Yahoo Finance There’s only way to experience the Canal du Midi
When I was about eight, my parents took me and my sister on a canal boat from Leamington Spa to Stratford-upon-Avon. It rained constantly, the catering was 1970s at its worst, we went for a walk in a field by the canal and came back with the turn-ups of our flares heaving with slugs, and the cat died while we were away.
But it remains one of my fondest holiday memories. Operating the locks became a pleasant ritual. Piloting our little narrow boat through the murky Victorian tunnels was spooky and exciting. Other boaters were friendly. The beds were satisfyingly small and cleverly hidden. And, best of all, our parents couldn’t get away. We had their undivided attention for days on end and soaked it up gleefully. How they must have hated it. Despite our pleading, we never went back and reverted instead to holidays off season in European cultural centres, being dragged round museums that smelled, we thought, of fish.
Every time I walk along a canal these days, I feel nostalgic. And no matter how often people describe the downsides of living full-time on a boat, I’ve always hankered for the experience. I’m with Ratty in The Wind in the Willows and believe “there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats”.
However, my husband didn’t think that a wet October on the Worcester and Birmingham canal was likely to meet with much approval from our children, aged 11 and 13, and he didn’t warm to the idea of standing in a gale piloting a boat while I cooked ineptly in a tiny kitchen. So – and this was back before Covid changed everything for the worse – we raised our game and plumped instead for a week on board the Alouette on the Canal du Midi.
The Alouette is one of Belmond’s seven France-based boats and, at 100ft (30 metres), is the largest vessel allowed on the Canal du Midi. In fact, if it tried to start cruising there now, the authorities wouldn’t let it, but it has, as Chris its captain says, “grandfather’s rights”. However, it is a very snug fit (sometimes with a clearance of only a few centimetres) under arches and in locks, and it takes an expert to pilot it, so we wisely left the steering to Chris. In fact, we left a lot of things in Chris’s hands. And if not his, then in the hands of his crew. As well as Chris, there was a cook, Wocjez, a housekeeper, Sarah, and tour guide and general major-domo, Jo. My family had little to do except enjoy ourselves.
As with all Belmond holidays, every moment of the week’s cruise on board the Alouette is meticulously planned, a product of years of experience managing guests in very limited space. There are only two guest bedrooms, but though they’re compact, they’re meticulously tidy and cleverly designed and both have en-suite bathrooms. There’s also a sitting room and dining area inside, adjacent to a tiny galley kitchen, and then a lovely sun deck at the front of the boat or, as we nautical types say, “for’ard”. Aft (the back) is where the captain sits in state, steering his vessel along the 17th-century waterway.
I thought I knew this area of France well (all those childhood city breaks). But nothing gives you a fresh perspective on a town, or indeed, on life, like a new way to travel. On the first night, after we’d boarded in Carcassonne, settled in, and feasted on pumpkin soup, bream in red-wine sauce, cheese and chocolate mousse, Sarah called us up on deck to admire the boat’s pet rat… not in fact a rat, but a coypu the crew have named Ralph, a cross-looking 3ft-long rodent that swam purposefully round the boat begging for bread. Ralph is blessed with virulent scarlet teeth and patrols his section of canal with ferocious territorial energy. He’s a regular visitor to the Alouette. But boats call for routine and it’s amazing how regular we all soon became in our aquatic habits.
Routine aboard the Alouette dictates an earlyish start and a lavish breakfast cooked to order in the galley. There’s a cruise along the canal for a couple of hours during which you can cycle along the towpath, or stroll by the boat, or sit on deck and watch the world go by. Then you dock for lunch and in the afternoon there’s a guided excursion to a local castle or citadel, an olive-oil factory or a cheese-making farm. Gentle excitement comes in the form of low bridges, for which the barge’s electronic canopy has to be lowered, and the many olive-shaped locks, some in cascades, that the boat sinks into with much drama and great gushes of water. The Alouette, as befits the empress of the canal, makes stately progress of about 5km an hour, and she’s greeted as a grande dame by all the lock keepers and boaters on that stretch of water.
When the sun shines, there’s no joy like sitting on deck watching kingfishers flit past as you drift by in sunlight dappled by the leaves of giant plane trees. Thousands of these were planted, for timber and shade, when Louis XIV ordered the canal to be built to link the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, slicing through the foothills of the Pyrenees.
The plane trees are now victims of an incurable fungus derived, it is thought, from the wood that German Second World War munitions were packed in. It has meant no fewer than 42,000 have had to be chopped down, and though they’ve replanted many thousands, it will take decades for them to grow to replace what the canal’s lost. In the meanwhile, the canal is a sunnier, more open place which may be a problem in the heat of summer, but is delightful on a breezy autumnal afternoon.
Jo, like many of the Belmond guides, is an expat and lives full time in the region, so she knows exactly where to go and what’s worth doing, and can tailor every day’s activity to your personal preferences. A lot of holidaymakers go big on the wine tourism, but with preteens to amuse, we decided hours spent slurping and spitting would be a cause of much eye rolling and audible sighing.
Instead, we clambered around the ruined Cathar castles of Lastours which stand, gaunt and forbidding, on steep granite hillsides. Another afternoon, we explored the Gouffre Géant de Cabrespine which is an astonishing limestone cavern, big enough to contain the Eiffel Tower and filled with stalactites and -mites in strange formations and colours. One afternoon we docked at Le Somail, an almost idiotically pretty village complete with honey-coloured brick bridges, palm trees and spectacular antiquarian book shop. We took the kids acrobranching (basically a posh word for climbing trees), we went horse riding, and even swam in the sea by Narbonne. And then our chef, Wocjez, took us food shopping in the covered market at Narbonne to choose the ingredients for our last supper.
This market is surely one of the gastronomic wonders of the world. The fish stalls sell marine monsters of every shape, size and colour. There are urchins and oysters, gigantic wild sea bass, whole tuna and hideous gurnards. Sea potatoes, anyone? They have ’em here. It’s not the place for a committed vegan. On the carnivorous front we saw donkey chops, heifer steaks and a hare the size of a dog on offer for jugging. Less controversially you can buy honey, salt and lavender soap as souvenirs.
We had lunch at Chez Bebelle in the centre of the market. It is owned and run by a local former rugby star, Gilles “Bebelle” Belzons, who stands in the centre of his restaurant and calls out orders – a portion of horse tartare here, three steaks there – with a booming voice supplemented by a megaphone. The stallholders nearby then wrap the raw meat in greaseproof paper and lob it over the heads of the customers at their tables to Belzons who catches the orders in one giant hand and passes them to his sister to cook. His wife and parents also work in the restaurant, which is heaving with locals. For gastronomic theatre, it’s very hard to beat, even at the risk of a burger to the back of your head. But the chef on board has a jolly good go competing.
When in doubt, the Belmond way is to stuff you full of delicious food and as much fine wine as you can drink. Sarah says guests simply roll off the boat after seven days of three-course meals a day plus a thoroughly indulgent tea at 4pm. As with the rest of the holiday even the cheese is carefully worked out, and you go on a week-long voyage of discovery starting with the mildest of camemberts and chèvres and ending on Friday night with pungent local roquefort.
The last day also included the most dramatic sight of the whole canal – a seven-lock descent and then a hard-right turn onto an aqueduct that floated the Alouette over the river Orbe. We finished the journey at Béziers, more relaxed, a little plumper, and all in love with life aboard. The holiday was as memorable for my children as our humbler 1970s canal jaunt was for me. But unlike my parents, I’ll be rushing to get back up the gangplank.
The details
Prices start from €21,903 for a journey on Belmond Afloat in France’s luxury barge, Belmond Alouette. This is based on four people travelling for six nights between Carcassones and Béziers and includes transfers to and from Paris, a private chef, all food and drink and excursions. To book or for more information visit belmond.com or call 0845 077 2222.
Overseas holidays are currently subject to restrictions.
