Travel - Thinking Woman's Diary

Canal du Midi...

Written: 26th Jul 2010 | Last Updated: 27th Jul 2010

Like four escargots sharing a borrowed shell, we guided our boat (a 42-foot rental from European outfit LeBoat) at a relaxing pace along the Canal du Midi, in the French region of Languedoc-Roussillon, travelling from Castelnaudary (home of the famous white bean & meat extravaganza, Cassoulet) to quaint Port Cassafières près de la Méditerranée - a fascinating 10-day journey that included a detour down the Canal de Jonction and Canal de la Robine to the lively (once Roman Narbo Martius) city of Narbonne.

What one would hope for on such an excursion would be fine weather, which we got (apart from an hour and a half’s downpour on our penultimate day), no crowding at locks, which we also scored, and great shipboard camaraderie, which proved natural for old friends...simple things, really, but absolute game-makers when you’re working your way through scores of écluses (as locks are known en français) and sharing communal space.

As a crew, we almost immediately forged into an efficient unit - experienced and confident skipper, two eager ladies on ropes (les cords) and an ebullient go-fer (sometimes on foot, other times on vélo) who activated automatic locks, received and released bow and stern lines, and produced biscuit-bones for lock dogs as well as Australian souvenirs for les éclusiers. The “work” proved great fun for the entire cruise, and none of us could imagine slipping along the canal in a professionally crewed vessel...simply not challenging enough.

We discovered an affecting panorama of Languedoc history and politics en route - thousands of years’ worth - while visiting spectacular and elaborate fortifications (Carcassonne), numerous Roman Catholic cathedrals, medieval walled villages, Gaul ruins, exposed stones of the ancient Via Domitia (Roman Road), and also, poignantly, while reading various memorials and plaques honouring locals who died in the Great War and during World War II and the Nazi Occupation. One example, in Capestang’s pretty town square, was a tribute to village men arrested and sent to Germany...to Resistance fighters killed…and to patriots executed on the Champs de Mars in Béziers; many of the town’s streets now bear their names. Cemeteries all across the region record this recurring, devastating sacrifice.

The religious past was violent, too, notably with the Catholic Crusades led by Pope Innocent III, King Philippe II and Simon de Montfort against the so-deemed heretical Albigensian Cathars. In Béziers alone, on July 22, 1209, it is said over 25,000 men, women and children were slaughtered - leaving God to decide who was worthy of Heaven (Catholics) and who was not (Cathars).

As we sailed along the canal, and as we biked or walked into villages, the last of spring’s wild red poppies bobbed softly by fields of wheat and amongst endless rows of grapevines - a metaphor, perhaps, for the blood, the priceless crimson ink, with which history has been written here.

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