, obviously its predominant language is French but there are also sections in other languages and you can find books on all subjects, if you're a book lover like me you'll be in literary heaven
If you search carefully you may find rare books, a friend of mine bought an original book on golf for 12 Euro and it was valued at 2,000 in Ireland so he presented it to the golf club of Ireland as a gift. Did you know that Golf stands for Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden ! I think it spoils a good walk myself.

Photo's.
1, Hotel barge moored in front of the old Roman Auberge. A barge in France is called a Peniche (Peneesh).

2,This is an ice house which was used for the guests in the Auberge. When it froze people would collect the ice and store it in here to use later in their drinks.

3,This old Peniche has found a new life as a canalside shop.

4,5,6,7, Inside the library.

8, This young lady accepts books, cleans, places plastic covers and indexes them

9.An old wooden British Cruiser passing under the road bridge.

10, With these fresh figs we could start a new movement !

The town of Homps has a hire boat base and some overnight moorings and a rare 32 amp electricity hook up, the only one I've seen in France.

More photo's to enjoy.

1,2, Hotel barge Caroline exiting from a lock, the photo's aren't great as it was taken in blazing sunshine.

3, The canal at Homps with the hire boat base to the right under the footbridge.

4, This peniche Berendina was owned by an American gentleman and it now plies its trade as a hotel barge under British ownership.

5,Canal du Midi with the Alaric mountains to the left of the photo.

6, An old bollard with ancient rope marks from the heyday of commercial traffic. The stump of a plane tree cut down due to disease.

7,diseased plane trees lining the canal awaiting the timber jacks.

8,From the canal looking left, in the foreground the canal bank, wheat fields and vineyards with a backdrop of the Alaric mountains.

9,For those who aren't aware this is an Aloe Vera plant.

10, This portion of the canal is what people associate the canal du Midi.

Continuing our journey I know from past experience that this section is very hard work and slow going. The reason is the frequency of locks, the volume of inexperienced hire cruiser holiday makers along this particular section. On the canal du Midi there are lock keepers at each lock and who live in houses provided by the VNF organisation that employs them and runs the French canal system.
Being French government employees they work a 35 hour week and of course take their days off and holiday entitlement, in their place are temporary keepers who are usually staff taken on for the summer duration. These keepers don't have the experience of the 'old hands' to facilitate smooth running. To be honest they certainly need a lot of patience when you see some of the temporary skippers antics.

Photo 1.
Some of the double and triple locks look daunting to the inexperienced.

2, This old guy with his donkey is termed an SDF sans domicile, homeless.
He doesn't seem to care as he follows the canal path.

We called in at one of my favourite places along the way.
Here you can sit on the terrace under and umbrella of trees and eat a delicious meal.
A 3 course lunch of Gazpacho, Roast duck and Dessert cost just 13,95 Euro per person including a pichet of wine, the fresh food is cooked before your eyes in the open air kitchen by father and son chefs.

This family run friendly business and to top it off there are a couple of chickens running around picking up scraps given by diners.
These chickens are tame and as cute as could be.

Next door to the restaurant is a building looking like an old church, in fact its a winery and the thick stone walls keep it lovely and cool, you can take a tour around the winery to see how its made and processed and of course buy bottles of local wines.

Photo's.
Apologies for them being horizontal, they were taken by phone, even though I righted/saved them they still come out horizontal when I uploaded them.

1, 2, Chickens looking for chips !

3, Entrance to the restaurant

4, This old barge once transported barrels of wine from around this region along the canal du Midi up to Bordeaux port from where it was shipped around the world.. It was refurbished by a group of retired artisan shipbuilders who try and pass on their skills to younger people. It travels along the canal and attends various functions and villages showing people how life was 2 centuries ago.

Approaching the little port of Trebes we pass up through a triple lock.
In the small town of Trebes you can moor on the left for free, on the right is a Le Boat hire boat base and you can moor for 20 Euro's a night with electric and water (if they have space).
When we were there it was still full of hire boats awaiting holidaymakers. It can work out as an expensive holiday by the time you travel there, hire the boat, plus your normal food & drink and any diesel you use.
Cheaper hire boat prices might encourage more people.
From Trebes, you can take a No 10 bus for 1 Euro (service every half hour)to visit nearby Carcassonne and it'll drop you of at the castle.

Photo's
1,There's a sign at each lock giving distances and lock names. This also shows that there's an intermediary control nearby, they simply take a note of your boat name and verify by computer if you've paid for your cruising permit. These permits can be bought for 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or 1 year. We buy the yearly permit and if bought before the end of March earns a 10% discount.

2, Entrance to the triple lock.

3,4, Looking back down.

5, I know you guys like to look at different types of boats and get a bit of background knowledge.
This is one of Le Boats 'Horizon' class boats, these only started to arrive into the fleet last year.
Le Boat bought a very experienced and respected boat building company in England called Porter & Haylett, after a year or so they began to bring in cheap Polish labour.
They then opened a factory in Poland and transferred all the equipment and tools to there, some of the craftsmen and engineers were taken to Poland to help set up production.
Once it was all running smoothly they were made redundant, the factory now runs totally on cheap Polish labour.
The quality of build is simply not up to the old Porter & Haylett standards.
If you forgive my baseness there's an expression in Ireland which says about something that looks good with no substance.
'It's all fur coat and no knickers'.
The Irish are straight talkers or to quote another expression 'There's no back doors on them'.

Carcassonne, best known for it's castle that's one of the most visited monument sites in France. The English visited in 1355 but didn't manage to capture it after fierce bombardment. If you are there on the evening of the 14th of July there is a massive firework display with classical music depicting this event.
If you are a cinema goer you may remember 'Robin Hood Prince of Thieves' with Kevin Costner, parts of it were filmed around the battlements.
When we arrived it was a festival of music week and we were entertained by various groups, some for the young with C rap music ? and others for old wrinkly rockers like us that played our kind of music from Elvis to Aretha Franklin etc etc it was free for every one to enjoy but as the stage was a couple of hundred metres from the port you were not going to get an early nights sleep.

Photo's,
1,2,3 Carcassonne castle. I can't justify a drone so stock photo's suffice.

4,
Carcassonne railway station (le Gare) there are flags and a poor banner above the façade put there by striking railway workers. Unions were once very powerful in France and they would strike at the drop of a hat, the workers continued to be paid and in the past the socialist government always caved in. With the current prime minister they have met their match and don't get paid if they go on strike which is helping to concentrate their minds, currently only about 15% are still on strike.

5,7
Entrance to the port of Carcassonne.
The lock keeper, port captains office, shower block in the building on the left.

6, These cute little ducklings are taking advantage of the empty lock to take their lunch under the watchful eye of Mama who shoo's them out if the lock gates begin to close.

8. Site of the concert. Very cleverly the French have built an underground car park beneath this open park space.

9,
Decorative parasols down the main street.

10, Spare a thought for this poor guy trying to get his deliveries done.

Here's a bit more information about the castle as it's the central attraction in Carcassonne.
It's stone walls are 1.9 kms around.
There are 52 massive towers and during its bloody past it's Roman tower held Cathars during the Catholic inquisitions.
The Cathars were a separate religious order from around this region and that nice Catholic church of religion and peace thought they were becoming a threat to their dominance of this area so this nice friendly religion of peace ordered them all wiped out, in the same way and for the same purpose as they annihilated the Knights Templars.
Carcassonne castle was the first to use wooden hoardings (look at the first photo on the previous post) around the top of its wall a, to help protect the defenders and b, to pour boiling water or pitch onto its attackers.

The castle fell into disrepair as its power and dominance diminished over time.
Napoleon refused to pay for its refurbishment and the mayor began a campaign to raise the funds for its restoration, an architect named Eugene Vollet-Duc was engaged to oversee the works as and when funds became available. The castle renovated you see today is the result.
There are 50 permanent residents in the castle as well as restaurants, shops etc to cater for the tourists.
It's also worth noting that the castle is Carcassonne's biggest tourist money spinner thanks to the foresight of the mayor, followed secondly by the port. During our short visit to the port we could here people from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, England, Scotland, Belgium, Sweden, Germany and of course us Paddy's all speaking English as well as the French tourists.

When the canal du Midi was built the people of Narbonne refused to contribute to the construction of a port so Pierre Paul Riquet chose the natural water course and followed the contour of the hill.
When the canal was finished and the burghers of Carcassonne saw how much money it was generating in trade and how other towns were benefitting from canal traffic they swallowed their pride and had the port excavated and canal re routed through Carcassonne to get their share of the profits.
Thanks to the foresight of that genius canal engineer Pierre Paul Riquet the town is still enjoying the fruits of his brilliance today.
To really appreciate Riquets ingenuity you have to travel the canal and as you do so bear in mind there was no GPS, aerial photography, hydraulic excavators or computers to help him.

Photo's.
1,2, Carcassonne port full of hire boats along with some private ones too.

3, free music festival.

We don't normally do personal photo's so I make an exception.
4,Patrick and Geraldine Butler, our cruising companions.

5. Irish Rambler, (Geoff) with 'Snow Mouse' (Evelyne).

Long before supermarkets one of the traditions in France is to hold twice weekly markets, farmers could sell their fresh home grown produce meet with other producers.
We love them and eat extremely well and economically with healthy food.
It's also a social event as local farmers and neighbours meet up and have a chat.
Food bought here is fresh and untreated with preservatives (you have to tread carefully here as a preservative in France is a Condom) Condom is a town in France.

Photo's.
1, Flowers and friendship underneath a canopy of plane tree's.

2,3, From potato's to peaches.

4,These tomato's are known as the Marmande variety with sweet juicy centre's they also make great stuffed tomato's cooked in the oven, nearly a meal in itself.

5,6 Every variety you can think of, most French people still eat veggies and fruit in season, certainly in the country.

7,A street musician entertains passers by with his accordion.

8,Sadly its time for this hire cruiser to return to base, the boat in front is a daily tour boat.

Come with me on a little trip along Pierre Paul Riquets masterpiece of engineering.

Photo's.
1, Were going up in the world !.

2,Looking out over the canal bank at the vineyards. Now think of the terrain and how the canal was designed to minimize locks to keep the cost down.

3, Lovely friendly lock keeper.

4, The hire boat in the distance is called a 'Vision' and part of Le Boats fleet.
Le boat thought they would go eco friendly and have a hybrid boat fleet to appeal to the greens. Designed by a company with more enthusiasm than experience they were an absolute disaster continually breaking down until finally they ripped out all the electrics and they are now reverted back to a simple diesel driven cruiser.
With an interior layout like a train carriage, long corridor with cabins with a small saloon up at the front. Built badly and bought for 350,000 Euro's each they are now for sale at 250,000 Euros.

5, Before washing machines this is a Lavoire where the ladies would come down to the canal and do the families washing while gossiping as they worked. The washing was hung out to dry on bushes and in this weather sheets would be dry in half an hour. They would hardly have time to ridicule someone's new hairdo !

6,Peace and tranquillity.

7, Small 2 person hire cruiser.

8, Looking out from the canal over rolling barley fields, several farmers were cutting and carrying the grain as we passed.

9.More than boats enjoy the canal, these camping cars are escaping the pace of life too.

10, This beautiful swan is sitting on her eggs just waiting patiently for a miracle of nature.

Our journey takes us along the canal to the town of Castlenaudary, famous for 2 things, it's Cassoulet which is basically a bean (similar to chick peas) stew in tomato sauce with bits of duck in it.
Personally I think its overrated, if you eat it you certainly need to avoid company the next day.
The other thing its famous for is that it's the French basic training base for the French Foreign Legion,
The legion was raised by King Louis Phillipe in 1831 and it's membership is restricted to foreigners.
You must be in France and attend one of their recruitment centre's which are open 24/7 365 days of the year to join and serve a minimum of 7 years.
They form part of the Commando Parachutists brigade but they're not designated special forces such as the British SAS or the US navy seals.
The maximum age for joining is 39 yrs and 6 months and not a second older, just bring along your passport, they ask for a birth certificate but are not a bit fussy if you can't present one.
Squads of these young men can often be seen round 5 am on their early run along the canal towpath.
Photo's aren't allowed.

Castlenaudary was a thriving port during the canals heyday, now its holiday makers in hire boats that are the main customers.

Photo's.
1, Entrance basin to the port.

2, Hire boats awaiting customers, Le Boat's reputation suffered over the last few years due to bad management. It's now American owned and has it's work cut-out to return to its former glory.

3,View of the barge quay where once cargoes were loaded/unloaded.
Now it's a pleasant stopover for us.
Thankfully the burghers have seen sense and reduced the prices to an acceptable level, 16 Euro for 1 night and the subsequent nights at 10 Euro including el electricity and water.

4,Tribute to the canal builder.

5, Self explanatory.

6,Ancient religious cross dated 1809.

7,Canal bridge built in the 17th century, renovated in 1991 and still working.

8,An old wind mill which used to grind corn to flour for export by barge.

An update on the French Foreign Legion.
French nationals are now allowed to join. When you join you surrender your passport, you can then choose any name (as long as it's not offensive) for the duration of your service. At the end of your service you can either recover your birth name or, become a French national under your chosen legion name.
You will not be accepted if you have committed a major crime i.e murder, all other misdemeanours are ignored.
There are many so called 'hard' men who've simply run away, others like my friend from Enniskillen are jilted lovers. I knew the young couple and found out much later the girl was so shocked at the hurt she caused she never married.
When a Legionnaire completes his full military service of 22 years with good conduct many are so institutionalized and have no family, they can then choose to leave, or go to one of the Legionnaire's retirement farms.
The Legion has several farms on which these retired Legionnaires live and work to keep them occupied and active, remember even when they retire these men are still extremely fit.
These farms are self supporting and all the produce is used to feed the Legionnaires battalions, wine from the vineyards, grain made into flour, vegetables, meat, eggs etc.

Now on a lighter note.
This little guy in the photo's below are Coypu or (in French, Ragonda).
They're vegetarian and love French bread, this guy can 'work' the boats better than any beggar. He goes alongside and does a couple of circles, if he sees someone is going to feed him he keeps circling slowly, if not he moves to the next boat.
In an earlier post I mentioned an island that was built in the port of Castlenaudary to provide a windbreak for barges passing through the bridge.
No commercial barges pass now and the island provides a wildlife haven for ducks, geese swans and these coypu who all seem to live happily together and raise their young.

Just before we left Castlenaudary I explained how the Legionnaires aren't particularly keen of photographs being taken of recruits and you know the forums maxim. No photo, no proof.
Here the back of squad disappearing over a bridge on their early morning run after the sergeant gesticulated no **** photo's.
If you've ever been in the services you'll recognize the recruits trademark haircut !

the next section takes us to the summit of the canal du Midi having risen 190 metres from sea level.
To feed the canal Pierre Paul Riquet designed and created the St Ferreol dam which is fed by rivers from the nearby Black mountains. So clever was his design back in the 1600's his dam is still feeding the canal as you read this.
The first stone was laid in 1667 and remember there were no JCB's or computers in the building of this remarkable feat of engineering.

Photo's.
1, The locks can be a bit intimidating for first time boaters.

2,A gentle flight of 3 locks.

3,Vineyards promise our future enjoyment.

4,Lovely lady lock keeper, very helpful.

5,This is an ancient Lavoire where the ladies would bring their clothes to be washed while they gossiped.

6,As you can see here plane trees line the canal, the movement of people/water along the lower sections of the canal du Midi helped to spread the disease.

7,Hire boat enjoying their holidays, there is very little traffic on the section and this is the first boat we've seen today.

8,As the canal follows the contours there are also large fields of barley, sunflowers as well as the vines.

9,Small 2 person hire boat,

10, Camper vans love the tranquillity of the canal and watch enviously as we cruise by.

Up, up and up we came to visit the 'Parting of the Waters'.

Photo's.
1, Self explanatory 16th century graffiti. In fact when the canal was first named it was the Royal canal du Languedoc and many bridges and aqueducts had the royal coat of arms mounted prominently.
During the French revolution the communists destroyed them all.

2,This old converted Peniche 'Tourmente', travels the canal putting on comedy/musical/poetry/shows for local communities.

3,Another old working Peniche converted to live aboard, they rarely move.

4, The old and the new side by side. The little hire boat is built in steel by Linsen of Holland. More famous for expensive steel motor cruisers.

5,6, Self explanatory and the peak of the canal du Midi.

7,This is the feeder from the Ferreol dam.

8,Control light, Red is stop, Red and Green means the lock is being prepared and Green is go.

9, The unique oval shaped locks on the canal du Midi.

10, British wide beam barge.

UNIQUE IN EUROPE !
This is the only place I know in the World where you can take your boat into a motorway service station area. The canal runs just beside it and it was excavated when they built the autoroute. A hire boat company has a base there along with some private boat moorings.
It's called Port Lauragais and it's on the A 16 Autoroute near Toulouse

Photo's.
1, Be patient they'll be in a bottle soon.

2, This is one of Port Lauragais service station restaurants.

3,Want a snooze, here a tent in the shade for you.

4, Even your dogs can stretch their legs and play.

5, 6, Trucks n Caravans.

7,Mums to are catered for.

8, You want a mattress to snooze on ?

9,Or a picnic ?

10, The company that runs/maintains this portion of motorway is called Da Vinci, this is a plan of all the rest areas.

Soldiers and sailors have long been God fearing folk and the old saying that 'There are no atheists in a storm or a foxhole' still rings true.
Bargees are of the same ilk and here on the canal du Midi there was a chapel built for their use.
It happened to be built at a Relais where passengers on the fly boats would eat rest and sleep overnight before continuing their journey.
The horses would be changed also so they could also have a well earned rest.
A fly boat (Bateaux Mouche) was so named because it was towed by galloping horses and 'flew along'.
If you visit Paris and take a trip on the river Seine these excursion boats are still called Bateaux Mouche.

Photo's.
1,2,3. The beautiful Bargee's chapel at the ecluse (lock) Negra.

4,5, ? The European airbus factory is in nearby Toulouse, this guy has a thing about quirky garden 'furniture'.


6,7, Cars and old buses seem to please him too.

As we approach Toulouse, one of France's principal cities we pass the rear of the European Airbus Industry factory, like most premises they are not so attractive from the nether regions.
Sadly also graffiti starts to appear on some bridges, thankfully its not prolific.
As with most waterways you get the untidy, downright filthy and a beautifully maintained gem as you approach main areas of human activity.
Toulouse is also the end of the canal du Midi and the start of the canal Lateral a la Garonne. As I explained earlier this was built to run parallel to the river Garonne which proved to have unreliable water levels.

Photo's.
1, Orientation map. The canal Lateral a la Garonne finishes at Castets. After that it becomes the Bordeaux estuary.

2, Toulouse marina, fairly pricey at 16 Euro's per night plus water, electricity ad showers.

3, Happy crowd on an old peniche now converted to a party boat.

4,Various styles of boat.

5,An ex steel hire boat 'Lost in France'.

6,Bateaux Mouche.

7,8, Imposing façade of the Matabieu railway station. There is a lock on the canal which passes in front of the station. All the locks in Toulouse are automatically camera controlled

Its about time I made an honest confession to you.
Normally before we start any long cruise we take a short 'shakedown' cruise to highlight and iron out any niggles and problems.
Just like older engines we humans need more regular servicing as father time marches relentlessly on and due to health appointments we didn't take our normal 'shakedown' trip before leaving for our summer cruise.

Now we're paying for our complacency with a battery charging problem. This is because 'Snow Mouse' is an ex hire boat and any repairs were done by 'plug it and patch it' hire boat mechanics using common black wire to repair any faults without removing any faulty wire or parts. Obviously as a live-aboard we use more electrical appliances therefore our demand is higher and needs an efficient charging system.
With an engine driving 2 alternators fault tracing is an elusive art. The admiral stocked up with food and drink before we left with a freezer and refrigerator stuffed full of food so we have to keep some charge going into the batteries and regular stops at marina's to recharge the batteries back up to full capacity.
We've a solar panel helping but in temperatures of up to 38 degrees the fridge and freezer are working overtime.
The solution of course is to rip out all the old wiring and rewire it with colour coded wire with brand new regulators, blocking diodes and split charge relays.
However when cruising we don't have the usual home base facilities so we'll carefully soldier on to the end of the cruise and I'll have all the necessary parts and wire waiting back at home base ready for installation immediately on our arrival back in Narbonne.
The other annoying problem is that we have an air bubble in the hydraulic steering which is defying all efforts to remove it despite tracing all the piping and we can't figure out why or how it got there.
We'll cure it by filling the system with new hydraulic fluid from the piston on top of the rudder but I still need to know how it got there in the first place to eliminate the problem.
Once its all been rectified we'll take a week/10 day cruise to test all systems to Port La Nouvelle on the Med and let 'Snow Mouse' have a few days bathing in salt water as the salt water will clean the bottom of the hull of any fresh water slime/weed.

Why do I tell you all this ?
Simply so that you won't make the same mistake.
Despite these niggly problems we're fully enjoying our summer cruise and once past Carcassonne the canals are much much quieter and beautifully peaceful.

Irish Rambler said:

Its about time I made an honest confession to you.
Normally before we start any long cruise we take a short 'shakedown' cruise to highlight and iron out any niggles and problems.
Just like older engines we humans need more regular servicing as father time marches relentlessly on and due to health appointments we didn't take our normal 'shakedown' trip before leaving for our summer cruise.

Now we're paying for our complacency with a battery charging problem. This is because as an ex hire boat before we bought 'Snow Mouse' any repairs were done by 'plug it and patch it' hire boat mechanics using common black wire to repair any faults without removing any faulty wire or parts. Obviously as a live aboard we use more electrical appliances and therefore our demand is higher and we need an efficient charging system.
With an engine driving 2 alternators fault tracing is an elusive art. The admiral stocked up with food and drink before we left with a freezer and refrigerator full of food so we have to keep some charge going into the batteries and regular stops at marina's to recharge the batteries back up to full.
We've a solar panel helping but in temperatures of up to 38 degrees the fridge and freezer are working overtime.
The solution of course would be to rip out all the old wiring and rewire it with colour coded wire with regulators, blocking diodes and split charge relays.
However when cruising we don't have home base facilities so we'll soldier on carefully to the end of the cruise and I'll have all the necessary parts and wire waiting back at home base ready for installation immediately we arrive back in Narbonne.
The other annoying problem is that we have an air bubble in the hydraulic steering which is defying all efforts to remove it despite tracing all the piping and we can't figure out why or how it got there.
We'll cure it by filling the system with new hydraulic fluid from the piston on top of the rudder but I still need to know how it got there to eliminate the problem.
Once its all been rectified we'll take a weeks cruise to test all systems down to Port La Nouvelle and let 'Snow Mouse' have a few days bathing in salt water as the salt water will clean the bottom of any fresh water slime/weed.

Why do I tell you all this ? Simply so that you won't make the same mistake.
Despite these niggly problems we're enjoying our summer cruise and once we past Carcassonne the canals are peaceful and thoroughly enjoyable.
After Toulouse we had the canal all to ourselves.

Click to expand...

Enjoy July 14th fireworks

L

Irish Rambler, we want to thank you SO much for this thread! We'd love to do this cruise some time; Ann's sister lives in northern Provence not far from the Rhone and we'd love to explore the more western section of the country. In the meantime we live vicariously through this thread.