France’s Canal du Midi by Le Boat – FULL EPISODE (S2:E2)

00:30 – Welcome to Toulouse
01:53 – Getting to Homps
02:16 – Canal du Midi cruise highlights
03:19 – Starting the @Leboat adventure with mandatory training
06:28 – Canal du Midi overview
10:45 – Small towns you visit along the way
12:25 – The grocery barge in Le Somail
14:29 – The 350-yr old Malpas Tunnel (world’s first navigable canal tunnel)
16:32 – Beziers and the Fonsarannes Staircase (flight locks)

In Season 2, our journey begins in Toulouse, the vibrant city in the South of France known for its stunning architecture and rich history. From there, we head to Homps to cast off with Le Boat, exploring the picturesque villages, lush vineyards, and historic sites that line the canal.

Along the way, we uncover the secrets of the famous locks, savor the local cuisine at charming waterside bistros, and discover why this UNESCO World Heritage site is a bucket-list destination among boaters. Join us as we navigate through the heart of the French countryside, capturing the essence of a truly unforgettable boating vacation.

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Award-winning journalist and passionate boater Steven Bull travels the world to find the best of the boating world.

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Thanks for watching. We’ll see you on the water!

[Music] the temperat you’re feeling the [Music] heat all you ever wanted [Music] be do all the you to do well waterways coming to you this week from the south of France and we’re here because of that guy that is Pierre Paul ra he’s the chief engineer of the canal de midi which is a stunning engineering achievement recognized as UNESCO heritage site is also recognized as a fantastic boating vacation sit and the company leot which has expanded into Canada they’re going to be on the Trent s Waterway next year well they all began on the canal de midi so we’ve come here to check out where the boat started and some of rade stunning engineering achievements [Music] [Applause] [Music] getting here from North America can be quite the journey depending on where it is you want to start because the canal deidi goes a long way we flew into too which is the fourth largest city in France but we started our journey in HS which is about an hour and a half from too and the fastest way to get there is by car but there is also a train station a little bit outside of the city which is another option for you if you have a little more time but if you can factor in that cost sometimes you just want to get off the plane walk into a car and Away you go this is a fantastically interesting cruise this canal is very old with low bridges as you can see right here so it can be a bit daunting my wife is driving right now doing a fantastic job this canal links to lose and then ultimately the Bay of bis with the Mediterranean and the idea of doing this dates back to the ancient Romans but everyone thought it was impossible until the 1600s when a man named Pier Paul ra said basically hold my beer watch this and was able to achieve what all thought were impossible obstacles to overcome uh including the feran staircase lock and the Malpass tunnel which is the world’s first navigable Canal tunnel it’s still in operation today and that is where we are heading on this La boat cruise you don’t have to own your own boat you don’t have to be an experienced boter they teach you how to do it my wife has even more experience on larger boats than I do and so the two of us are perfectly comfortable and capable on this but you don’t need to be an experienced voter in fact right on the side of the boat they say no experience required and that’s because they make them very simple to operate the speed is limited we are full throttle right now doing a whopping 5.2 knots so we will never go faster than the speed limit of the canal there’s bumpers built into the boat they have additional fenders hanging all around it and before you cast off even if you’re the host of a boating TV show they take you out and walk you through how to drive Dock and spin around for your comfort and for their peace of mind and once you’ve signed off on that away you go and you can go wherever you want make your own itinerary they’ll suggest some for you but this is really your own trip now the canal demit is in one sense similar to other European canals and waterways um but in many other ways it’s very unique this was thought to be impossible and like so many things the inventor Creator leader didn’t live to see it completed he died 8 months before it was finalized it cost him his personal Fortune at times his reputation but he did it and along the way had some very impressive firsts either world first or european first and to describe the Comfort level on the spectrum of luxury hotel to camping this is somewhere in the middle much more comfortable than camping but it’s not as comfortable as a luxury hotel but that’s all right cuz to me it’s way cooler especially because you come rocking into these historic towns and Villages and sometimes cities that were built around the canal and you’re docking right there so you’re in the center of town you’re in the center of all the action and everything’s walkable or bikable and they have bikes so we’ve got a couple strap to the bow here the locks on the canal deia are different than what you’ve probably experienced in North America same basic concept and on the way Downstream it’s super simple you just Loop your line over the baller at the top they lower it down and Away you go on the way up though you’ve got to throw your lines up to someone on your boat so we’ll sort that out when we return the canal is fairly narrow too so you’ll come across a lot of other holiday boats and barges um you just go slowly move over as far as you can and believe it or not there is room there’s depth the whole width of the canal [Music] welcome back to France and the canal de Medi there are a handful of canal booat rental companies to choose from to explore these Waters but leat has the biggest Fleet in the world and this is where it all started back in 1969 but where exactly are we as of 2016 Mainland France has been divided into 12 administrative regions and we’re in the southernmost of those the oxitan region or oxitan in English there are towns that were built along it roads that run alongside it and for huge stretches bike paths that run right along the shoreline something you cannot do here though is swim in the water and by looking at it you probably wouldn’t want to anyway it’s got that lovely chocolate milk color there are apparently fish in here though seen people fishing along the banks already if you like boating or history this is the kind of trip you should do and if you’re like me and like both wello it’s just over the top and you’ll probably annoy whoever you’re traveling with being giddy for every village and town and low bridge you come to I don’t know why I love being able to touch the bottom of a bridge just make sure you’re lined up go nice and slow and you’re good one of the fascinating things about the canal deidi as far as I’m concerned is that something like this will never be built again so even though shipping by water you know big freighter ocean liners all that is the most efficient per ton of cargo both in terms of cost and Emissions the only kind of waterways that will be built inland will support them so you know the St Lawrence Seaway that open in the late 50s the Suez Canal the Panama Canal those sort of things but smaller canals weaving for miles and miles through the country into the center of a country there’s no point because now we’ve got trains and trucks to go from the ports to wherever they need which makes us even more unique the oxitan region borders Spain and the Mediterranean and it’s the number one region in France for biodiversity and you can find everything from the Kamar horse which is indigenous to southern France to flamingos what no no seriously it’s true the farmlands you pass on the canal though seem far less diverse mostly focused on a single but vital crop grapes bless you boys this is the largest wine region in France and I’m told the home of the very first sparkling wine back in 1531 [Music] so to honor the local economy we decided to stop in paraza and walk up to the Chateau on the top of the hill the Canal’s chief engineer apparently stayed here for a time during construction and now it’s a hotel and event space while also being a working Winery that offers tastings parza is a commune what North Americans would call a Township and it’s only home to a few hundred people but there are a few restaurants and even a cool vintage shop and this really feels like one of those places that’s a Hidden Gem on the verge of being discovered so we’re leaving with some very important souvenirs um it’s not important what’s in the box it’s not a it’s a judgment free zone that’s what uh Bara stands for see the Bell means I’m correct [Applause] [Music] [Applause] this a little ominous that it happened when we left it’s a security [Music] alarm just after leaving pza we pulled over to check out what I’m told is the world’s first navigable Aqueduct or Canal Bridge it was built in 1676 and is one of three original aqueducts on the canal designed across a river that has variable flow especially in winter it’s literally a Bridge Over Troubled Waters but the history isn’t confined to the Waterway itself there are some amazing villages to [Music] explore for [Music] [Music] lumay was part of a port Town built a year after the canal opened and gets its name from the old French noun for sleep lome as it was a stopover point for travelers it remains a popular spot for Canal boers 3 and a half centuries later and as if to double down on the boat Centric Vibe here there’s a grocery barge you can even put an order in for fresh Quant the night before or just pop in to see what they’ve got it’s not a massive store of course but there’s a good selection for a stock up including of course the French [Music] Essentials continuing along in the general direction of the Mediterranean you first have to squeeze through this Old Bridge again these may look wildly intimidating but thousands of people manage to do this every year and you can too just go slow get yourself lined up as well in advance as you can and work your way through it remember though boating can be a little counterintuitive and you need to be in gear to steer nicely done unless it’s definitively marked you can stop anywhere along the canal and tie up many places having moing post to tie to if not you can drive Stakes into the ground and tie to those you can even tie up to a tree and by the way the Boating etiquette around here even though this whole Waterway is speed controlled is to slow down a little bit from that banging top speed of 10 km per hour when you pass boats that are mored just over one nautical mile away is the 47 1/2 M or 155 ft long cess Aqueduct it was added 9 years after the canal first opened but is considered one of the three originals and from here it’s about 16 nautical miles or 30 km to an even cooler Historic Landmark [Music] [Music] I am weirdly excited about this because I love boating and I love history and this is Europe’s first navigable Canal tunnel this is the Malpass tunnel 165 M about 540 ft long and arguably this is the ultimate achievement of the already impressive Canal of midi because when they got here in 1679 Pierre Paul Ra’s team found it was really brittle and kept collapsing so funded by King Louis the 14th his advisers insisted he stopped he was convinced it would work so he had his master Mason continue digging and in 8 days they got through to the other side that was 344 years ago and you might be wondering why bother with a tunnel well despite all that work it’s less work to dig a tunnel than to build a series of locks to get over around this hill or bypass the canal sometimes crazy ideas work it is so cool it may have been crazy to plow ahead but the tunnel concept isn’t actually that wild and part of the reason for it versus locks to Traverse this hill is that there’s no water source at the top to feed the locks thanks to this thing 750 years ago a giant Pond was drained to create farmland for the kingdom of France and the drainage used was a small tunnel through the Malpass Hill this is what convinced r that his idea would work just on a much larger [Music] [Music] scale about four nautical miles from the Malpass tunnel is the town of beer home to about 75,000 people it’s also home to another major engineering achievement of the canal the feran locks known to some as the feran staircase there are nine bases and eight locks that connect the canal to the orb river which flows to the Mediterranean Sea beside the historic flight locks is a big blue metal contraption that is or was supposed to be the feran water slope a modern solution to the slow flight lock process in theory it would roll up or down the slope containing a small section of water built in the early 1980s it had problems from the start and never ended up replacing the 17th century technology and in the 21st century in 2001 it was officially abandoned and now stands as a monument to R’s genius and just maybe a monument to the hubis of modern technology modern locks are engineering marveles massive basins for huge ships but their ancestors were quite a bit smaller but like any Waterway boat Builders find ways to push the limits to use every inch of space in the lock to maximize their size entering the locks for the upbound journey is far less relaxing than the downbound but totally doable you just need to have someone on land to catch the lines then the the crazy part’s just beginning operated by remote control the modern technology utilizes the old method which pours water in above the low water line if you contrast that to even slightly more modern locks like the RTO canal and Canada even though it’s 200 years old it’s 150 years younger than the canal deidi but it fills its water in the locks from underneath not here to say that the water rushes in would be an understatement [Music] if you’ve looked at old photos of the canal de midi and saw huge trees you might be wondering why you’re not seeing them in this episode well that’s because there’s been a blight a fungus that apparently arrived around World War II in infected ammunition boxes and over the years it slowly spread and so they’ve had to cut down thousands of trees some even burnt so you’ll see the stumps of the big old trees that used to be here next to the small saplings that they’re growing to rejuvenate the shoreline working our way back Northwest towards HS it’s tempting to try and extend your holiday we could continue along to carcasson one of the best preserved medieval fortresses in the world or to the fourth largest city in France to lose after all it’s here that the canal de Medi meets the canal de gon to form What’s called the canal de d or the canal of the two seas in English linking the Atlantic and the Mediterranean we did return here after dropping off the boat because too itself has a fascinating history this was a Roman military Outpost in the 2nd Century BC it was briefly the capital of the visigothic kingdom in the 5th Century ad and in 1229 it was annexed by the kingdom of France today it’s home to Airbus which makes the largest passenger plane in the world and to the French national space agency’s research and development center and it’s hard not to think that those modern transportation and logistical Solutions aren’t tied in some loose way perhaps to the genius of R’s Canal but modern technology aside the city retains much of its ancient architecture and heart and fittingly it’s where Pierre Paul R was laid to rest less than a year before the completion of his magnum opus a after one of the coolest boating Adventures I’ve ever been on I had to make the pilgrimage to the exquisitly named St Steven’s Cathedral because inside these cavernous walls marked with a simple stone is the final resting place of the man who achieved what no one before could when it was built it was known as The Royal Canal of langued it was renamed after the French Revolution and has changed from a vital commercial hub to a sought-after recreational boating destination but the water way locks the aqueducts theyve all remained largely the same even as the world grew around it and it should be here for years to [Music] come are coming all your dreams all your dreams are coming [Music] where are we Min I think hello from too in the south of France we’re coming to you because of that loud motorcycle hang on we got some kids who think they’re going to be funny modern engineering achievement G your dreams are all your dreams are coming true a