Southwest France - visiting Canal du Midi sites

Friday, Sept. 13th, was a bright morning in Sete and we loaded ourselves onto the motor coach, setting off for Beziers to see the aqueduct over the Orb River, followed by the Orb lock.

The cathedral in Beziers sits high above everything.

On a boat called the Santa Maria we crossed the aqueduct and the lock

Very sturdy stone towpath

In mid-aqueduct on the Santa Maria

and there we beheld the Fonserannes staircase of locks.  Today there are six locks.  Originally there were eight, then the number was reduced to seven - -WHY?  In part, perhaps, for construction of the now-disused Incline Plane.

Too bad the details of the six locks are not legible.

The flight of locks is impressive, and they are exactly like those that we saw four years before - made of stone, with sides that were straight up and down but not straight from end to end. The sides curve, giving strength to the walls like an arch that lies on its side.

We're about to move from the canal into the lowest of the locks.

The single boat assistant handled all of the lines (it took two of us to handle the lines on our much smaller rented boat in 2009).

Not to be rushed, he texted frequently as the boat passed from lock to lock.  He did tie the boat off to a bollard, and he used the pole to push the bow away from lock gates and/or walls.

The captain described the lock operations as well as the ill-fated inclined plane.

That's not a giant mushroom.  It's a bollard.  Our boat was secured against the inrushing water.

Water was rushing down from the lock above, which is why the boat was secured to the bollard.

The boat captain  talked to us as we passed upward from lock to lock.  And in about half an hour, we were through and on our way along the Canal du Midi to the Malpas tunnel.

The most direct route for the canal had to go through the hill called Enserune. Riquet's team was a bit stumped by the brittle rock, and work was halted briefly. Although he was ordered to cease work, Riquet asked his team of masons to work in secret and managed to break through in 8 days.

So many photos must have been taken.  Many of us just sat back and enjoyed the short ride.

We went to it, through it, turned around and came back again.

Approaching the light at the end of the tunnel.

As we were cruising along, Barbara suddenly exclaimed "There's Ravel! That's our boat!"  Indeed, it was the same boat that in 2009 was our home for a week.  Nice to see that the old tub was still canalworthy. Sorry - no photos.

The large ancient plane trees that shade the Canal have been damaged by a fungus and must be removed. We saw areas where trees had been removed,

Not even stumps remain.

trees that have been marked as having the fungus,

And it was obvious even without the marks - the leaves were very few and were dying.

and trees that continue to provide shade and beauty to the waterway.

The shade also inhibits evaporation in summer's heat.

Lunch was served on the boat  - and a beauty of a lunch it was.  In the lounge, tables were set for four persons, who were served a fantastic casserole of yellow rice, peas, onion, other vegs., topped with four large shrimp, four pieces of chicken, and four mussels nestled in the rice.

Was this Laura, Kerry, Pat and Duncan?  Difficult to tell without a flash.

Not only beautiful but really delicious, too.  Our bowl had just a few grains of rice left at meals end.

Please note the variety of wines as well.

Back at the Fonserannes the boat was tied up and we all exited to go exploring for just a bit.  There was a deadline to meet the bus at the bottom of the flight but it was many minutes away so folks went exploring . . . or looking for ice cream.

Snack time beneath the shade.

Two of the curious New Yorkers tried to climb over (or under) the fence to examine to broken machine that was now stranded at the top of the Incline Plane.  I just wanted to get a look at it, so maybe I should have climbed under the fence too.

Eventually the strays were herded into the coach and off we went toward the Tunnel, but we drove up, up, and up to the top of the Enserune hill - winding and narrow- that was a good bus driver!.  So why were we there?  To look down on the Montady, a former lake, drained in the 1200s, with drainage canals radiating in toward the center - like bicycle spokes.

Done on the orders of the local biship in the 13th century.

The former lake was drained into a channel in the center where water was diverted away via an underground channel.  So they said. Seen from the greater height than we'd seen four years before, it was an impressive sight.

We had a long quiet ride back to Sete.  The next agenda item was dinner in our hotel at 20:00 hours.  So the rest of the day I napped, packed up for the next day, showered and dressed for dinner.

Dinner in the very nice restaurant was quite good, but again, with quite slow service.  The wait staff all looked to be busy, but perhaps there weren't enough to keep up.