Jeannine & Roger's French Cheese Odyssey

Canal du Midi- 16th May

Our day focused on Essence of France Photo Challenge No.11 - Canals A number of rowing acquaintances have either rowed the Canal du Midi or cycled alongside it as support crew. Today we took the more sedate, leisurely option and went on a boat cruise, no exertion needed, although Roger did have to show the boat assistant how to throw a rope after Jean-Francois had failed three times.

For €12.50 you get a three hour return-trip on the Canal du Midi which includes:

• 15kms each way through the canal heading towards Toulouse; the whole Canal du Midi is 240km long. In a year, around 7700 tourist boats use it. No experience or boat licence needed, just rent a boat, pay the taxes and wreck havoc in France. Speaking of which...

• Commentary in French, Spanish and English, and our commentator provided a history of the canal including how its inception was the brains of an accountant/tax collector and not an engineer
• Travel through 2 of the canal’s 63 locks, La Douce from the 17th century and Herminis, one of the deepest in the canal. At Toulouse the canal is 132 metres above sea level and rises to 193 metres before it eventually drops to sea level at Sete, hence the reason you need locks, to get up hill and down the other side


• The locks are all electronic now and are manned by a lockkeeper, no winch winding required. The lockkeepers work between 8.00am and 7.00pm, stopping of course for lunch. They sit in a cosy office and come out with their remote controls to work the gates, have a yarn with the boat owners, chat up the female tourists, tut tut at the English who drive into the lock walls and then they return to their cosy office. Roger wants to apply for a job as a lockkeeper but thinks there may be a waiting list or a hereditary pecking order


• The boat stops for a break at an old lockkeepers house, now a garden café. Roger got a coffee ice cream and I got a sugary tepid chocolate in a thimble. The sign above the door tells you have far to the next lock, which was handy in the old days because they relied on lock houses for food and accommodation.


• The banks of the 17th century Canal du Midi are lined with 100 year old plane trees that provide shade, shelter and hold the bank together, except in a recent storm where they blew down and blocked the way of the many cyclists that use the canal pathways. The previous trees were olives and fruit trees, but they didn’t do a good job of holding the canal together so farmers were no longer able to grow them on the banks. Some parts of the Carcassonne canal are not 17th century because the head man at the time didn’t want a canal through the city and made them build it further north. The Carcassonne section was put it later, you can tell the newer section by the fact it doesn’t have a tow path or low bank


• The Canal du Midi is just one of France’s many canal networks. Some people live on them constantly moving, while others park up for a long period. We went past one boat that has made their home on the banks using it to store next winters firewood and another luxury one just having a wine stop. These boats were once used to cart grain up and down the country.

Cheese Experience No.25 - Grated Cheese; We eat grated cheese at home all the time due to its convenience, but is it acceptable to eat grated cheese in France? Although it is sold in the shops it doesn’t meet French gourmet standards because once grated it starts to oxidise, which means it begins to lose flavour. French grated cheese is finer than NZs, and when you put emmental râpé (grated) cheese on your nachos it becomes chewy and stringy like mozzarella.