Canal du Midi

April 11, 2009

Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned by King Francis I in 1516 to find a faster and safer way from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. Not until 150 years later did a 63 year old retired engineer find a way to fill the summit sections with enough water. 15 years later, the canal was finished,. It took the enginee's family 100 years to recoverr his personal investment,

Our first challenge was to actually find our riding buddy and landlady, Gill who missed the first segment of the trip from Agde, a lovely Greek village, to Beziers. (She missed our train)

We laughed and sang as we pedaled 120 km in the rain and wind from Agde to Carcassone during the next three days and two nights.

One of many stone bridges crossing the canal.

and yet another.

Rapeweed fields next to the canal.

Cathedral in Beziers where we waited for Gill to join us.

Le Murier Platane (33 04 67 93 78 45 or lemurierplantane@orange.fr) at 65 E a night was run by a retired couple from Belgium —Anne and Christian Wauters and their cat. He cooked the 4 hour dinner and breakfast as we laughed, grateful to be clean and dry.

The path was often muddy and sometimes covered with water but no one slipped sideways into the canal.

Don't give up the trail is in there.

Clearly this trail was better than others.

 

A little bit of rain didn't keep the smiles away.

Back sides looked pretty bad. What a relief at the end of this day to get to the Auberge de L'Arbousier (auberge.bousier 04 68 91 11 24) where we had another 20E fixed price dinner, a warm clean bed, a hot shower and good conversation.

We took to the streets for a half a day when the path by the canal disappeared .

The canal was as full as it can get.

In fact, we got to bike through the water overflowing onto a causeway.

One of the 91 locks in action.

Happy to be at the end at the Carcassone train station.

and to load our bikes on the train.

Gill has her pictures posted at Gill's Canal du Midi.