The Canal du Midi et al .....

Saturday 3rd November - Carcassonne. Just two more days cycling and we will be dangling our feet in the Mediterranean at Le Barcares. All good things must come to an end and this trip is drawing to a close.

We left the hotel in Valence to a haloween market - ghosts goolies and lots of smoke - all good fun and we battled our way to the Tourismo to find out about the Canal du Midi. It appeared that the canal would take us all the way to the coast. It took us 2 days to get to Toulouse - great tarmaced tow path, tree lined and hardly anyone else on it. It is a working canal with a series of locks. It follows the course of the Garonne to Toulouse and the river feeds the canal. We stopped overnight in Montech and the only accommodation was a Gité- very comfortable but the town was shut, we had been recommended a restaurant by two separate people so we waited until 1930 got on our bikes and pedalled the 2k into town to find it all shut. We got into the supermarket just as it was shutting and grabbed some food.

Toulouse , as far as cities go is great. Big river lots of cafes and a good atmosphere.   My Weather Channel app for my phone indicated gusts of 65kph winds for the following day so after our experience in Scotland last year we decided to shelter in Toulouse for an extra day - we explored the town and it was a holiday, I said to Gilly these folk don't know whats going to hit them today. We strolled down by the river and had an early lunch incase the outside cafes were going to be blown away. We basked in the sunshine all afternoon and when the flags over the Hotel de Ville rustled I said here it comes. It was calm all day  My cycling buddy from the States was a big wig for the Weather Channel Ihim on the case! a50k outside Toulouse as we exited the Haute Garrone the tow path turned into a muddy track and apparently it is like that to the coast. We are now back on the roads. We stopped at Castelnaudary (nothing to say abput it really - I suppose a bit of a dump) before arriving here. A city with a complet walled town within. Fascinating but it has turned into tourist honey pot selling junk.