We had a beautiful relaxing day following the canal. No difficulty navigating. Good weather and a flat route made the day.
24 September 2023
More videos on;
https://huibertheijna.wixsite.com/bikewagnesbert
#cyclingvlog #cycle #france #tandem #gopro #gopro11 #djimini3pro #insta360onex2 #pyrenees_atlantiques #gers #hautes_pyrenees #cycling #cyclingshots #southernfrance
after all the action of the last couple of days flat throughout today we drove by car to the canal lateral and C got up and [Music] down 5 minutes after the start of the ride we treat it to a nice Aqueduct over the river [Music] galong [Music] [Music] right after the aquaduct we treat it onto a nice smooth cycle path and basically it was another 61 km on dedicated cycle pass [Music] brilliant [Music] [Music] [Music] lot of fruit trees in this [Music] [Music] [Music] area the idea for a canal started in 1614 and between 1614 and 1662 various projects were launched but none of them was Sol was uh implemented the problem was how to get the water to the Watershed I.E the highest port of the canal the reason for the canal was that it would U um shorten the journey from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean by about 3,000 km you didn’t have to go all the way around [Music] [Applause] [Music] Spain [Music] very nice these kind of [Music] signs in 1660 the problem of the water was solved by a guy called Pier Paul V he got the water from the black [Music] mountains in between 1667 and 1680 Mr R built the canal de midi to the east of the canal the F however the the part to the west or the canal hon was not being built or could not be built because Louis the 14 spelled all his money on the chatau de [Music] ver [Music] so the canal was never been built however in 1821 onwards the plants were revived again to start building the canal and in 1838 the actual work started and was finished in 1856 however in 1856 uh there was also a railway completed at the same time and this was running parallel to the canal and unfortunately the Canal’s exploitation rights were given to the rail company who increased the levies to such an extent that between 1850 and 1893 the water Freight diminished by 2/3 [Music] however after 1970 a different kind of boat started using the canal that was tourism tourism basically saved the canal also in 1996 the canal de midi to the east was declared to the UNESCO world heritage sites and this benefited the canal that goong as [Music] well at the moment more than a thousand boats are using the canal per year and the total revenue of this is about 26 million to the uh the local area um the canal in total is about 193 km long and has 53 different [Music] locks there are also two main aquaducts uh both of which you’ve seen on the uh the videos [Music] the reason that there are so many trees on either side of the canal is twofold the trees strengthen the dkes on either side and they provide shade to minimize water evaporation during [Music] summertime [Music] for