Cycling the Canal du Midi: Across Southern France from Toulouse to Sete

By Declan Lyons

A guidebook to cycling the Canal du Midi route from Toulouse to Sete on the Mediterranean coast. Covering 260km (162 miles), this long-distance cycle through France’s southern Languedoc can be cycled in 1 week and is suitable for both first-time and experienced long-distance cyclists.

The route is described west to east in 5 stages, each between 40 and 63km (25–39 miles) in length. Optional side trips exploring the countryside and historical towns and villages are also detailed.

• 1:200,000 maps and profiles included for each stage?
• Refreshment and accommodation information given
• Handy stage planning tables help you plan your itinerary
• Information on cycle shops with repair facilities along the route
• Advice on planning and preparation

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cicerone Press
• Release date: Jan 10, 2024
• ISBN: 9781783625109

Declan Lyons

Declan Lyons has a lifelong passion for cycling and touring. He was bitten by the bug when, as a teenager in the 1960s, he explored the wilds of Connemara on a rusty three-speed Rudge bicycle. Since then he has toured extensively in Ireland and further afield, including regular trips from the Channel to the Mediterranean. Declan is an advocate of cycle touring –  taking time on his cycles and relishing the nature, history and daily life all around. He has toured the region between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean extensively.

Book preview

About the Author

Declan Lyons brings a lifelong passion for cycling and touring to this guide. He was bitten by the bug when, as a teenager in the 1960s, he explored the wilds of Connemara on a rusty three-speed Rudge bicycle. Since then he has toured extensively in Ireland and further afield. He’s cycled throughout France, including regular trips from the Channel to the Mediterranean.

Declan’s home in Portiragnes is a few hundred metres from the Canal du Midi. He has spent the past two decades exploring its history, culture and wildlife by bike – accompanied by his wife, son and fellow enthusiasts.

CYCLING THE CANAL DU MIDI

ACROSS SOUTHERN FRANCE FROM TOULOUSE TO SÈTE

by Declan Lyons

JUNIPER HOUSE, MURLEY MOSS,

OXENHOLME ROAD, KENDAL, CUMBRIA LA9 7RL

www.cicerone.co.uk

© Declan Lyons 2017

Second edition 2017 Reprinted 2022 (with updates)

ISBN 9781783625109

First edition 2009

ISBN 1852845597

ISBN 9781852845599

Printed in China on responsibly sourced paper on behalf of Latitude Press Ltd.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All photographs are by the author unless otherwise stated.

Route mapping by Lovell Johns www.lovelljohns.com

Contains OpenStreetMap.org data © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA. NASA relief data courtesy of ESRI

This guide is dedicated to the memory of Tom O’Driscoll – friend, colleague, runner and cyclist.

Updates to this Guide

While every effort is made by our authors to ensure the accuracy of guidebooks as they go to print, changes can occur during the lifetime of an edition. Any updates that we know of for this guide will be on the Cicerone website (www.cicerone.co.uk/784/updates), so please check before planning your trip. We also advise that you check information about such things as transport, accommodation and shops locally. Even rights of way can be altered over time.

The route maps in this guide are derived from publicly available data, databases and crowd-sourced data. As such they have not been through the detailed checking procedures that would generally be applied to a published map from an official mapping agency, although naturally we have reviewed them closely in the light of local knowledge as part of the preparation of this guide.

We are always grateful for information about any discrepancies between a guidebook and the facts on the ground, sent by email to [e-mail] or by post to Cicerone, Juniper House, Murley Moss, Oxenholme Road, Kendal, LA9 7RL.

Register your book: To sign up to receive free updates, special offers and GPX files where available, register your book at www.cicerone.co.uk.

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful for help from very many people for their suggestions and advice in the preparation of this second edition. Special thanks are due to Mr Jean-Marc Pougnet, the Head of Public Relations Unit with the French Navigable Waterways. My wife Mary and son Oscar accompanied me on parts of the route and I thank them for their support and encouragement throughout this project. Thanks too to the many people who contacted me and gave useful feedback and help on various aspects of the route. Tim and Mary Hoyle have given valuable information and insights gained from their cycles in the region, while Timo and Isabella Langerwerf from Relax Rentals in Béziers keep me up-to-date with the constant changes and developments along the canal’s length. Thanks too for the help, guidance and support of the Cicerone team of Jonathan and Lesley Williams, Sian Jenkins, Georgia Laval, Hannah Stevenson and Andrea Grimshaw.

Preamble

The second edition of this guide was published in 2017. A lot has happened since publication and some of it could have an impact on your cycling experience.

The Covid pandemic affected many businesses along the canal and some of these, particularly chambres d’hôtes, have closed. There have been two severe floods in the southern part of the route. They have caused some further deterioration of the path in places but most of this damage is temporary.

The implementation of Brexit has changed entry regulations to the EU for those using a British passport. You should double check that your passport meets EU regulations before leaving the UK. You also need a visa if you stay longer than 90 days in any 180-day period anywhere in the EU other than Ireland.

There will be detours and blockages along the canal in Toulouse for at least five months in 2023 due to the construction of the new metro line M3.

There is good news, too. Work on upgrading the path as part of the V80 route has finally begun with the first tranche between Argeliers and Argens Minervois underway.

Special thanks to Timo and Isabella Langerwerf and Liam Hennessy for their pointers for this reprint.

Front cover: Le Somail (Stage 4)

CONTENTS

Map key

Overview map

Route summary table

Introduction

Regions of the canal

History

Wildlife

Culture

Cycling the Canal du Midi

When to go

Getting there and getting around

Accommodation

Food and drink

Your bike

What to take

Cycling the towpath

Health and safety

Weather

Maps

Money and communications

Using this guide

The Canal du Midi

Stage 1 Toulouse to Port Lauragais

Stage 2 Port Lauragais to Carcassone

Excursion 1 From Criminelle lock to St-Ferréol reservoir

Stage 3 Carcassone to Homps

Excursion 2 From Trèbes to Lastours

Excursion 3 From Homps to Minerve

Stage 4 Homps to Béziers

Excursion 4 To Narbonne and Port la Nouvelle

Stage 5 Béziers to Sète

Excursion 5 To Vendres salt lagoon

Excursion 6 Across Portiragnes marshes to Sérignan

Appendix A Stage planning tables

Appendix B Accommodation

Appendix C Useful information

Appendix D English–French glossary

Appendix E Further reading

A view of St Nazaire Cathedral in Béziers from the canal (Stage 4)

ROUTE SUMMARY TABLE

Ventenac-en-Minervois (Stage 4)

Sète canal (Stage 5)

INTRODUCTION

On 13 April 1667, Pierre Paul Riquet began work on one of the world’s best cycle tracks. It wasn’t his intention; the bicycle had yet to be invented. He set out to construct a canal – the Canal du Midi – but the 240km towpath along its bank is now a cyclist’s dream.

Parts of the route are on tarmacadam

The canal’s towpath, linking Toulouse in the Haute Garonne with Sète on the Mediterranean coast, is an excellent, rewarding cycle. It passes through some of France’s most beautiful and historic countryside: rolling plains enlivened with sunflowers, dark mountain ranges, oak forests, tinder-dry garigue, Camargue-like marshland and sandy coastlines. The towns and villages punctuating its route are steeped in history and culture. This is part of la France Profonde, where the rural life still prevails; the towns and villages feel authentic and genuine.

Although it is manmade, the canal seems natural – fitting perfectly into its surroundings. It’s a thriving refuge and green corridor for a wide range of animals and plants.

Riquet built the canal to enable goods to pass from Bordeaux, on the Atlantic, to the Mediterranean ports without having to circumnavigate the Iberian Peninsula. This saved time and secured supplies in uncertain, turbulent times. Trade brought wealth, as evidenced by the elegant buildings in older districts of the canal’s towns. Tourist boats, walkers and cyclists have replaced the working barges, and the canal is a focal point for sporting and leisure activities.

The canal villages and towns predate its construction. Ancient Greeks founded Agde and the Romans developed Narbonne. Toulouse, the ‘Rose City’ has been one of France’s most beautiful and important cities for over a thousand years, while Carcassonne’s Cité is a restored 12th-century Cathar stronghold.

The arrival of railways in the late 19th century and the later construction of truck-carrying motorways undermined the economics of moving goods by barge. The Canal du Midi went into commercial decline, and the last commercial barges travelled it in 1970.

Villesèque lock (Stage 2)

UNESCO declared the Canal du Midi a World Heritage Site in 1996, recognising its unique engineering heritage and its historic importance in the development of the Languedoc area in the south of France. It rates alongside France’s great monuments such as the Eiffel Tower and the Papal palaces in Avignon. The Canal du Midi is a working, almost living artefact. As you cycle its banks you can feel, touch and taste the history and culture of the area it enriches.

This book gives information on cycling the Canal du Midi from one end to the other. It is ideal for those who want to spend a holiday canal cycling, and will also be of interest to those living or holidaying in the region who are looking for a few days of good cycling.

Those boating down the canal will also find this guide useful; most of the boat-hire companies offer bicycles for hire. Cycling presents boat users with the opportunity to explore the countryside that they pass through, and bikes give easy access to towns and villages at a short distance from the canal.

Regions of the canal

The Canal du Midi is part of a waterway linking the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. Together the River Garonne and the Canal Lateral link the Canal du Midi to the Atlantic in the west. It joins the Mediterranean at Sète. A spur of the Canal du Midi – the Canals de Jonction and de la Robine – connects it to Port la Nouvelle on the Mediterranean coast.

The path was originally a towpath

The canal flows through Occitanie (Occitan) – a region created by the merging of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées regions. France (excluding overseas territories) is further sub-divided into 96 administrative departments which are usually – although not always – named after the main river flowing through them, with each department assigned a number in alphabetical order; the Canal du Midi passes through the Haute-Garonne (31), the Aude (11) and Hérault (34), named after the rivers Garonne (haute referring to upper), the Aude and the Hérault.

This guide uses the more general term of Languedoc to describe the region through which the canal flows.

History

Early people

The countryside around the canal is rich in history and has been inhabited and farmed since prehistory. Excavations in Valros, about 20km north of the canal at Vias, revealed Neolithic burial pits, skeletons and artefacts dating from approximately 5000

BC

.

Seafaring cultures had easy access to the Languedoc across the Mediterranean Sea. Agde was originally an ancient Greet city; its ready supply of volcanic rock and rich volcanic soil for agriculture made it an attractive base for trade in the seventh century

BC

. Archaeological remains from that period can be seen in Agde’s museum.

Evidence of the indigenous Ibero-Languedoc people can also be found close to the canal. The Oppidum d’Enserune is near Colombiers, about 2km from the tunnel at Malpas; this rocky hill was occupied from 550

BC

in the Iron Age to the first century

AD

.

Celts and Romans

The Celtic Volcae-Tectosages people spread throughout the southwest of France in the final three centuries

BC

, and ruled from Toulouse to Béziers. The Volcae struck a treaty with the Romans at the end of the second century

BC

when the latter established the province of Gallia Transalpina. The Volcae broke the treaty and captured the Roman garrison in Toulouse. The Romans retaliated, and subsequently the lands became part of their Gallic province.

Remains of the Roman Temple of Venus (Excursion 5)

The Romans established themselves quickly, leaving their mark across the entire region. The wine trade, for example, flourished, and wine and other produce were exported to Italy. This trade presumably funded the extensive building and expansion of towns and cities.

The Roman infrastructure is still in evidence today. The Via Domitia (Domitian’s road) links Rome with the Iberian Peninsula. Part of it is visible in Narbonne and a stretch can be walked at Pinet, a village 8km north of Marseillan at the Mediterranean end of the canal. Roman bridges and aqueducts can be found throughout the region.

The Roman Empire’s decline had major ramifications for southwest France. In

AD

418 the Roman Emperor Honorius gave the Visigoths control of Gallia Aquitania in