FRANCE - LANGUEDOC

2016 – NOVEMBER

THE REGION

The Canal du Midi runs for 240km from Toulouse to Sète on the Mediterranean coast some 50km north east of the large city of Béziers.

Toulouse is about 150 metres above sea level and canal surveyors had of course to minimise the number of locks, water consumption and currents in the canal. The natural lie of the land between the extremities is by no means uniform so the canal follows a pretty tortuous course in many places, sometimes on viaducts or high embankments on the side of a hill and sometimes straighter over gently sloping land.

The route chosen naturally minimised the number and extent of these altitude control measures so the railway built soon after the canal, and the much more recent A61 motorway, mostly follow the same route – at least as far as Narbonne – thus avoiding the mountainous area through which I travelled to the small town of Colombiers about 15km south east of Saint Chinian, 6 km south west of Béziers and 12 km north of Narbonne.

I have increasingly found it useful to make exploratory trips by car before embarking on a cycling expedition. This has the advantage of improving my navigation and understanding the condition of any cycle path that looks interesting, how busy the nearby roads are and so on. That was what I did here involving several car trips before getting on the bike.

These weren't always easy – partly because of the nature of French towns, cities and traffic, and partly because of the vagaries of my new car's SatNav system.

Small French towns are usually quite ancient, often with an impressive Church being the focal point at the summit of a hill, around which many tall buildings are clustered resulting in canyon-like streets in imperfect circles around the church and radiating from it. They were built before the age of the motor car.   Large Cities typically started out as small towns so they have all those characteristics near their centres but compounded by further incremental growth as they expanded outwards over the centuries. As a consequence one-way systems are very common.

The French Railway system is quite extensive so long-distance travel between cities is relatively easy but public transport within the cities and towns is much less developed and where it exists just adds to the congestion caused by the hundreds of cars that most people seem to own and use to get around. And they all drive at high speed, weaving in and out of traffic lanes and following just a few feet behind any vehicle in front that they are temporarily unable to overtake.

All this makes it a bit difficult for a driver who isn't familiar with the city or town he happens to be visiting with very little opportunity to stop and check a map or directions. To some extent my new car's SatNav helps ameliorate this but it has shortcomings.

The most annoying is probably that its count of the number of exits from roundabouts seems to differ from mine relatively frequently so it then sends me off down an incorrect road whereupon it will announce in a voice that indicates the speaker thinks I'm a bit of an idiot - “Route Recalculation” - I have learned to dread those words! It does the same of course when there's a Déviation due to road works or a new One Way system or a change in road layout since the map was created. That last effect seems more prevalent here in Languedoc than it was in regions visited earlier.

COLOMBIERS

The Canal du Midi runs between the town and Les Peupliers campsite and forms a central attraction during the summer season.

The Canal at Colombiers

There is even a Port de Plaisance (Marina) surrounded by restaurants and other shops whose business is mainly to serve people renting pleasure craft for a cruise along the canal. But now, in mid-November, these places are almost all shut – I did see a Pizza bar was still open but wasn't attracted by it myself – I didn't come to France to eat fast-food, even of the Italian variety.

The Marina

Colombiers is unlike many towns in having an 18^th Century Chateau at its centre rather than a church but the effect on street design is similar.

The Chateau is now for sale – but you'll need deep pockets to pay for repair and maintenance

A typical street – though its wider and more open than many

The Canal runs through several small villages and towns south west of Colombiers and also on a viaduct over the River Orb beside the city of Béziers whose centre is at the top of a 120 metres high rocky mound.

BÉZIERS

Béziers is one of the oldest cities in France having been founded just after 600 BC but perhaps it first became eminent during the Roman period when it was an important place on the Via Domitia – the first Roman road built across Southern France to link their Iberian Province of Hispania with Italy.

Road Bridge over the Orb at Béziers

In the 8^th Century Béziers and other cities in what is now Langudoc were conquered during the great expansion of the Moors from North Africa but by 900 AD they had been pushed back into Spain and the Franks regained control.

Béziers has another historical first because in the early 13^th Century it was attacked in a European Crusade (using that term to mean a Military Campaign sanctioned and ordered by the Pope and not restricted to ones fought in Palestine).    At the time most people in Languedoc were Cathars who believed the God of the New Testament was “Good” and the God of the Old Testament was “Evil”. The Catholic Bishops in the rest of France, and the Pope, thought this was a tremendous heresy because they held there was only one True and Indivisible God.

That was why the Crusade was launched, and when the besieged city fell, its 20,000 citizens were massacred, Cathars and Catholics alike. The leader of the Campaign is said to have replied to a Crusader who asked how they could tell which citizens were Cathars and which Catholics - “Kill them all for the Lord knoweth them that are His”.

It seems strange to modern western minds that such ferocity and bloodshed could come about because of a difference in religious belief – perhaps our difficulty in understanding why some Muslims believe they must currently fight a Holy War with similar ferocity stems from the same agnosticism.

For centuries Béziers has been at the heart of the Wine-Making Industry in Languedoc which, as in Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Loire Valley, Alsace and other regions has hundreds of different Chateaux cultivating their own vineyards for miles and miles around.

I had all the usual difficulty in driving through the city with nowhere to stop and think about what I could see with all streets already full of parked cars and no public carparks (at least on my route).

Eventually I found a supermarket, that did have its own carpark and getting supplies was one of my reasons for the trip. This one was operated by E Leclerk that I had often seen advertised but never used. Many of the customers were obviously Muslim with the women wearing Hijabs and the products on offer were fewer in type and apparently of lower quality than those I had seen in Carrefour, SuperU and Casino. But a Google search didn't reveal any of those companies had outlets in the city and I concluded Béziers is a good deal less prosperous than other places I visited on this trip.

POILHES and CAPESTANG

Poilhes is a small village some 5 km up the canal from Colombiers and Capestang a slightly larger town about the same distance again.

I visited them by car in the first instance. Many watercraft were moored at Capestang but didn't look very active and a nearby restaurant had closed in October – presumably until April/May 2017 when the Tourist Industry will wake up again.

But returning via Poilhes I passed a small establishment – Les Platanes - that was obviously still operating and returned with the bike on another day.

The Canal at Poilhes

In English the restaurant's name means The Plane Trees and there was a huge one outside – they are very common in this part of the world and often found forming stately columns on either side of the canal and old roads.

This restaurant was owned and run by a couple from New Zealand with the man at the Front of the House and his jolly wife as an excellent Chef in the kitchen. Ingredients in the dishes offered had clearly been chosen to make modest pricing possible so the meal was good without being outstanding - but beautifully cooked and presented.

After lunch I explored the possibilities for a ride beside the canal. There were two options, neither of which offered a quality of cycle path matching those I'd used in Western France. On the south bank there was a track which my maps showed to be part of the overall route from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean but it was just a narrow earthen surfaced path close to the edge of the canal – you can see a section of it in the photograph above - OK for walkers and cyclists who could swim if they fell in, I thought, but I didn't fancy it for myself.

On the north side, at Poilhes at least, was a wider unsurfaced track that looked more like an agricultural road servicing adjacent fields but I thought I'ld try that. It worked for a bit but as there's a pretty steep-sided hill here it tended to climb up and over the hill to keep close to cultivable land – this made for a more strenuous ride than I had anticipated, but it did provide good views over the surrounding vineyards.

On High Ground near Poilhes

After a couple of kilometres it crossed a busy road and for a short distance continued beside the canal because the land here was flatter.

Afternoon Sun in Languedoc

But soon this track became impassable with brambles and long grass. As I write these notes I think its quite likely that it was here I picked up a thorn that caused a slow puncture in my front tyre though it could have been a stone during my ride at Sète.

I discovered the problem when setting out towards Béziers two days later along the track beside the canal and had to abandon the ride after a short distance because the front tyre had lost all pressure.  I traced the puncture to an incision through the tyre and into the inner tube and fortunately had a spare tube with me.

For my next outing on the bike I tried going along the canal track in the opposite direction towards Poilhes but soon came to a place where the width reduced to little more than a footpath.

Approaching the Malpas Tunnel

There was no path for pedestrians through the tunnel – perhaps bargees had to lie on their backs and walk their craft through as they did in the Savernake Tunnel in England – so I retraced my steps and found a wider track leading up to the road that passes over the tunnel.

On the far side there was another poorly surfaced track leading down but I missed a branch descending to the canal in the excitement of avoiding a car coming towards me at high speed. As a consequence I found myself moving away from the canal and into the vineyards. This actually made a pleasant change and eventually I found my way back to the canal at Poilhes – albeit at the expense of a long and strenuous ascent as the village is on much higher ground than the vine fields.

But, once again at Poilhes I was able to enjoy another lunch at Les Platanes.

Poulet Feuilleté at Les Platanes

Navigating the return ride was easier - alongside the canal to Le Malpas and then by road to the campsite to make a total ride of about 16km.

NARBONNE AND NARBONNE-PLAGE

Whilst staying at Colombiers I was determined to visit the Mediterranean end of the Canal at Sète (this name was spelt Cette until about 90 years ago and that's a useful guide to its pronunciation).

Before leaving the campsite I loaded Sète into the Satnav as my destination and set off past Béziers and Villeneuve-les-Béziers about 10 km farther on when the system told me to join the A9 Motorway. Unfortunately the way onto it was at a roundabout where once more my count of exits was different from the SatNav's so I found myself going in the wrong direction down a Toll Road at 100km/hr to keep up with other traffic and with no exit for about 20km until just outside Narbonne!

I would have quite liked to visit Narbonne because, like Béziers it has a long history dating back some 2,500 years. The Romans occupied and expanded it in 118BC and French Historians assert it was the first Roman Colony established outside Italy. In that period the City had a strategically important position as it became a major port at the mouth of the River Aude with the Via Domitia running through it and later, the start of the Via Aquitania the Romans built to link the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts.

Not long after it was founded Narbonne was caught up in a rivalry with Marseilles as the first supported Julius Ceasar and the second Pompey – not surprisingly because each general had granted land in these respective cities to retired Legionaries.

In later centuries Narbonne suffered the same sort of history as Béziers with occupation by the Moors for a short period, as the capital of one of the provinces ruled here by the Visigoths rather than the Franks, by persecution of Cathars by Catholics, and as a centre of a large wine-making region, supported in this case by another canal – the Robine – that links Narbonne with the Canal du Midi.

In Roman times Narbonne was closer to the coast than it is today as silt brought down by the river and other changes have extended the land by some 15km over what is now a series of salt water lakes and marshes. After so much undesired driving I didn't feel like braving the traffic in Narbonne itself but as the first exit I came to on the A9 offered the prospect of seeing Narbonne-Plage I thought I'd try that.

I expected to see the beach nearest the city but Narbonne-Plage turned out to be a considerable north-easterly distance along the coast and in fact to be a major seaside town in its own right with many Hotels, Apartment Blocks, Ice-Cream Shops, Pirate Adventure Grounds and so on. As this was on a Sunday in November there weren't many people about and I only stopped long enough to take this photo of the beach – that goes on and on for miles and miles.

Beach at Narbonne-Plage looking South

SÈTE

Being still determined to visit the end of the canal I set out again on another day to reach Sète.

This time though I took the precaution of first loading Agde as my destination and telling the SatNav to avoid Motorways!

That worked and I was able to re-progamme the system with Sète as the destination after reaching Agde.

Once again I found myself driving through an area of salt water lakes and marshes so I suppose here too the sea has been marginally reduced in size by silt deposition and other causes.

Whether or not this supposition is correct there is an exception to the general lie of the land – this is another steep-sided hill on hard rock known as Mont St Clair and the place was known about as long ago as the 1st and 2^nd centuries AD when Ptolemy named it in his Treatise on Geography.    Not much seems to have happened there for the next 1,500 years until Jean-Paul Riquet identified it as a natural place at which to end the Canal du Midi.

That set off a development and building boom that has continued to the present day with the city still being an important commercial port and now a major Holiday Resort at the same time. On top of that it has also been a popular place with Poets and Artists choosing to live and work there.

One regrettable consequence of this is the place is now a heaving anthill of people, cars, boats, museums, restaurants and entertainments.

I did succeed in driving through the central part of the city and seeing the majestic buildings lining the canal just before its locks to the sea but that was only possible because it was one continuous traffic jam. Much easier to access though were the views from the top of Mont St Clair -

The Lagoon and Northern Sète

Central Sète, the Railway Terminal and the Docks

The city centre was so congested I had no chance of stopping there to find a restaurant to have lunch but did so on the southern outskirts of the town in one attached to an hotel. The food was again quite good without being exceptional but much more expensive than at Poilhes.

A glance at the Regional map will reveal there is a spit of land between Agde and Sète about 25 km long separating the lagoon (the correct name is Étang de Thau) from the Mediterranean. The road runs behind some low sand dunes and between the two there is a Voie Verte Cycle Path beside the dunes. The distance between the Path and the Road varies from about 50-150 metres and is variously filled near Agde with holiday chalets and near Sète with huge carparks.

Clearly, the whole place is heaving with visitors in high season but now, in the second half of November there were only a few vehicles in the carparks and walkers or cyclists exercising themselves along the Voie Verte or the beach. I became one of the latter and enjoyed a ride of about 8km in each direction from one of the carparks.

Looking towards Sète along Plage Baleine

OPPIDUM D'ENSERUNE AND ÉTANG DE MONTADY

Just a couple of kilometres from Colombiers there is a large hill that rises very steeply from the surrounding plain to a height of more than 100 metres.

Humans occupied this hill for nearly 1,000 years until about 100 AD, initially in impermanent huts whilst still living a mainly nomadic life but from the 6^th and 5^th Centuries BC in more organised stone-built dwellings complete with separate grain stores, burial sites and fortifications. Once established in this way such a Hill Fort Town is known as an Oppidum.

Much has been learned about these people and their lives from archaeological digs and many objects including Pottery and a large collection of Gallic Weapons have been recovered and are on display in a museum at the site – during the summer months when it is open.

From these it has been deduced the Town's citizens were certainly farmers and warriors but also that they traded with other groups around the Mediterranean from Spain to Phoneicia via Greece.

When their time came the Romans swept all before them, primarily because they were united and disciplined whereas the many different Gaullish Tribes were militarily strong but could't agree amongst themselves how to fight the war and who was to lead.  So it was in Languedoc, but as the Pax Romana was established, new towns and roads between them were principally built on lower and flatter ground.    Gradually the Gaullish Oppida, including the one at Enserune were abandoned.

For many centuries after the Roman period there were extensive fresh water marshes at the eastern foot of the hill on which the Oppidum d'Enserune had been built. The area was a geological bowl with a depression in the centre and higher land all around so although there was some natural drainage, and evaporative losses in the hot dry summers, most of the area remained marshy all year round and was of very limited agricultural value.

So in the 13^th Century the citizens of Béziers devised and put into effect a drainage system. They did this by leaving a circular area centred at the bottom of the bowl as a lake whose depth could be controlled (Étang is a French word meaning lake or pond).. This was achieved by constructing an underground culvert at the bottom central point in the lake with a natural fall to a point beyond the rim of the geological bowl that was lower than the bottom of the lake, and installing a sluice at that exit (a sluice is a sliding gate used to control the flow of water).

To complete their scheme they also dug drainage ditches from the rim of the bowl to the lake's circumference. So the drained land thus made available for agriculture (wheat originally and vineyards later) took the shape of inclined wedges of variable width between two circular boundaries. It is very distinctive as can be seen from this photo I took from the summit of L'Oppidum d'Enserune.

The Etang de Montady

The system is still working and in use today.

Another consequence of this scheme was that 500 years later Jean-Paul Riquet thought that as 12^th Century people had succeeded in tunnelling through the rock at the foot of L'Oppidum d'Enserune he should be able to do the same, even though no one else had run a canal through a tunnel before. That is why he chose the present route and is the background to construction of the Tunnel at Malpas.