Canal holidays

Take a barge holiday or gentle motor cruise through Languedoc, for one of the most enjoyable ways to discover the region.

Languedoc Roussillon

Canal du Midi Holidays

For canal holidays in France, this region is hard to beat, with the fabulous Canal du Midi flowing through it. You’ll travel at the leisurely pace of about 5 miles an hour, with frequent stops to pass through the locks or explore the surrounding area, visit the local sights, or take a walk or cycle ride along the towpaths.

The 175 miles of navigable waterway that makes up the Canal du Midi stretches across the Languedoc plain, with more than 350 bridges, locks and other feats of engineering making its passage possible. Some of these constructions are now more than 300 years old, and are works of art in themselves. At the end of the Canal du Midi is the Canal du Rhône à Sète and the Canal de la Robine, which links Narbonne to the sea.

The Canal du Midi, built in the 17th century to link the Atlantic and Mediterranean, is a UNESCO World Heritage site and flows through a region steeped in history. On a boating holiday on the canal you can explore nearly 150 miles of navigable waterways, choosing from a wide range of accommodation and boating holidays, from barge boats converted into floating hotels to modern cruisers.

The Canal du Rhône à Sète runs from Beaucaire to the port of Sète. It passes through Saint-Gilles-du-Gard - once home to the Counts of Toulouse - and crosses the landscape of the Camargue with its lagoons, salt marshes, wild white horses and pink flamingos. Finally, the canal enters the Thau Lagoon near the port of Sète.

The Canal de la Robine gives direct access to the heart of Narbonne. The canal flows on towards the sea through the Bages and Sigean lagoons, passing close to the nature reserve of Sainte Lucie Island, then finally reaches Port-la-Nouvelle. The junction canal is lined with parasol pines and bordered by vineyards, which makes it one of the prettiest inland waterways in the region.

Major sights on the Canal du Midi

The locks at Fonséranes
The 8 locks at Fonséranes, built in 1697, are a spectacular sight. In a distance of 300m they take the Canal across a height difference of 21.5m. The last lock (the lowest one), which used to give access to the river Orb, is no longer in service. This succession of cascading locks and the panoramic view over the town of Béziers is one of the main attractions of the Canal du Midi.

The Malpas Tunnel
The Malpas Tunnel is an amazing construction, built to take the canal through a hill that stood across the planned route. It was dug out of the sandy turf of the Ensérune mountain between 1679 and 1680. Pierre-Paul Riquet was completely at loggerheads with Colbert, Daguesseau and Clerville about the line of the Canal at this point, and had this section dug quickly and secretly. It measures 173m long, 6m high and 8.5m wide. Today, three tunnels go through the hill: the evacuation tunnel for the Montady lagoon, the SNCF railway tunnel and the Canal du Midi. When you dock at the entrance of the tunnel, you can visit the nearby historic site of Ensérune. While you’re in the area, also visit the village of Capestang, with its abbey and fortifications, and Poilhes, which has a 600-year-old tree.

The Aqueduct at Fresquel
This construction allows the road and the canal to run side by side above the river bed at Fresquel, near Carcassonne. The spectacular three-arched bridge was begun in 1802 and completed in 1810. The three locks at Fresquel are controlled by a lock keeper, who keeps watch over all three from his raised observation point, to ease the flow of traffic through the locks and minimise the loss of water.

The canal bridge over the Orb

At Béziers, Riquet’s native town, the crossing of the river Orb had been a long-term problem. This narrow river has an irregular rate of flow: drought in summer and high levels in winter. In the early days, a system of water channels, locks and water outlets was built to overcome this difficulty and guarantee the continued use of the canal in all seasons. However, the high water levels of the Orb regularly damaged the workings. To solve these permanent problems, the canal bridge across the Orb was built between 1854 and 1858. This structure - 12m high, 28m wide and 240m long - is one of the most spectacular constructions on the Canal. The aqueduct at Répudre This was the first canal bridge in the world and the only one built by Paul Riquet, who invented this technology. The bridge - build in 1676 - is located near the village of Paraza in a spectacular, natural setting. It was recently renovated after being damaged by the unusually high waters of 1999.

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Canal Holidays and Cruises in Languedoc-Roussillon