The Canal du Midi runs for 240km from the
River Garonne at Toulouse via Carcassonne to the Mediterranean at Agde.
It was the brainchild of Pierre-Paul Riquet, a minor noble and tax
collector, who succeeded in convincing Louis XIV (and more importantly,
his first minister, Colbert) of the merits of linking the Atlantic and
the Mediterranean via the Garonne.
The work, begun in 1667, took fourteen years to
complete, using tens of thousands of workers. The crux of the problem
from the engineering point of view was how to feed the canal with
water, when its high point at Naurouze, west of Carcassonne, was 190m
above sea level and 58m above the Garonne at Toulouse. Riquet responded
by building a system of reservoirs in the Montagne Noire, channelling
run-off from the heights down to Naurouze. He spent the whole of his
fortune on the canal and, sadly, died just six months before its
inauguration in 1681.
The canal was a
success and sparked a wave of prosperity along its course, with traffic
increasing steadily until 1857, when the Sète-Bordeaux railway was
inaugurated, reducing trade on the canal to all but nothing. Today, the
canal remains a marvel of engineering and beauty, incorporating no
fewer than 99 locks ( écluses ) and 130 bridges, almost all
of which date back to the first era of construction. A double file of
trees lines most of its length, giving it a distinctive "Midi" look and
impeding loss of water through evaporation, while the greenery is
enhanced in spring by the bloom of yellow iris and wild gladioli. With
all of this and the occasional glimpses afforded of a world beyond - a
distant smudge of hills and the towers of Carcassonne - the canal is a
pleasure to travel. You can follow it by road, and many sections have
foot or bicycle paths, but the best way to travel it, of course, is by
boat.
Outfits in all the major ports rent house-boats and barges, and there are many cruise options to choose from as well. For
boat rental and cruises , contact Crown Blue Line, Le Grand Bassin, BP1201, 11492 Castelnaudary (tel 04.68.94.52.72, boathols@crown -blueline.com ), or Locaboat, Le Grand Bassin (tel 03.86.91.72.72, www.locaboat.com
), both of which have a number of branches in Languedoc and the Midi;
or Nautic in Carcassonne (tel 04.68.71.88.95, fax 04.67.94.05.91).
Canal information can be found at the port offices of Voies Navigables de France, at 2 Port St-Étienne in Toulouse (tel 05.61.36.24.24, www.vnf.fr ), who also have English-speaking offices at the major canal ports.
Copyright Rough Guides Ltd as trustee for its authors. Published by Rough Guides.
All rights reserved.The Rough Guides name is a trademark of Rough Guides Ltd.
