Bonjour famille et amis for Part I of our Canal du Midi journey, motoring eastward to the Mediterranean Sea,
Maggie and I have revived our international travel bug with this dispatch, now that the Pandemic is somewhat in our rearview mirror and so many of us are, once again, able to voyage to faraway places. We had plans in place for 2020, traveling to the boot of Italy and ferrying over to Albania, which had to be abandoned.
In August of 2021, we convened with friends Mike and Karen to plan a canal adventure in 2022. We had shared a couple of self-drive canal adventures in years past, one motoring westward on the Canal du Midi (2013), the other, north on the Canal Lateral a La Loire (2018). We met up with them periodically for meetings at our favorite haunt, Hattie’s Hat, in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood to plot out another one for Fall of 2022. We agreed on the 43-foot-long Europa 400, once again using the Locaboat company, and Mike as our captain, the other 3, his crew.
Our journey began on September 3, 2022, flying Iceland Air via Reykjavik, to Paris. Traveling separately from Mike and Karen, we met up with them in Paris a couple of days later. Maggie and I were nicely situated at the Right Banks’ Le Relais Des Halles Hotel (previous stays had been on the Left Bank) on Rue Pierre Les Cote, being greeted by Romar, settling in, then exploring the area, finding a local bistro, Le Relais du Vin, imbibing Aperol spritzes, and consuming frites along with a Greek salad. To digest our intakes, we walked around the area and into the Church of St. Eustache (circa 1532-1632), with an incredible auditory experience from the organ’s resonation throughout and a soloist singing. We woke up the next morning at 10 AM, having crashed hard, sleeping for 12 hours!!!
We found our way to a local bistro, dining al fresco on Croque Madame (a hot sandwich of ham and cheese), drinking cappuccinos, and taking in the local activities. Fully rested and sated, we were up for walking and went to the Louvre, viewing some of its renovation in the interior square. Crossing the Seine to the Left Bank, we watched the water traffic, with an extremely long river cruise vessel with its passengers, barely clearing under the highest arch of one of the bridges and leading a parade of working barges plying goods. After a couple of glasses of white wine at Monk, we ventured to the restaurant we would dine at in a couple of days with Mike and Karen, Le Coup Chou on Rue de Lanneau, to check on our reservation. One exception this day was, having been challenged by a Seattle friend to search out a restaurant named Roger La Grenouille (Roger the Frog), and struggling to find it, when we happened upon an Irish expat, “Sam”, who offered to guide us and walked us there, however, it was not in operation at that time, so photos were taken to send to our friend as proof that we followed through on his suggestion.
We always visit our favorite bookstore, Shakespeare & Co., which faces the Seine. After fulfilling our pilgrimage to this shrine, we walked to Notre Dame to bear witness to the restoration process after the April 2019 fire, marveling at all the cranes and scaffolding, etc. Our final stop for the day was Centre Pompidou, a 42 meters tall multiplex structure named after the former French president. To get a panoramic view, we rode the elevator to the Restaurant Georges atop this monumental edifice, which had been recommended by Romar, where we espied Notre Dame from a distance. We decided to have our dinner there, consisting of Peach and Cassis liqueurs, baby spinach, Supreme de Poulet, spritz du Georges and, finally, wine, surrounded by the heart of Paris!
The next day, after another 12 hours of sleep, up at 10 AM (9 hours ahead of Seattle time) and slowly coming out of jet lag, we took a short walk to the several blocks long Rue Montorgueil, feasting streetside on ham and cheese omelet, bacon and eggs, fresh-squeezed orange juice, cappuccinos, and croissants, watching the neighborhood coming alive with vendors delivering to the local businesses awkwardly on barely passable cobblestoned streets. The biggest irritation for us was the proliferation of motorized scooters racing on the pedestrian pathways and having to dodge bicyclists as well. The streets looked safer for walking!! (We have recently learned that rental scooters are to be banned).
The afternoon saw us strolling in the Les Halles area, stumbling on a square hosting the restaurant Piroutte, which we had all to ourselves for the moment, as it was the time between lunch and dinner. We sipped on a mojito, a spritz made from Prosecco and a bitter apéritif of some sort and soon were enjoying an entrée of whipped goat cheese on a bed of mashed sweet potatoes, accompanied by haricots verts (green beans), baby leeks and pea vine, as a prelude to roasted lamb shoulder. We capped the meal with a dessert of dulce de leche, whipped with cream, banana slices, served in a large cup. By the time we were ready to leave, the entire square was jammed! Leaving it behind, we took to wandering aimlessly, our favorite traveling activity! In bed by 10:30 PM, we were only interrupted by Maggie’s dream of a squirrel biting her hands.
We took it easy on our last full day in Paris with more wandering, then repacking for the train trip the following day to Narbonne, while awaiting our dinner with Mike and Karen at Coup Chou at 7 PM. Around 6 PM we had decided to walk to the restaurant in the light rain, across the Seine to the Left Bank. It turned out that it was wetter than we expected, with Maggie drenching her new blue wool shoes, rendering some discomfort, and ended up a half hour early to our venue. We relaxed in their waiting room that had an old-fashioned ‘salon’ feeling to it…velvet covered chairs with wooden arms. The four of us were escorted to a table near the entrance to the café, obviously not candidates for a cozier nook. We went through wine, vodka, soupe froide de concombre (cold cucumber), magret de canard (duck breast), tuna ceviche, nectarines au miel, Ile Flottante, and crème anglaise a la vanilla de bourbon. Pretty fancy offerings that did tease our palates!! Upon parting company for the night, Maggie and I considered taking the Metro since now it was pouring down and we only had 2 small umbrellas with us.
What did we do? We thought it would be fun to end our time in Paris sopping wet, sated and laughing the whole 40 minutes to our hotel as we splashed in the pools of rain!!! We are both very fortunate to have reasonably good health, physical stamina, and adventuresome spirits.
On the morning of September 8, breakfast was taken in the confined basement of our hotel (16 Euros per person), then setting off on foot to the nearby Metro, Chatelet des Halles, to meet up with our friends and catch the M1 all the way to Gare de Lyon to catch the train to Narbonne. The tickets were only 3.80 Euros per person for this one-way, 4-hour ride. We were regaled with vistas of small villages, their churches at their centers, small herds of cows and, eventually, glimpses of the Mediterranean on our right and able to espy our turnaround “target”, Etang de Thau, the largest of a string of lagoons stretching eastward along the French coast and noted for their oysters! Upon our arrival in Narbonne, we realized the summer heat wave had not dissipated. Much of France was experiencing a severe drought and many of the rivers were very low. This had us wondering, before we arrived, if there was enough water in the Canal to carry out our plan. We were lucky and learned that trips on the Loire (going North-South) were non-existent due to the drought.
Staying that night at La Residence hotel, our 2 very large rooms providing us with long/deep bathtubs, which we took advantage of to cool off. The hotel clerk secured dinner reservations for us at Le Coq Hardi, where we remembered having a great experience 9 years ago. When we arrived, it was “closed for the day”, leaving us to come up with Plan B…dining outdoors alongside the Canal de la Robine, a strip of side-by-side food venues where we dined on beef tartare which turned out to be a ‘bust’! Oh well, it’s all part of the travel experience!... After a hotel breakfast of hard-boiled eggs, croissants, and cappuccinos we walked to Les Halles to secure food for our canal vessel, the Europa 400, picking up a pizza, Gouda and Brie cheeses, veggies and fruits. Returning back to the hotel, we waited for the pre-arranged taxi to take us to the Locaboat office in Argens-Minervois, 25 minutes away, where we spent quite a lot of time completing paperwork regarding insurance forms, purchasing Wi-Fi, prepaying for diesel usage (45 Euros/day…@10 days, 450 Euros). Mike had the hardest part, with an exhaustive review of his motoring skills in the basin where the boats are moored, testing him on knowledge of gauges, the various switches and, finally, his “skippering” skills, e.g., backing up the boat in the basin.
Once aboard our vessel, “Antila”, we were faced with which couple would sleep in the bow “bedroom” versus the aft one. Space was a bit cramped in both quarters. Karen and Mike choosing the bow, which had separate beds, leaving Maggie and I cuddled in a Queen size bed in the aft section, with a weird tangle of sheets, and blanket shapes/sizes, constantly bumping our heads on cupboards, in this low-ceilinged area, all of which made for a lot of humor. Topside, we had a blue Bimini cover shielding the top deck area where Mike would steer us clear from harm on the canal. It was 4 PM when we embarked, motoring eastward for 22 KM to Argeliers to tie up to bollards on the shoreline, dining on our pizzas on the top deck, catching the breezes that would counteract the heat. Turned in early after a very long day.
Up at 10 AM on our first full day on the canal, moving topside to have our breakfast of baguettes, yogurt, fruit & coffee and then motoring eastward to Capestang, with a population of roughly 34,000, tying up to bollards and walking into town for more groceries, having lunch in a small outdoor space, ordering Caesar salads, crisp chicken breasts and Caprese salad with heirloom tomatoes, imbibing cappuccino and beers, returning to our new “home” by 2 PM. Our moorage for this night would be the closest we could get to the next day’s passage through locks, following our unique venture through a 1-way tunnel constructed in 1679, “Malpas”, 160 meters long (525 feet), needing to use our horn to announce our presence, since there was no room for 2 boats to pass each other widthwise. Luckily, no one was coming the other way and we glided through effortlessly, espying picnickers along the canal as we emerged...probably waiting to hear a collision in the tunnel and sorely disappointed at our safe passage. One of the problems we did come across a few times was being behind a wide boat that we could not safely try to pass and slowed us down considerably in reaching our destination in a timely manner, which happened after Malpas!
After “bollarding” up, we dined under a brilliant full moon, consuming leftovers from lunch plus green salads and mozzarella cheese, washed down with French wines! We were positioned to be first in line for the 8-9:30 AM Sunday morning slot at the 17th century, seven-rise Fonseronnes Lock Staircase. After finishing the 5 ecluses (locks), we lunched at the LeBoat offices, where Mike had received permission to moor, since we were LocaBoat people. We shared the recently prepared Paella with 20 other boaters, washing down a great meal with Heineken, white wines, and cappuccinos! At this point we were very close to the Mediterranean Sea, near Port Cassafieres and decided to take a taxi to the beach (30 Euros for 10 minutes, a bit steep, but….). Unfortunately, Maggie and I did not have our swimwear with us and resorted to kicking sand and wading in the warm waters! Sun bathers everywhere, and of course, including topless women. We were treated to a sky of multi-colored kites being whipped by of course the offshore winds as we sauntered up the beach and eventually turned around to go back and catch up with Mike and Karen, sitting down at Carte D’Or, imbibing Pina and Coco Coladas, celebrating having gone through a total of 10 ecluses this day! Leaving the beach, we came across a small, dingy mart to pick up some basic food items, then taking a taxi back to our moorage spot.
In moving our vessel within the moorage area to the side nearest the office and showers, we had a bow thruster issue and we aborted that move, calling LocaBoat for help around 4 PM, learning that they would send someone in the morning. So, we spent the night tied up at the LeBoat facilities, dining on the upper deck, consuming French onion soup, nectarines, plums, cantaloupe, accompanied by wine, of course! The fresh air breezes we had experienced at the beach, were welcomed here as well. The next morning, Sebastien arrived around 8:30 AM from the commune of Lattes, 40 miles east and near our original turnaround target, Etang de Thau. Sebastien spent an hour with us, researching the Bow Thruster issue, providing Mike with instructions, etc. Once we were back on the Canal, it wasn’t long before Mike summoned me to the aft swim deck to use the boat hook to retrieve a brightly colored umbrella from the waters, just as a huge barge hauling day trippers headed toward us. It belonged to one of the barge’s passengers who was deliriously happy to have it turned over to her…our good deed for the day. We were continuing eastward toward Etang, mooring outside the town of Agde, nestled amongst a bamboo jungle, where wooden bollards with chiseled notches were driven into the banks and partially hidden.
After tying up, we left our boat, “Antila”, and climbed the steep-banked dirt access to a gravel bike/walk path, striding toward the locks and then south into the town of Agde, population, 30,000, walking past what must have been a majestic hotel in its day, bypassing street reconstruction via a bike path along a tributary of the 92-mile long Herault River, leading us to the waterfront along the river, scanning for eateries since the Eglise Saint-Michel de Roqueourbe-Minervois was closed for an hour or so. We spent that hour at L’ Amiral, having oysters, pizza, Caesar salad shared between the 4 of us (80 Euros, including a bottle of wine, of course). We breezed through the church which turned out to not be very interesting, so we retraced our steps to the tributary bike path, coming across a vicious dog which leaped out of the brush and scared us half to death, Maggie expected it to take a bite out of her calf! Walking along the waterway back, there were a lot of live-aboard watercraft of every shape and size and materials, some appearing to be abandoned, several with pets hinting at permanent residences. It had been a full and active day, ergo, we all turned in early. Our reporting continues in Part II.