canalboat.co.uk Canal Boat November 2017 57FRANCE
when I mention that Emily who runs the
Minervois operation was helpful beyond
the call of duty, and that our steel-built
boat Narbonne – while not the most
elegant of craft – turned out to be spacious
and well appointed, bear in mind I’m under
no duress to say it. Le Somail, Minervois’s
base, is a delightful village with restaurants,
cafes, a unique bookshop and floating
grocery clustered around a pretty hump-back
bridge, and we immediately determined to
spend a night here on our return.
For the moment though we headed east
along a 54km lock-free pound – Le Grand
Bief, as it’s known, one of the most
impressive, yet unremarked features of
this canal. To keep a canal at the same
elevation on such a long pound involves
a few challenging turns around hairpin
bends, but the reward is terrific views
which on clear days mean you can see as
far as the Pyrenees.
On certain stretches the panorama
before you is the more impressive because
lines of traditional plane trees which
characterise the canal have had to be
felled as a result of canker stain. The
disease was imported into France from the
U.S. in wooden ammunition boxes during
World War Two, and it’s been a problem
since, though its effects on the landscape
can be exaggerated. There still many
thousands of trees left, and thousands
more are being replaced annually so it
doesn’t substantially affect the quality
of a holiday on these waters.
We’d stocked up on supplies before
leaving base, but at Capestang – one of a
regular series of attractive small towns
which punctuate this part of the canal –
we happened across a delightful Sunday
market which highlighted why France has
such a deserved reputation for the quality
of its foods. Gleaming piles of fruit, freshfish, olives, bread and vegetables proved
too much of a temptation, and though
only a short walk (or in my case, hobble)
from the canal, on our journey back we
were weighed down with the bags we
were carrying.
The cruising route we’d chosen kept us
clear of the medieval town of Carcassonne
which exerts an inexplicable allure to
boaters, despite how horrendously busy it
can be and what a Disney confection it is.
We’d headed in the other direction, opting
instead for the much more interesting
canal town of Béziers where we arrived
after passing through the 165-metre
Malpas Tunnel. This was Europe’s very
first navigable tunnel – which comes as
something as a shock for anyone familiar
only with English canals.
The tunnel – like the Canal du Midi itself- was built between 1666-81 – 80 years
before Francis Egerton employed the
illiterate millwright James Brindley to dig
out his Bridgewater Canal. But where the
Bridgewater was a rudimentary, lockless
ditch, punctuated by only one significant
engineering structure, the older Canal du
Midi is built to a totally different and much
higher spec. The locks, for instance, have
ovoid walls, like shallow arches on their
side, made to provide greater strength
than our straight-sided English locks. The
canals themselves are wider too – and
built to allow mooring on both banks. But
it is the construction that is most
impressive on the Canal du Midi. Whether
it’s a simple weir or a basic bridge, the
quality of the build is so much higher than
we’re accustomed to at home.
Never is this more apparent than at
Béziers, birthplace of Pierre-Paul Riquet,
the man responsible for this engineering
marvel. There, a set of seven staircase
locks drops imperiously over an escarpment,
falling a distance of 21.5 metres. That’s
more than 70 feet in real money – 11 feet
more than the drop on the Bingley Five
Rise on the Leeds & Liverpool.
For many years Béziers was the centre
of France’s table wine trade – basic vin
ordinaires – and the town is still
comfortably prosperous with a 13th
century cathedral, elegant parks and
gardens and a network of fascinating
backstreets peppered with small and
lovely squares.
You can get there from the Fonserannes
Staircase on what’s called the Little TrainThe barges get priority
Lazy days at the water’s edgeThe lock cottage at Pechlaurier Abandoned water slope at Béziers