I have finished the Canal du Midi! Well, apart from posing at the very end of the canal which I will do on my journey onwards tomorrow. And I must say that the final section of the canal has probably been my favourite overall. For the most part, it was exactly what I was after from this section of the trip. Easy walking, easy navigating, beautiful small towns and villages, lovely views and delicious food. It helped that the weather was perfect for walking. Not hot, but clear and sunny with a nice breeze from the West which helped by gently pushing me along the canal. This whole end section of the canal and the first part of the Meditterenean is actually quite famous for the wind which they call the Mistral. Aparrently it can drive people mad but after walking in it for over a week I can confidently report that I am just as sane as ever...
The design process of the towns in the area is brilliant: Find a hill, often with a backdrop of mountains behind it. Build a church or fort on the top of it and then surround that with winding streets with charming houses. The fancier and more character-filled houses will have painted shutters of all sorts of colours and often rather intricate front doors. Add a nice boulangerie (bakery) and few eventful historical stories to your town, such as it being a renowned hiding place for the Cathars in the 12th and 13th centuries, and you have everything that I need to make the town a fascinating place to stop for a while. This pattern is repeated again and again and yet every place feels different and unique in ways in which it is hard to describe.
I stayed a night in Argeliers and was pleased to have my first night of proper good french conversation. I stayed in an Air BnB called 'The Old Amandier' which had yet another wonderful host, called Sylvie, and spent a wonderful evening chatting with her and some other rather lovely guests. I am still relying on my translator app quite a lot but there are definitely signs of progress being made with my french and chucking yourself into conversation like this is definitely the way to improve it.
I also got to offer some help to a couple of cyclists, one of whom had a rather nasty puncture shortly after cycling past where I was eating my breakfast. Using a line of french stolen directly from Harry Potter, 'permittez-moi assister vous' we went on to have an interesting conversation whilst trying to get the bike to the point where it could be ridden to a nearby town. The puncture was easy enough to repair but the tyre was a mess and without doing something the bike wouldn't have gone very far at all. Some plastic wrapping, plasters and steri-strips later and we had what I hope was a workable solution. I watched them go for about a kilometre along the road before they went out of view so I hope they go there ok.
The following evening was spent in another wonderful small town called Capestang which has a very impressive church on the top of its hill. What made this one particularly interesting to me was that it was so tall and yet had quite a small footprint. I set off early the next day for what started to feel like the start of the end of the canal, aiming for the city of Béziers that night. This section, from Capestang to Beziers is very much what I would call the highlight reel section of the Canal du Midi. You have the Malpas tunnel, where the canal passes through a hillside for almost 200 metres which has wonderful acoustics (sorry for my singing - I have just read 'The Hobbit' and the tunnel reminded me of the dwarves mining in the mountain and a rather lovely song from the film); Colombiers, a small picture postcard town with a huge range of cafes and small shops; the 9 Ecluses de Fonseranes, a row of nine lock gates in a row which takes the canal almost down to the level of the river; the Pont Canal De L'Orb, an incredibly impressive and intricate aqueduct that crosses a huge river (The Orb); and then finally the wonderful Cathedral at the top of the city of Beziers.
At risk of sounding very repetitive, this is a wonderful church set on top of a hill. Sort of. It is actually a very lovely cathedral set on to of the biggest hill of all the ones that I have described. You are teased with views of this impressive structure for miles before you get to Beziers and when you do finally reach it, after walking up a rather big hill, it really doesn't disappoint. What I love most about this cathedral is that they open almost every part of it. Visitors are welcomed up the towers and the views from the top are jaw dropping. It was a really special moment as I got to stare far off into the distance to the West knowing that I had walked further than my eyes could see from that high vantage point. The river winds off majestically with many rather lovely bridges along it, you have great views of the end of the Pyrenees and also of the hills and mountains to the North-West. Spectacular. I highly recommend it.
On my quest for honesty I will report that, sadly, the rest of the canal was comparatively unspectacular. The town of Agde was nice enough where the canal merges into the river Herault but I have ended up waiting out a storm in a summer tourist complex called the Cap D'Agde which, if you are into sea-side resorts, is probably quite good but it is really not my sort of thing.
What is lovely is dipping my feet into the Mediterranean Sea and planning the next stage of my adventure. I am going to go inland for a while as the next route would have been another section of canal interspersed with seaside resorts. Instead I am going to go hunting for views in the hills behind Montpellier and also try and give my legs a bit of a reality check as I fear they have grown to used to walking along flat ground.