FRANCE   -  MIDI PYRENÉES

2016   NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 

The title of this account is a little misleading because the administrative region of this name was only created in the 1970s and subsumed in 2016 with Languedoc-Roussillon in a new and even larger region called Occitanie.

This new name is derived from the word Occitan which was a language (langue d'oc) historically spoken by many in South West France, Northern Spain, Morocco, Monaco and North West Italy closely related to Gascon, Catalan and Vivaro-Alpine. There was no standard written form and like Cornish, Welsh and Gaelic, although some still use their version of Occitan it is gradually being displaced by standard French, Spanish and Italian.

When Midi Pyrenées was first created it comprised parts of the much older provinces, principally Gascony in the west, parts of Languedoc with Toulouse as its capital in the east, and many smaller Pyrenéan provinces in the south.

This account is one of a stay at a campsite called, appropriately enough, Camping Midi Pyrenées, in Montréjeau roughly halfway between the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. Here is a view from my van's pitch looking south east.

REGIONAL TOPOGRAPHY

In geologic terms the Iberian land mass was distinct from the European one but the two moved towards one another with the Pyrenean mountain chain being formed as a result of the collision between them.   It lies approximately east-west and is about 450 km long.

Later movements and erosion, particularly during the Ice Ages, changed the original configuration so that today there are deep glacially-induced cliffs and water eroded valleys, running mainly north-south but sometimes cross-ways and usually steeper on the French side.

BAGNERES-DE-LUCHON

Luchon lies at the head of one of the north-south valleys on the French side with soaring mountains all around and had human occupants since Neolithic times with many cave dwellings from that period now discovered.

But it was first put on a modern map when the Roman General Pompey marched through in 71 BC after a 5 year campaign in Spain against rebel general Sertorius. One of his soldiers who had a skin complaint bathed in the local waters for 21 days and came out completely cured (I think it must have been in summer when the temperature can reach 35°C as it sometimes drops to – 10°C in winter).

A few years later Tiberius Claudius Nero heard the story and had three pools dug to create thermal baths (similar to those in Bath in England) and so the town became a Roman Spa.

About 2,000 years later, when economic growth from the Industrial Revolution and the increasing prosperity of the upper echelons of society led to an expansion of leisure activities the town became a more modern centre of attraction and new Baths, Hotels, Restaurants and other amusements were constructed.    The Baths are still in use, still with a recommended immersion of 21 days, but the town has modernised its attractions by building resorts and scores of ski-lifts high up the mountainside to attract winter sports enthusiasts.

I arrived about noon in late November, after summer activities had long been forgotten and well before there was enough snow to attract the winter sports crowd.   So the town was relatively quiet but I did find a bistro at which to enjoy a passable lunch of lamb cutlets with chips and salad followed by crèpes chocolat noir (Yum!).

Allée d'Etigny in Bagnères-de-Luchon

THE COL DU PORTILLON

There are four ways of leaving Bagnères. One choice is to return north along the way one normally arrives. Another is to go south to newly created resorts and Refuges high in the mountains. The two other ways are to climb high up roads with many hairpin bends to cols on either the south east or south west sides.

I chose to follow the south east route and finally emerged at the summit of the Col du Portillon some 9 km from town and 1,293 metres above sea level. This is on the border between France and Spain but there were of course no formalities as both are members of the European Union's Shengen Zone (although the pass was closed temporarily a year ago following the terrorist attacks in Paris).

Summit of the Pass at Col du Portillon

I was very tempted to get the bike out of the car and ride at least a little way along a rough track heading off in an eastwards direction. There was a notice beside it making clear this was for the use of walkers and mountain cyclists – and indeed I could see on my Planet Earth map that it wound around the mountainside and rejoined the motor road later on.

But, there were mist and rain drops in the air, it was cold, and I could see from the map the place where track and road again met was some 5 km distant and 600 metres down the Spanish side of the pass.     I might have managed the distance but had grave doubts about my ability to push the bike up the road for the same distance and height to rejoin the car.

THE VAL D'ARAN AND BOSOST

The Val d'Aran is one of the areas in Spain where Occitan is still regularly spoken. It is a sub region of the (separatist) Province of Catalonia within which Occitan is an officially recognised language,  but has its own dialect known as Aranese.

Interestingly, the valley is also the source of the La Garonne river that flows for a few km on the Spanish side of the border before entering France, winding its way north to Toulouse and then west until it becomes one of the mighty watercourses joining the Gironde Estuary.

There were excellent views up the valley from a roadside promontory about half way down the pass. Here there was a statue and plaque celebrating Spanish Winners of the Tour de France from the great Bahamontes in 1959 to the commendably drug free Sastres in 2008 (I guess the stature was erected soon after since Contador won the race for the second time in 2009).

Statue celebrating Spanish winners of the Tour de France

Yes, although I was deterred by the possibility of having to walk my bike up half the height, the pass is often used as one of the Mountain Stages of the Tour de France, and by leisure cyclists as part of a longer ride!!!!!     People describe having made the climb in less than half an hour at an average speed of 15 km/hr.     I can't even manage that on the flat – they must belong to a different species.

BOSOST

Bosost had the appearance of a small town catering mainly to modern visitors and tourists. Its main feature was La Garonne, already a clear and fast-flowing mountain stream on its way to becoming a mighty river.

La Garonne at Bosost

PIC DU MIDI

This mountain has an isolated peak very nearly 10,000 feet high and right at the top has an astronomical observatory containing France's largest telescope.

Observatory on the Summit of Pic du Midi

French Motorways have rest areas called Aires, some are just vehicle parks with a Picnic area and some are fully serviced with a Restaurant, Toilets, Fuel Stations and so on. There is one of the latter called Aire de Pic du Midi at a strategic point on the A64.

On the northern side of this Aire there is an unusual sundial consisting of two pieces of children's playground equipment and posts of varying height. There are 12 posts arranged on the perimeter of a curve similar to an imaginary figure of eight passing through them all – one for each month of the year.

An Unusual Sundial

The tube and frame in the photo form a line of sight on the Observatory and solar noon can be determined by observing when the tip of the shadow from the appropriate post reaches that line of sight. The positioning and height of the posts allow for the earth's elliptical orbit around the sun and the inclination of its axis of rotation.

Interpretation of solar noon in terms of clock noon requires a number of corrections and there is a board nearby tabulating these for this sundial. These are necessary because clocks measure time changes using a fixed interval and are set for a single longitude in each time zone. In contrast each solar day has a different length from its neighbours and noon occurs sooner or later at different longitudes from that used as the time zone standard.

CIRQUE DE GAVARNIE

The most celebrated of the Pyrennean Cirques is the one at Gavarnie where the deepest part of the cliff is an almost vertical drop of about 2,000 metres and the width varies from 800 metres at the bottom to 3,000 metres at the top.   Theoretically it is possible to walk in a couple of hours from the village into the bowl at the foot of the cliffs but I didn't feel fit enough to do so and in any case there was snow and ice on the ground during my visit.

The Cirque de Gavarnie

SKI RESORT AT GAVARNIE GÈDRE

The west side of the cirque is a spur from the mountain chain and a road with many hairpin bends climbs up the western side of this spur to a another natural bowl below the chain's ridge line. I was tempted to try this as it had been snow-ploughed for most of the way until reaching the last few hundred metres to a modern ski-resort. There were a number of people about but they turned out to be resort workers preparing for the opening of the season in a week's time.

Looking Down on the Hairpins

A Mostly Empty Car Park

The Forester behaved impeccably in these freezing conditions with no hint of slipping or sliding about.

CIRQUE DE TROUMOUSE

To reach Gavarnie one has to pass through a village called Sassis at which there is a fork in the road to the mountains. On my return journey I first tried taking the other leg of the fork in order to see another Cirque that has no nearby holiday-centric village and is described as being much wilder.

Cirque de Troumouse

The cliffs aren't quite so high or sheer as those at Gavarnie but are wider and were easier to photograph because it was later in the afternoon and on a more favourable line of sight.

I haven't yet discovered how this Cirque was named with its strange combination of the English Mouse and the French Trou meaning Hole.     It is mentioned in Bradshaw's Guide published in the Victorian era so I can't help thinking it must have been an Englishman, probably an early recreational Mountaineer,  who first used the phrase as a humorous description that later became a name.

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. 

FRANCE  -  LOT ET GARONNE

2016  OCTOBER

My original impression of densely built up areas with fast traffic at Créon deterred me from getting the bike out at the campsite. On the narrow cycle lanes at the sides of many roads I saw only groups of Lycra Clad young men whose stamina and pace I couldn't hope to match with cars whizzing past them for much of their ride.

Then I remembered this entire area from the Atlantic Coast to the Mediterranean is known as “Entre Deux Mers” and I had before found reference to a major Voies Vertes (Green Cycle Path) traversing from one coast to the other.       Further investigation revealed it did indeed pass through Créon, but not on a road. Instead it followed a disused Railway Line.     That looks more promising I thought but deeper enquiry showed that for a good distance either side of Créon there were quite significant climbs over the vineyard covered hills.

But, if I went inland by car for 30-40 miles I saw I could reach the ancient city of La Réole and the small but equally ancient village of Fontet marking the western end of the Canal de Garonne with the entre2mers Voies Vertes running along its old towpath.

Lot et Garonne

Unfortunately it was pouring with rain when I started out on an exploratory mission and was still raining, albeit less heavily, when I reached Réole about 11-45.        Well, it might clear in the afternoon I thought and set about looking for a restaurant at which to have lunch. The first I tried was “Fermé pour vacances annuelle” so I crossed the square past what the citizens of Réole claim is the oldest Town Hall in France – built in 1200 to the order of Richard Lionheart.

Just a short distance from here I came across a very small café with an open door – I was greeted by the noise of a vacuum and by a young man and woman busy cleaning the small room and setting tables. “We're not open yet” they said (in French), “Come back in ten minutes”. “May I just sit and wait”, I asked – to which they readily agreed.

Then I saw a very young girl sat at a nearby table carefully stacking dominoes in a box. “Hello”, I said sitting down opposite her. Soon we were joined by her elder brother. I introduced myself and learned they were Juliette, whom I estimated to be 2 ½ – 3 years old and her brother Timothy who was about 5. In short I had two delightful games of three-handed dominoes whilst waiting for the cleaning to be finished and food preparation started.

The café had a Breton theme and lunch consisted of a savoury galette (a large crèpe made with buckwheat flour with a filling of potatoes, cheese and other ingredients) followed by a sweet crèpe topped in this case with sliced almonds and honey. Both were delicious.

The air was still very moist when I reached Fontet and got the bike out of the car to ride along the path beside the canal – and in fact there was intermittent light rain on and off for the whole of this ride – thought not heavy enough to require waterproofs or to seek shelter.

THE CANAL DE GARONNE

Augustus, Emperor of Rome between 27 BC and 14 AD was upset at the frequent loss of shipping between Rome and his possessions on the west coast of Gaul. Passing through the Pillars of Hercules into westerly gales and up the Spanish and Portuguese coasts against strong northerly winds was fraught with the dangers of piracy and shipwreck.

Augustus asked his engineers to build a canal between the Atlantic and Mediterranean Coasts to shorten the voyage and make it much safer, but they didn't succeed in doing so.     They and many others who had the same idea in centuries that followed failed to find a source of water that could be used to fill such a canal at its highest point near Toulouse.

But in the 1660s Pierre-Paul Riquet, a French Collector of Salt Tax with no technical training but a good understanding of the mountains, proposed a way in which the water supply problem could be solved. His first idea was to create several reservoirs high in the mountains from which the water could be channelled to the summit of the canal. This was later adapted and a single huge damn and reservoir was built requiring the supply channel to be over 25 km long and to have locks of its own.

Louis XIV – Le Roi Soleil – set up a Royal Commission to examine Riquet's ideas that were eventually modified and approved enabling construction to begin in 1667.      By modern standards that was pretty fast compared with the planning periods for such projects as a Nuclear Power Station, a High Speed Rail Link or a New Airport. Financial aspects of the approval process were comparable but in the 17^th Century the practical difficulties were mainly technical whereas these days they are mainly social.

By 1682 the canal between Toulouse and Sète on the Mediterranean, now known as the Canal du Midi, had been finished and was linked by a short extension to the upper reaches of the Garonne that was considered navigable by the size of craft in use at the time.

Riquet's idea had been to build a much longer section on the western side of the watershed to avoid the many loops and sandbanks in the Garonne but Louis XIV was busy expanding his Palace at Versailles at the time and didn't have cash to spare for infrastructure projects.

Nor did his successors for the next two hundred years until 1838 when work started on the Canal de Garonne that was finished by 1856.

Initially the now completed waterway became a major conduit freight but this was also the period in which Railways were being developed and they soon took a lot of traffic away from the canal.   Enough use was still made of it to keep the canal in the freight business until about 1970 when construction of modern roads dealt another blow to the economy of transporting goods by barge.

During the 1970's and '80's the growth of tourism and recreational boating created a new source of income with which to pay operating and maintenance costs.    Tourism remains a thriving business today and contributes very significantly to the local economy in towns and villages along the canal.

A SHORT RIDE ALONG THE TOWPATH

At Fontet the canal runs parallel and close to the river before the latter veers away on one of the many loops along its course. At the edge of town there is a Recreation Park and small Pleasure Craft Marina served by a good approach road and Car Park.     That is where I left the car and started out on my ride each way to the village of “Meilhan-sur-Garonne” along the route shown here and totalling some 11-12 miles together.

The canal is raised about 20 feet above the surrounding land by substantial earth banks, lined in some sections with steel girders that I will describe in more detail later on. An impression can be gained from this photo taken on one of many bridges across the water.

There is a lock on the other side of this bridge and its clear from this photo it is well maintained but not with the obviously loving care devoted to similar locks on the Nantes-Brest canal and apparent in their brilliant floral displays.

All works well but there aren't any flowers.

The method practiced here of showing boaters on which side of the canal they can safely pass is also more utilitarian than using buoys.

A strap suspended from a wire indicates the deeper side

There are shrubs or trees on the river side of the canal for most of its length with an occasional gap through which the river can be seen.

La Garonne

Even though its not quite as wide as the Loire it looked to be equally fast-flowing and to have as many sandbanks. I imagine it is pretty tumultuous in the Spring after winter rains but in late October after a dry summer it was peaceful enough.

The Cycle Path in Autumn

I came across some active maintenance work in one place. A barge was rocking and rolling as a small track-driven mobile crane moved about on its deck lifting and positioning one of the steel girders I mentioned earlier. For a few minutes I could go no further because the barge was moored to the side of the canal by thick ropes strung across the path and tied-off to trees higher up the adjacent bank. A couple of cyclists and a man in a mobility scooter coming the other way were similarly obstructed.

There were huge piles of such girders stacked alongside so I thought my ride might be foreshortened.    But after a few minutes and when they had the girder in a secure position the workers suspended their activity and removed the main mooring rope across the path – I still had to scramble up and down slippery leaf clad slopes to bypass others.

Installed Girders

I guessed the girders were needed both to provide structural support to the earth bank and to limit water leakage that might otherwise wash it away. To assist with the second function the girders had an ingenious interlocking shape at their edges.

This clever joint provides strength and limits leakage

The lining didn't seem to be continuous along the entire length of the canal but certainly existed for considerable distances at many locations.

The land between the canal and the river must often have been flooded in the past and perhaps still is at some times of the year. Certainly it had the appearance of being very fertile as illustrated by fields of cropped corn. A little farther on the plain was used for cultivation of vegetables of many different types.

Crops on the alluvial plain

Meilhan-sur-Garonne was built on a 300 foot high mound of rock in the early 1100's, probably because it was an obviously strategic defensive position that commanded a panoramic view of the river and country below. Certainly, a Castle with a Keep, a Church and Walls existed by 1250.

This fortress changed hands several times during the Hundred Years War but thereafter declined in importance. Nowadays the town has about 1,200 inhabitants and is one of the beneficiaries of tourism and boating brought into existence by the presence of the canal.

But in late October there aren't many tourists so the canal-side cafe's and other attractions were all shut when I visited. I did try riding and then walking up the steep hill from the canal to the Church but gave up with about 100 feet of climb still to go.

A steep climb to the church at Meilhan-sur-Garonne

As a result of its tourist attractions the town has moorings for canal boats of all sorts and a municipal campsite.

At the end of October, many of the former looked as though they had been once loved but were now in need of a little TLC. The camp on the far side of the canal looked small and a little sorry for itself in the Autumnal moisture. There was however one outstanding exception to this impression of drabness.

A beautifully equipped and maintained sailing barge

This was a beautifully maintained Sailing Barge smaller but similar in design to the famous Thames Barges that used to convey freight from East Anglia to London via the river Estuaries and sandbanks off Essex and the Thames Estuary itself. I have no doubt this barge, or ones very like it, did the same up and down the Canal de Garonne and the Gironde Estuary.

You can just make out the high and large-area rudder at the stern, required to provide the massive differential pressure needed to change course, the Fisherman's anchor hanging from the bowsprit makes it clear this was no mere day-sailer, and the Lee-Board amidships completes the picture by making clear the need to limit the sideways drift of such craft when under sail.

Altogether a beautiful sight. I wished I might have met the owner to congratulate him on his ship and his maintenance of it but anyway the sight left me with a positive glow for the entire return ride.