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We stay a week in Castelnaudary, the home of the
Cassoulet (but I have mentioned that before). |
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St. Papoul, an old Cathar Abbey on the foot of the Black
Mountains. |
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To make the best use of our time Racine takes his first
lesson in Barge handling and instruments. |
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In return he teaches us about the stock market. He likes
to stay informed while we do such mundane chores as vacuum, oil changes or
paint. |
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The top of the 4 lock staircase in Castelnaudary. |
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Locks are a great place to observe locals gather,
exchange the latest gossip and see the tourists struggle with the ropes. |
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All pictures from the same flight of locks. By the way I
have all the pictures in high resolution, but uploading them using my mobile
phone would take way too long, so you have to be satisfied with the low-res
edition! |
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Years of ropes from commercial traffic etch into the lock
wall. |
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Finally action! Not really, the lock keeper just fills a
lock to satisfy the curiosity of a group of hikers. Traffic on the canal is
way down. Mostly due to a lack of rental boats.
The local base in Castelnaudary talks about traffic being 10% off,
lock-keepers tell us that they had 50-60 boats a couple of years ago per day
and now they have days with 5-6 boats only! While this is good for the canal
as less water is used, the local economy definitely suffers. |
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More lock action, the paddles open and the lower chamber
starts to fill. I'm sure you all knew that Leonardo da Vinci invented the
locks on a canal planned in Northern Italy and that Riquet (the architect of
the Canal du Midi) had sent employees to Italy to study the designs. |
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A abandoned storage house on the canal. |
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The lock staircase from below. By the way; for the
non-boaters: a staircase is a sequence of locks where the upper door of one
lock is the lower door of the next lock. One
wonders how many horses walked on these cobblestones to pull barges from the
Mediterranean to the Atlantic? |
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Not much to see in the picture, but ... |
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an interesting location. I
stand on a pedestrian/road bridge, the bridge crosses the canal and the
train passes in a tunnel under the canal. |
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Whoever is in charge of flowers in Castelnaudary does an
outstanding job, all public buildings and places are decorated. |
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The entrance to a small courtyard. |
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The view down to the harbor basin. |
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Diesel for sale in the harbor! |
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Flowers and fruits wherever there is water |
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