France: Day 5 -- The Canal du Midi tour

We start our tour at Poilhes, a small canal port on a curve, up a hillside. Yes, hillside. The canal follows a level route that stretches from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. It passes through tunnels and makes its way around the curve of hills. Begun in 1667, the brainchild of salt-tax collector, Pierre-Paul Riquet, the canal took 14 years to complete and changed the commercial prospects of the South of France. Today, there is no freight, only pleasure boats. UNESCO designated the Canal du Midi a World Heritage site. L-r: Poilhes, including its bus stand with seats of varying heights. We visit a McDonald's with luxury toilets, to sample the "frites." The cathedral is in Béziers, Riquet's home town. There, the canal climbs down/up through nine locks and crosses OVER a river, on a bridge. The canal exits land at Marseillan, a cute little port (behind the Citroen), home of Noilly Prat, a vermouth-maker: that's their logo on the pole. Good toilets there, too. Final stop: the Mediterranean, for a long wet walk through the surf, the best pedicure money doesn't have to buy.