Villages along the Canal du Midi

The towns along the Canal du Midi are mainly small, quiet villages that sprung up after the canal was constructed. Others located near the canal have been there for thousands of years. Here are a few of our favorites.

Béziers, the southwestern-most point we ventured to on the canal, was settled around 575 BC. Like many towns built by the Romans, the old part of the city sits on a hill, providing the best defense against intruders. We rode our bikes the few miles from the canal to the old town to see the sites.

the central square in Béziers (they have a summer bull fighting festival)

colorful street covering through the old town

Our farthest venture from the canal was an hour away by bicycle to the medieval town of Minerve. Minerve was named one of the loveliest medieval towns in France, so we had to check it out. The town sits at the top of a gorge, which made for a very warm, uphill bike ride, but it was worth it. The stone streets, buildings, and walls, and the arched stone bridge over the gorge were beautiful and harkened back to a different time. Like many of the old cities were visited, there were dark days in this town’s history. In the 1200s the town was sieged because numerous Cathars, who were deemed a rogue group of Christians, had taken refuge in the town (they fled Béziers during a similar siege). A trebuchet sits across the gorge from the town as a reminder of their history.

 bridge across the gorge leading to Minerve
(only residents are allowed to drive across)

town hall

walls of the city above the gorge

Our most anticipated medieval village came near the end of our trip - Caracassonne. This was a long awaited destination for the history, as well as the opportunity to check off Pete’s main travel goal by purchasing the board game Carcassonne in Carcassonne. Sadly, all the shops were sold out and the game maker had stopped printing the original version. We did have the digital version of the game, so we did get to play Carcassonne in Carcassonne but Pete was disappointed. We had a very sad story to tell our local game shop when we returned home.

The fortified part of Carcassonne was built by the Romans around 100 BC, but the area has been occupied since Neolithic times, around 3500 BC. The fortress was really impressive and the defense structures were interesting to learn about. Barbicans, murder holes, and hoardings, oh my! We got to see the city at night and during the day, which provided us really different views of the city. We also got to walk the fortress walls. Much of the city was restored in the mid-1800s, but there were parts of the original Roman walls that we could see from the new walls.

the fortified city of Carcassonne

one of the entrances to the city

 Roman tower along the wall. The towers were mainly used
as defensive posts, but one was also used as a torture
chamber during the Catholic Inquisition in the
1200s to rid France of heretics, mainly the Cathars. 

To get into the inner city (the keep), you had to get through two more
walls. If intruders got through this first rounded wall, they found
themselves in the barbican, an open space that would soon be filled
with arrows flying from the archers's posts surrounding the area. 

If the intruders made it through the barbican, they had to cross this bridge
(originally a drawbridge) to breach the final wall of the inner city. Upon 
breaking down the door, intruders would find themselves at the mercy of
whatever defenders threw down the murder hole (a hole on the second story
that opened just after the door opening) - usually spikes, and rocks.

The wooden structures between towers are called hoardings and could be
put in place quickly if the city came under attack. The outside of the
hoardings would sometimes be covered with animal furs that had been
soaked in water so flaming arrows could not start the hoardings on fire.

Stone cannon ball used to protect the outer walls

Pete practicing his archer's stance

Roman tower along the wall. These Roman towers are distinctive
because of the red brick, roof shape, and terra cotta roof tiles.

The roof tiles from the more modern towers were made of slate.

The church within the walls was interesting because it was a mix of
Roman and Gothic styles. The blocky, unadorned section on the left in
this photo is the remnant of the Roman church and the ornate tower on
the right side of the photo is the Gothic flare. The light in the two
sections of the church were really different...much darker in the
Roman section where there were few windows.

We tended to tie up for the night outside towns where it was quieter and we had more of a space to ourselves. Occasionally, though, we needed to recharge the water tank and the batteries of our electronics so we stayed in towns along the canal a couple of times. The places we landed were really lovely. One of the towns was Le Somail. This town had an antique bookstore that was really fun to browse around, as well as a floating market/bakery on the canal where you could reserve your baguettes the night before (we should have done that - they sold out fast).

Pete browsing inside the antique bookshop

preorder box for bread at the floating market

floating market boat

In Ventenac en Minervois, we found a particularly picturesque place to tie up for a short stopover and visited our first wine cave, or tasting room. The Minervois region is known for rosé wines, which were great in the hot weather. The wine caves sell bottles of wine, but they also sell wine in bulk...for stupidly low prices. We paid €1.50 per liter for totally decent wine, which is nearly the price of water. And they dispensed it with a gas pump nozzle.

Le Moissaigaise looking lovely

the wine cave and wine museum

dispensing our jug of rosé

We stumbled upon a couple of town festivities during our trip. Columbiers was the site of the first one. We parked the boat about a mile from town, which seemed farther away than boats were tied up the previous day. We soon learned why; they had emptied the harbor of all boats for the poem reading-opera singing-piano playing-fireworks and light show that was scheduled for the evening. It sounded like a combination of things too good to miss!

Columbiers before the festival...

...and during!

Our second festival encounter was in Villesequelande. When we tied up and biked toward the small town, we expected to find a sleepy little village. Instead, we were greeted by a medieval fair, complete with villagers in costumes, archery practice, medieval crafts, and beer in souvenir cups.

a plethora of jester slippers

medieval costume photo booth

bar tender in full garb

We also managed to hit market day in many towns along the way. The markets were great...both from a provisioning standpoint and as a way to see the local culture. In Carcassonne, for example, market day was on Saturday and as soon as the market opened, people from the town were streaming in from every direction. The markets were also well stocked in most places with fruits and vegetables, bread of every variety, cheese, olives, cured meats, nuts...what more could we want?!

snails

so much delicious cheese!

bags of fresh spices

produce galore

bread of all shapes and sizes

sausages for days...

our typical post-market lunch

This wraps up our travels in France. Stay tuned for more travel adventures...

solidarity at the beach

I wasn't able to participate in any of the marches yesterday, but i did get my heaping dose of hope and optimism by spending part of the day with my aquarium kiddos. Yesterday we joined the Return of the Natives group (https://csumb.edu/ron) to plant native vegetation on sand dunes in Monterey. We have done a number of revegetation efforts with Return of the Natives over the years, but this was our first dune planting. So fun! Our group of forty students, five teen leaders, and seven adults helped plant over 500 plants yesterday! We also had amazingly big waves and live music to keep us entertained. And no rain. A great day!

learning proper planting techniques

big waves in the background - no lower
dune plantings for today...

the planting crew. All the black dots are new plants!

we put a windbreak made of straw in front
of all the new plants so they wouldn't get
blasted during the storm this weekend.

our live entertainment
(see this post for our entertainment at the last planting)

the gulls were opting for walls instead of the tumultuous beach

racing and art in Monterey

We went to Monterey today for two very different purposes. The first: Pete's coworker invited him to ride along during a track day at Laguna Seca Raceway. Pete had been to the raceway for motorcycle races but had not been on the track itself. The Raceway opens the track for racing enthusiasts multiple times a year and Pete's coworker has been going for many years. We arrived just after 9 am and after signing a passenger waiver, they were onto the track at 9:20 for twenty minutes of racing around the 2+ mile track. As a bystander it was difficult to tell how fast they were going, but Pete assures me they were going very fast. Controlled fast. 

getting ready to enter the track

coming down the straightaway

Our second stop for the day was at the relatively new collection of Salvador Dalí works at the Museum of Monterey. Dalí lived on the Monterey Peninsula in the 1940s and was a huge presence in the local art scene. The museum holds the only Dalí collection on the U.S. West Coast and it is the largest Dalí collection in the U.S. We didn't know what to expect, but we were blown away by the extent of the collection and the breadth of Dalí's art. Many of the works on display were collections from books he illustrated or illustrations of people's work as a celebration of their accomplishments. There is a really interesting collection based on Dante's Inferno, as well as another collection based on plays written by the Marquis de Sade. The "typical" Dalí surrealist paintings were certainly part of the museum's collection, but there were many of his earlier works that came before he made his name as a surrealist painter. If you are in the Monterey area, you should definitely visit. Here are a few photos of the paintings to give you a sense of the diversity of the collection.

Biblia Sacra - an early collection of paintings
based on stories from the bible

100 prints from the Divine Comedy,
based on Dante's Inferno

minotaur sculpture accompanying the Divine Comedy prints

from Les Songes Drolatiques de Pantagruel

 this one is in the "Ten Recipes for Immortality" collection.
The accompanying text described how to obtain
immortality by eating a squirrel. So simple! 

"The Sistine Madonna." This one was created in part by Dalí shooting ink from a gun at a piece of limestone.

Go check it out!

the canal du midi

the main reason for our trip to southern france this summer was to boat along the canal du midi with our friends andrew and jenny. the canal du midi was an engineering feat built during the 17th century under orders from the sun king (louis xiv) in an effort to connect the atlantic ocean to the mediterranean sea so ships didn't have to travel along the iberian peninsula (coast of portugal), a favorite hang-out spot for pirates. pierre-paul riquet was the mastermind behind the project that many others had attempted. he succeeded because he was the first to solve the issue of keeping enough water in the canal from top to bottom. he designed an intricate system for bringing water from the mountains to reservoirs that could be used to supplement the canal at key points along its route. the canal is about 150 miles long and has 63 locks to help smooth the 600 feet of elevation change from one end to the other. we traveled around 90 miles of the canal in ten days and traversed 41 locks. there were two things that surprised me about the canal: 1. the canal is six feet deep at most, and because of sediment accumulation over time and low water in the summer, the depth was closer to four feet. 2. very few, if any, of the boats on the canal have a septic holding tank on board, which means the canal du midi could also be called the canal du merde. no swimming for us! 

we rented a 36 foot boat for ten days, starting in the city of capestang. we spent a week on a sailboat with andrew in jenny a few years ago, so we were not concerned about the close quarters. we kept our same assignments as in croatia...captain andrew, engineer pete, public relations director (and french speaker) jenny, and steward melissa. our boat came with bicycles, which were great for getting around the canal-side towns. our boat - the moissagaise - was a beast but a great platform for our travels. the requirements for renting a boat are surprisingly minimal, but we did get a thorough briefing and short test drive, which is much more than we could say about our experience in croatia.

our starting point is located midway through what is referred to as "the pound" - a thirty mile stretch of the canal that has no locks, so we didn't encounter our first set of locks until day 2. that first set was a doozy - seven in a row! the fonserannes staircase takes the canal down about sixty feet into the orb river valley. after the staircase, you cross one of the most amazing parts of the canal...a bridge of water (the canal) over water (the river orb)! one more lock takes you down to the town of beziers, the birthplace of the canal architect, riquet. 

our floating home for ten days

 starting into the locks in the fonserannes
staircase - seven locks in a row

 looking back up the staircase. the locks are oval
in shape because it makes them stronger and able
to resist the inward pressure of the surrounding soil.

tending lines and getting ourselves through the locks. 

the orb ecluse (lock) is the tallest single lock
we went through - 6.1 meters (~18 feet) up from
here to the next section of the canal

bridge of water over water!!! the river orb is flowing
beneath the canal du midi. so cool.

the orb aqueduct (bridge for water)

la moissagaise with beziers in the background
(nice parasol, eh?)

our boat had a maximum speed of about 5 mph...so we were not going anywhere fast. in addition, the locks are only open from 9 to 7 with a break for lunch from 12:30 to 1:30, so you have to plan accordingly. the next stop may only be 12 miles away, but if you have to go through five locks in that span, it could take most of the day, particularly if there are a lot of boats trying to get through the locks. a lock keeper runs the locks, but each boat is responsible for handling their own lines during the locking process. with our crew of seasoned captains, the ropes were no problem. things did sometimes get a little squirrelly in the locks if your fellow lock mates (usually two more boats) were not good line handlers. we also strived to keep our ropes out of the poo-water, but hand washing after every lock was a required activity for all crew members. 

close quarters in the lock

despite what was in the water, the scenery along the canal was quite lovely. the distant rolling hills were a nice backdrop to the vineyards along the canal. the banks of the canal were historically lined with sycamore trees--called plane trees in france--to provide shade from the hot sun and reduce evaporation of canal water. the trees contracted a fungus in the mid-1940s likely from contaminated ammunition boxes brought over by U.S. troops. the fungus spread quickly to trees along the canal via the ropes people used to tie their boats to trees along the way. as a result, many of the trees have been cut down and burned to prevent further spread of the fungus. there are a few sections where the trees are still healthy, which were a welcome relief from the 90+ degree days. 

vineyards along the canal

healthy plane trees

a stand-alone giant
(if you look closely on the opposite bank,
you can see the new trees that have been planted)

shady parking spots along the canal were in high demand

we went through 41 of 63 locks in our journey. at each lock, there is a lock-keepers house and sometimes a store or cafe. all of them are a bit different except for the placard giving the name of the lock and distances to the next locks up- and downstream. the shortest distance between locks is 300 feet; the longest distance is 30 miles. i took more photos of the locks than a person will ever need, but they are just so interesting!

waiting for the water to empty out of
the lock so they can open the gates
and let us into the lock

favorite lock-side store scene

lock keepers house

water coming through the gates to fill the lock

an example of the placard at every lock location

riding the water elevator up a few floors

a rare solo journey through a lock
(tying up at the back of the lock was preferential
when possible because the water comes in so fast that
you get sprayed...in the face...with poo-water) 

pete manning the bow rope

the formidable lock gates

in addition to the locks, there were many other interesting architectural works along the canal. we probably passed under ~100 bridges (watch the parasol!), drove by dozens of spillways used to irrigate crops and moderate the water level in the canal, crossed a handful of additional aqueducts (water over water) and went through the 570 foot long malpas tunnel, the first canal to pass through a tunnel.

 one of the many bridges we passed under (barely)

the argent-double spillway

emerging from the malpas tunnel

i was going to talk about some of the villages we passed through, but i think this is enough for now...