Southwest France - end of tour, start of conference

Sept 15:  After a comfortable nights sleep, I managed suitcase outside the room quite early, with a grand breakfast in a grand dining room - variety of fresh fruit, choice of eggs, pastries, bread, good coffee, and so on.

Part of the breakfast buffet at Hotel de La Cite.

However, friends Kerry and Laura raced into the breakfast room almost at the last minute - the alarm, of course, had betrayed them.  They managed to grab a few items and we all flew down the cobblestones past closed-up shops, trash trucks, through Narbonne gates, and met the coach at the appointed time.

I would love to read a cogent explanation of that large carved head.

This was the day of the great bike ride along a feeder canal from the Alzeau in the mountains.

Perhaps we should have taken the other road?

It required driving up the Montaigne Noire quite a distance. The road got narrower and narrower. Finally, Andre said he couldn't continue.  So the bikers exited the motor coach and walked the last kilometer to meet the bikes.  The bus riders included Susan, Peter, and me.  I'd traded with Fidel my place on a bike for a place on the bus. So I had a new adventure, riding a large coach that reversed quite a long way down a one-lane tiny road, the bus following David who was running ahead.

Hanging on to his hat and catching his breath, David makes sure the bus stays on the pavement, I think

We came to a place where Andre could turn us around, very carefully. After to-ing and fro-ing several time, an observer in a small van inquired "Vous etes perdu, non?" No, not lost; just trying to reverse off the little road.

Two kibitzers decided to be helpful and get us turned around.  We were grateful.

This observer and one other helped with words and gestures and Andre got it right. Another adventure. 

That took quite a bit of time and left no time to visit the Cammazes feeder.  We drove to the hamlet of another feeder canal, Lampy-Vieux, where the Lampy feeder canal was in a concreted channel.

This is the feeder ("rigole") that came down from the Alzeau.

The sluice, which having thought about it, does make some sense.

There was a junction here, with a small control sluice.  I could not make much sense of it.  However, it was quiet, with cool, huge evergreen trees nearby,

I bet this was a six-person tree - six people holding hands could just about encircle one of these.

and the road crossed near a ravine where I saw a fisherman headed.

The combined feeders are flowing in the little channel.  

Word of the bikers came down to us that one of them had crashed her bike on a steep slope and was injured.  Turned out it was my friend, who had smashed her hand and her knee.  David rode back to tell her to return to a road crossing where we'd pick her up.  He then returned to us, holding her bike in his left hand and steering his own with his right.  Nice trick.

David returning with the injured woman's bicycle.

By the time the coach got to the crossing, she was in control and being brave, although in pain.  Fortunately, no broken bones or sprains.

For me this was a quiet respite from riding the coach, being with lots of others, and viewing yet another waterway structure - sure, that's why I was there, but sometimes one wants a bit of a break.

We headed toward Toulouse, stopping at a large new basin/motorway service area at Port Lauragais. This was our lunch spot, chosen because it's very close to the Naurouze summit level, where we would visit another day.

Although I ordered a duck leg with vegetables, potato, and beans,

A pretty good lunch, especially the vegetables.

some of us dined on cassoulet, served in a quite large casserole dish - this was better, more moist than what we'd had in Carcassonne.

Bill, serving himself and Chris.

There was a lovely looking shop next to the dining room, but of course was closed for lunch and we had no time for such frivolity.

On toward Toulouse again, specifically Port de l'Embouchure where we boarded a touring boat.  This place marked the junction of the Canals de Garonne, du Midi, and de Brienne. The joining of the Garonne and Midi is commemorated with a large white marble sculpture at the Ponts Jumeaux ("twin bridges").

In this, Languedoc (the central figure) orders the Canal du Midi (right side) to join with the Garonne River (left).

We had two excellent Toulouse city guides who narrated the waterways and sights we passed.  We began on the Canal de Brienne, a short waterway connecting the other canals with the Garonne River at St. Pierre Lock.  Near by is a weir now called the Bazacle weir, on the site of a Roman ford.

If I could find the right notes, I'd describe these bridges. Perhaps an edit later on will clear this up.

We left the boat downstream at the S-Michel Lock and began an interesting walking tour of Toulouse, passing an "hotel particuliere" (i.e., private mansion) built in Renaissance time, now called Hotel d'Assegat. My favorite on this walk was the Jacobins Church, named for the Order of Preachers (or Jacobins), founded by St. Dominic.

The church was what I call early Gothic - there are buttresses, but not the elaborate structures seen in the North.

It's a stark gothic structure, remarkable on the interior for the Palm Vaulting in the ceiling, and for the relics of St. Thomas Acquinas. 

We also visited the Place du Capitole (where we would meet for the Mayor's reception a few evenings later), and the St-Etienne cathedral, which was built in a mix of styles over 4 or 5 centuries.

St-Etienne is considered ugly to some; I think its jumble of styles is intriguing. If ever I'm back in Toulouse, I must visit the interior.

We continued walking toward Port Saint Sauveur where the City of  Toulouse had a "fete" on the Canal du Midi. On the way an ambulance came zooming up - as if to smash me to bits.  One of my friends commented that she'd not known I could move so fast.

At the end of the day, in the twilight hours, we were dropped off with luggage on a wide boulevard a few blocks from our two hotels on Rue Rivals.  During the four-day conference I roomed with Kerry at the Hotel Capitole; many of our colleagues were here as well.  Neither Kerry nor I was very eager that night to hike the many blocks to the site of the Annual General Meeting of Inland Waterways International, so we skipped and had a quiet dinner nearby.  But, with few pedestrians or cars, and with shop lights off, the locale looked different.  We wandered a bit until we found the right street.  Set clocks for a suitable hour, and off to sleep.