Margot says:
All my dreams came true today.
We did a day trip on the 240km long canal du midi, something I have been looking forward to for a long time. I remember well when the artist Bill Caldwell did a demonstration painting of a barge on the canal du midi. Today I saw the boats, large as life!
The particular section of the canal on which we travelled today was very interesting. We went through several locks (écluses - there are 91 locks in total along the length of the canal), including the Fonserannes Locks which is a staircase lock consisting of 7 consecutive locks. A brilliant piece of engineering from the 17th century. Pierre-Paul Riquet was the engineer for the construction of the canal which joins the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.
One of the main features of the canal are the beautiful avenues of grand plane trees, easily 3 times the size of those on St Kilda Road! The light shining between the trunks on to the canal is magical. Tragically, a disease has affected many of these trees. Many have already been removed, have died and stand bare of leaves and those with obvious signs of disease have been marked for future removal.
We enjoyed a delightful lunch aboard le bateau. The most unfortunate part of the trip was that the guided commentary was all in French and so we lost most of the context. However, on our return home Wikipedia has filled in many blanks for us!
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