deva in paradise

Cyclo-Cruising the Canal Du Midi

The Canal du Midi is one of the oldest shipping canals in Europe. Originally started in 1666, over centuries it became the subject of much romantic lore and even some impressionist paintings.
It was planned to join the two seas, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean, and in the 17th century it was considered an engineering marvel. Mike had read about it for many years and thought we could transit on our Deva. Unfortunately it is only 1.3 meters deep, and Deva draws 1.6 even without the weight of her mast and rigging. We decided to instead ride bikes along the route of the Canal, which conveniently has paths along each side for its entire length. The reason for the paths was not for pedestrian or bike access, but for the simple purpose of a towpath for horses and mules to pull the barges along the waterway. One has to consider that navigation on this canal started 150 years before the advent of motorized and steam driven propulsion. Since many bridges and at least one tunnel were of necessity included in its design, a height restriction of about 2.5 meters limited sail power, although some of the early barges did have masts and sails that lowered to deck level when passing under them.

We learned that we could easily organize an unguided tour by hiring a French company called "Relax bike tours", that provided the bikes, luggage transfers and all lodging arrangements. All we had to do was take a train from our boat in Spain to the start of and at the end for the week-long journey. And of course do the cycling for 120 miles in the middle. So began the journey from Ginesta, Spain to Carcassonne, France by train. Sounds simple, but it took all day. Taxi to train station, 1st train into Barcelona transfer to another train which made several stops and we had to transfer trains twice in route. Finally another taxi to our hotel.

Our first day was spent exploring lovely Carcassonne, a medieval city in the Languedoc region of Southern France. Carcassonne has a history too long and complicated to describe here. It was originally fortified by the Romans in 100 BC, increasingly rebuilt and by the 8th century AD was known to be one of the strongest fortresses on the route from Europe to the Iberian Peninsula. Many kingdoms and fiefdoms occupied the fortress over centuries. In 1258 it was a border defense between France and The Kingdom of Aragon. Because it lies on the Aude River and the present day Canal du Midi, it was a port city for the woolen trades and wheat transport and more recently wine transport in the Languedoc valley.

It was a windy 42 degrees F on the morning we met with our tour organizer Timo. He delivered our bikes, provided maps and took our luggage we began our journey from the hotel to the canal where we would officially start. We made it about 6 blocks before needing to stop. Our hands were so cold we knew we wouldn't be able to go the distance. We began our search shopping for gloves. We had biking gloves, but they were inadequate. After finding hand protection our next big decision was made: To wait until noon when things warmed up. Therefore, our next stop was to a cafe where we enjoyed tea and coffee while waiting for the kitchen to open for lunch. Fortunately we only had 45k to travel so leaving at 12:30 was not a problem.

Our first very pleasant discovery was there is no shortage of interesting cafes and eateries along the Canal du Midi. The hard part was not spending the entire day sitting in one of them!

The old towpaths along the shores of the canal where we were to cycle were often challenging and sometimes closed. Traveling throughout the country side along the meandering Midi was however beautiful and interesting. We were fascinated by the engineering of the many locks and aqueducts along the route. We also met a lovely couple from Luxembourg, also cycling along the Canal . They were a little older than us but were covering more miles than we were each day, often not arriving to their hotel until after dark. It was always a treat to run into them along our route.

We ended our first day in Homps just in time to catch the winery still open at 5:02. They hadn't locked the doors yet but we could tell they were getting ready to go home. After tasting several samples and getting the history of the region, the shop owners drove off in separate cars as we packed up our 4 bottles into our panniers. We were pleasantly surprised when we finally found our hotel. Our host and hostess showed us to the courtyard garden which was beautiful and handed each of us a glass of champagne. The hotel was the former mansion of a wine merchant, and the town of Homps and the Canal was important in the shipping of their product. Our room was amazing, with it's high ceilings and large size. The furniture,including a king size bed, desk, and sitting area, looked like dollhouse furnishings.

Day 2 We road from Homps to Narbonne which was a hard ride as we were going into a strong headwind most of the day. After a good night sleep we explored the city which turned out to be a real gem. Our favorite was the cathedral of Saints Just and Saveur which dates from the 13th century. The exterior is striking with it's buttresses and gargoyles, the inside is glowing in light from the stained glass and the museum and treasures kept us entertained for several hours. The cathedral was built in 1292, and to our eyes seemed really, really old. (After all we come from a nation that is less than 300 years old) Curiously, as sometimes happens in this part of the world, a time capsule emerges that is several centuries older. In the square in front of the eight-century old cathedral is a recent excavation about 50 feet square that reveals a section of the Roman "Via Domitia", the ancient highway connection the Roman Empire with Spain, built in 100 BC, a thousand years earlier..

We would have stayed several days in Narbonne, but we had miles to cover ahead.

Day 3 Narbonne to Beziers. Getting out of the city and onto the secondary roads was a real challenge. Mike had to follow the map very carefully, street by street and at one point our road came to a dead end where a new large highway was being built. We cycled up to 3 old men and showed them the map with the direction and they said yes, over there and pointed across the construction zone of a four-lane highway. It had rained the night before so we were looking at an area of mud which lead to loose gravel inclines on both sides of the project. There were several small tunnels under the motorway but they were all flooded to a depth of a foot or two. Not having an alternative route we headed out across the mud. We didn't get far as this mud was like cement. With each step our shoes would gather half an inch. The following step another half inch until our shoes were heavy and it felt like we were walking in platform shoes. Our bikes had similar troubles as with each rotation of the tires the mud was so thick it caught under the fenders causing the wheels to completely stop. We finally had to carry the bikes one by one to the other side where we had to use sticks to poke out the caked on mud.

Noteworthy that the bikes we were given for the tour were heavy mountain bikes, weighing about 25 lbs each, not the light road bikes we are used to that area bout 16 lbs. It was appropriate to have them, though, as our road bikes would not have negotiated the many
rutted paths, and the mud. Our daily mileage was about 30 to 40 kilometers, less than the 50 plus a day we averaged in November along the Rhone, but about right for this Canal.
Once on the other side all went smoothly until we reached our hotel for the night. Mike caused some drama when in the dark hallway which lead to our room he (while feeling the wall for a light switch) accidentally hit the fire alarm which sent the front desk gal running up the stairs. Inside our room we listened to the alarm for what seemed like a very long time while we sipped on a bottle of the wine from our bag. C'est la vie!

Day 4 in the morning we walked around Beziers in the rain. We saw the 14th century cathedral and the old bridge before heading to Marseillan where we spent 2 nights. Marseillan is a small, quiet town known for it's mussels, oysters, clams and other shellfish, farmed in the vast marsh of Le Etang De Tau.... We enjoyed our day walking through the local open market and riding our bikes to the beach.

Our final day we road along the ocean from Marseillan to Sete where we would meet up with our tour organizer and return our bikes. Sete, on the Mediterranean, marked the area we had sailed past a few months ago near where we tied up at Agde and saw our first view of the Canal du Midi. Sete is also called the "Venice of France" as it is a city built along canals and waterways.

The train ride from Sete to Barcelona the following day was very fast, with the train silently reaching speeds of 180 mph. Through its windows we watched as the coastline of France and Spain that had taken us several days to traverse in November went by in an hour and a half.