Summer holiday 2008
Le Cap D´Agde − France






Part 2


The strategic value therefore is quite obvious and it had been discussed for centuries, in particular when King Francis I brought Leonardo da Vinci to France in 1516 and commissioned a survey of a route from the Garonne at Toulouse to the Aude at Carcassonne. The major problem that these planners, and the subsequent planners, had during the next 150 years was how to supply the summit sections with enough water.

The vast majority of canals in Europe run parallel with, and are supplied with water by, a major river. The Canal du Midi's route from Toulouse to the coast of the Mediterranean has no such major river. (And to add insult to injury, Languedoc has a low rainfall record making water a vital commodity.) This was the challenge facing Riquet in building the Canal du Midi, and it took him four years of trials before he was able to show that water from a feeder canal constructed from the Montagne Noire to Naurouzes just west of Castelnaudary could flow in two directions - either east towards the sea or west, back towards Toulouse. He had his feeder system. Riquet obtained the blessing of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the finance minister of Louis XIV and an engineering genius, and in 1666 work on the Canal du Midi started with the possible expenditure of 3,360,000 livres.





Since royal funds were slow to materialise, Riquet himself financed the work on the feeder system and the first canal section leading from Toulouse to Trèbes. The second section leading from Trèbes to the Etang de Thau was started in June 1668, and the third section from the Etang de Thau to the Mediterranean, including the building of the port of Sète. At the time this was an unimportant and small fishing village called Cette).

An interesting fact is that the original canal, as built by Riquet, bypassed the city off Carcassonne. It was nearly 130 years later that the Port of Carcassonne was opened. It is now very difficult to see where the changes have occurred, particularly as the "new locks" that needed to be constructed to traverse Carcassonne were built to the same shape and dimensions as those built by Riquet originally

Instead it would follow the path round the northern side of the city of the small, meandering River Fresquel, which eventually flows into the River Aude near to the village of Montredon. In his original plans, faced with a variety of geographical and financial limitations, Riquet had intended to canalise much of the Fresquel and, thereby, create a route that had the potential to save a considerable amount of money on digging a channel from scratch.











and welcome!






Highslide JS
Canal du Midi Western part

Canal du Midi
Western part



Highslide JS
Canal du Midi middle part

Canal du Midi
middle part



Highslide JS
Canal du Midi Eastern part

Canal du Midi
Eastern part