Canal du Midi 2025 - Days 4, 5 and 6

Villeneuve-lès-Béziers - Friday 16th May

Had a slow start as we were only going a short way to the Fonserannes staircase locks.  

We got to the top of the locks and it was very windy and the skippers had a real problem firstly with mooring up to wait our turn and secondly getting into the lock.  Steve describes the boat as a huge sail!  

We shared the locks with a small motor cruiser and a yacht which really lost it going into the top lock, I’m surprised the boat wasn’t damaged.  We got into a routine going down the locks and were soon at the bottom. 

The Fonserannes Locks are one of the best known attractions in France and is as old as the canal itself.  They lift boats up 21.5 metres over a distance of 300 metres.  At the top of the locks are buildings which used to be stables and are now shops and a restaurant.  The locks were built by two subcontractors whe were illiterate brothers and many of the workers were women,

The staircase originally had nine locks but now has seven but we only did six as the seventh takes you onto the River Orb and is permanently closed.

We passed by Béziers (we will stop on our way back) and onto two very deep locks, one at 21ft and one at 14ft. The deepest lock in the UK is 20ft.   The motor cruiser joined us in the lock and nearly wrote his boat off. The skipper thrust it into reverse and it crashed into the lock side, he then slammed it into forward and hit the other side, it bounced backwards and forwards a couple of times, everyone, including the Eclusier looked on in astonishment!  

The landscape to the east of Béziers isn’t as pretty as it was to the west but we aren’t that far from the sea. 

We pulled up against the bank for the night.

Agde - Saturday 17th May

We left our mooring spot and headed downstream. We stopped at the Le Boat base at Port Cassafieres for fuel and water then continued. 

There is a bullring in Portiragnes Plage.  In the south of France bull fighting is considered to be good sport, I’m not sure about that. 

We went through the famous round lock that has three gates (only two are operational as the other canal is not used).  The route of the canal missed out Agde and Riquet wasn’t happy about this, so he decided to build a spur down to the town.  To do this he had to design a lock with three sets of gates.  The lock went into service in 1678.  It measures 30 metres in diameter and 5.20 metres deep in the centre.  This lock is the only French lock on the 8500kms of canals with more than two gates. It was a very hot day and the eclusier was wearing a padded jacket and a woollen scarf!

We had a short passage on the River l’Herault before heading towards the sea!  It was a really hot day and the breeze coming off the sea was most welcome. The canal runs as a channel through the Etang de Thau (a salt water lake) before entering the lake itself. At our end of the lake is a lighthouse, Le Phare des Onglous, where we turned round and headed back up the canal.  

We were looking for somewhere to moor and finally found somewhere at the junction of the canal and the river. It wasn’t ideal - there is definitely a shortage of mooring places on this part of the canal.  I really struggled to get up the bank, everyone was laughing at me 🫣

Beziers - Sunday May 19th

We left our wild mooring and turned onto the River l’Herault for a short distance before turning back onto the Canal.  It was a very hot day and the only cool way to travel was to have the Bimini up and then take it down at every bridge!  Fortunately there aren’t as many bridges on the Canal du Midi as on the canals in the UK.  

We went through the Round Lock again.  It’s strange really as the locks going up the canal all go upwards but the Round Lock goes downwards.  

We came to a very strange structure.  It’s the Passage du Libron.  It was built from 1855 to 1857 and allows the River Libron to flow over the canal during flooding.

We had to wait for about 45 minutes at Portiragnes lock as it was the eclusier’s lunch time.  

The eclusier at Villeneuve-lès-Béziers is the cheeriest one we have come across, laughing and smiling and practicing his English.  

One more lock and we were at the “not so deep Béziers” lock.  The eclusier here was the opposite to the other one.  She knew we were English and that we spoke little French but she stood at the top and rattled on in French!  We were staying in Beziers for the night in their new marina which isn’t finished yet. 

We had hoped to eat out but as it was Sunday there was nothing open so we ordered in Dominos which came via Uber Eats on an electric scooter.  

We had just finished eating when Tracey suddenly saw Rio running around the quay.  Richard and I dashed down and by this stage he was on the road causing mayhem.  Richard shouted extremely loudly which seemed to shock Rio and he came over to us with his tail between his legs!  I was very shaken by the whole event ☹️