Carcassonne to Castelnaudary

I’m writing about this day over a month after we did this section of the Canal du Midi. This means that the memories of hardship have faded and we remember that although it was raining when we started, the evening was just fantastic – a beautiful situation, calm and clear.  Alarm bells ring when we also remember the lovely hotel we stayed in and the dinner we ate by the canal. Two treats in one day! Things must have been bad! All is revealed in the cryptic diary comments: 47.14km. A very wet day. Mud and slush all the way. A big effort. Arrived filthy.

Oh yes, it starts to come back! Luckily the hotel had a high pressure hose to deal with the mud and slush. Made a good job of the Nikes as well. This was one of the days we had to push the bikes kilometres through the mud, as the back wheels kept slipping 45º to the track and the canal was mostly too close to risk falling off, as it may have meant falling in. This is the section which the guidebook warns will test our patience, not only because of the wind but also the ‘degraded’ state of the dirt track. We would do well, they suggest, to adopt the motto of Jacques Coeur (15^th century): A coeur vaillant rien d’impossible (For a brave heart, nothing is impossible). Oh yes, it’s all coming back now…

But more than a month on, we remember most the lovely hotel (the most extravagant gesture to date) and the beautiful evening, when we dined outside.

The photos remind me that we came across a lock keeper’s cottage with a café (rare) where we bought coffee and the last two lemon tarts of the day. Run by a French couple who had returned from a working life in Madagascar, it was a true haven for us that day. Only 6km away from Castelnaudary, it gave us a real lift.

Castelnaudary itself is a very pretty place, home of cassoulet and full of restaurants offering this traditional dish. As we had had cassoulet in Carcassonne the day before, we didn’t feel bound to pursue this side of things. As for the Canal du Midi, Castelnaudary is home to the Grand Bassin – a large port, in fact the largest area of open water between Toulouse and Sète. In the day it handled goods going either down river to Sète and the Mediterranean, or up to the Garonne and then down to the Atlantic. There’s also a Petit Bassin, which is where the pleasure boats have their facilities. All very pretty in the summer evening sun!