Southwest France - visiting more Canal sites

Saturday morning, September 14 - - up early to try and photograph sunrise over the canal that faced our hotel.

Two small boats heading up the canal toward the larger harbour.

Then bags down by 8:15, breakfast, hop on the coach, and off to Narbonne.

Andre, our driver, works hard every morning loading the luggage.

It was a Roman town and had a Roman canal to link the town with the sea via the river Aude.  Eventually the river's course altered and abandoned the town.  In the 18th century a new canal (de la Junction) was built to connect Narbonne with the Canal du Midi, and an older canal (de la Robine) connecting Narbonne with the Mediterranean Sea was later linked with both La Junction and a portion of the Aude River, resulting in something called La Nouvelle Branch.  As we did not carefully inspect these waterways, we will take David's word for it (David being our guide/leader/friend David Edwards-May).

The weir is at the right, and the modern lock is to the left.

We had time in Narbonne for a walking tour.  Barbara and I opted to ride the local Navette (shuttle) to get oriented to the town, a ten minute round-trip, then we set off walking.

A handy shuttle bus, free of charge.

We saw the "Roman" weir next to a more modern lock,

This is the "modern" lock; to the right is the original channel that ended at the weir pictured two photos up.

walked to and then on the remnant of the Via Domitia (!)

Young children on an ancient road

Someday I will translate this message.

explored Narbonne's cathedral,

The cathedral is hemmed in on all sides by the city, no great plaza nearby.

which is missing about 4/5th of its transept and nave so that it looks half-abandoned.

The only entrance that was open was behind the fence

This is like viewing a ruin that's been kept in good repair.

We also saw and used a totally automatic and totally free toilette.

I had seen one of these years before in Paris. There was a fee, in francs (pre Euro days).

We drove to the canalside village of Le Somail for lunch at a restaurant, L'O a la Bouche.  This town was built as an overnight mooring on the Canal du Midi, and it's a nice, attractive place.

The little hump-back bridge is next to a small chapel built into the canal.

We ate outdoors under sunshading umbrellas.  Choice of lunch was a tagine of lamb and couscous or pork cheeks with potatoes. Anticipating that I may never again meet pork cheeks on the menu, I chose that, to my regret.  The first course and the dessert were quite nice, however.

An incredibly warm day, good food, and good friends.

Between courses, I got up and walked downstream a bit.  Many boats were moored on each side of the canal.  I saw a straight line of either large ducks or small geese swimming in a line across the water toward me.  Were they Mother and children?  or was it just follow the leader?

quack quack - did they think I would feed them?

We were to be driven to a village that was less than 1 km. from the Pont-Canal de Repudre, the aqueduct built by Riquet in 1676.  Unfortunately, the coach had to cross a bridge whose access meant a 90-degree right turn.  But the coach was too big.  Andre, the driver, had to carefully reverse back around the turn without damaging the bridge or the curbstones or the bridge railings OR the bus.  Sadly, one large door to the storage bed on the driver's side was badly bent.  They could not be unbent, but could be kept closed thanks to the bungee cords in Duncan's backpack.

The plan to drive us close to the Pont-canal was scrapped, and we would walk the mile or so down the towpath to see it.

Bill and Chris Holdsworth heading along the towpath.

It's important because it was designed and built directly under Riquet.  Other stream crossings were either culverted or were crossed at grade; these were changed to aqueducts sometime between 1680 and 1690.

One advantage of taking this walk was a very close-up view of the plane trees' damage. (My post for the previous day includes photos taken from the canal boat.) In some areas the trees might be totally dead and marked with three vertical blue dots, or clearly afflicted by the fungus or canker, and marked with a white X or healthy for now and marked with a green X.  There are said to be 42000 plane trees along the 240 km length of the Canal.  There is no known cure or treatment for the fungus, so as trees become infected they and their next several neighbors on each side are removed and burned on the spot.  In some places on this one-mile walk we passed stumps, dead trees, clearly infected trees, as well as beneath the welcome shade of fully-leafed trees.  The contrast was quite surprising; the prospect of a future without these beautiful and magnificent ancient trees is profoundly sad.

We headed along and came to the Riquet aqueduct across the Repudre (a little creek far below).  Many in our party climbed down the slope to get a good view (i.e., photo).

There is a plaque on this wall, commemorating Pierre-Paul Riquet, who built this structure in 1676.

I had forgotten about the long overflow on the far side of the aqueduct.  Three boats had preceeded us up the Canal and their wakes caused an overflow over this section.  Hence the wet paving stones rather than natural soil and grass typical of the towpath.

The paving stones, of course, prevented the towpath from being eroded by the wake of passing boats.

We were running late (something that became a recurring theme), so went directly to La Cite of Carcassonne.  This is a true medieval city, enclosed by a double rampart.  In the late 19th century, it was "restored" by Viollet-le-Duc, hence the heavy slate roofs on the towers, conical in shape.

This is a view from the hotel's terrace, inside the ramparts of La Cite.

We arrived late in the day when many day-trip visitors were leaving, so walking uphill against a flood of people was pretty slow.  Some of us went to walk through the Chateau Comtal and the ramparts. I chose to find my room and to relax.   The bags, somehow, were conveyed to the hotel, and to each room.  Hotel La Cite is very luxe and lovely; I think there was probably a staff person available for each guest everywhere.

The room is much larger than this photo shows.

My friends and I decided to dine at the cafe near the big well (L'Auberge du Grand Puits) where we'd dined in 2009.  Nothing seemed to have changed.  Same menu, same prices.  In 2009 I had "thon" (tuna), and it was again on the menu - - but not in the kitchen that evening.

The well ("puit") is the large round structure to the left of the person in the striped shirt.

The Grand Puits before customers show up.

Word had come down from David Edwards-May for suitcases outside rooms by 7:15 am and ready to board the coach outside the Porte Narbonnaise by 8:15.  Hmm.  Could it be done?