One Night in Paris

Our first view of the sites of Paris

Okay, I know right off the bat everyone is going to say that one night is “no way” enough time to see Paris, but this trip was planned around the canal boat trip and a month in the south of France; Paris was just a stop on the way home. However, this is how we made the most of our limited time in one of the world’s most interesting cities.

With the canal boat trip finished we took a local train back to Narbonne where we caught a train back to Paris to catch our flight home. The train ride is almost five hours so we had to come a day early and stay overnight. Actually due to a flight change we ended up having two nights in Paris but one was at the airport because our flight was early in the morning. We worked it out to arrive at the Paris hotel and have the evening to explore Paris. Then in the morning, we would have the morning until check-out when we could leave our luggage at the hotel and the rest of the afternoon in the city, going to the airport hotel late in the afternoon. 

The "Night Bus"

To make the most of our limited time, we booked a “Night Tour” with one of the city tours companies on a double decker bus. We reasoned that it might give us a good overview for the first night and allow us to decide what to see the next day. Although the war in Ukraine has made electricity four times as expensive and they are now turning the lights off on the Eiffel Tower overnight to save money, our tour was early enough that everything was lit up nicely. The bus drove by all the major attractions in the city and the recorded commentary gave us good descriptions. We saw the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, the river Seine, Notre Dame Cathedral, the red light district, Moulin Rouge Cabaret, and most of the other sites Paris has to offer. 

The Eiffel Tower by Night

The next day, we decided to walk down to the Seine and along it to the Eiffel Tower for a viewing in the sunlight and then Regis wanted to see an art museum. The Louvre was just too big and overwhelming and we figured we would really be disappointed that we did not have time to see more of it, so she decided on the smaller Musèe d’Orsay which featured European art from the 19th and 20th century. 

As it worked out, even this smaller art gallery was able to fill the afternoon and tire us out enough to call it a day. Time to walk back towards the hotel to find some more French food for dinner.

Although we only had a day in Paris, we managed to fill the night and following day with the sights and sounds of Paris, but really there is so much here to see, I think you could spend a month in the city and not experience all it has to offer. 

Check out the name . . .

Just one of the beautiful sculptures

The museum

Time for dinner

Couldn't resist the old car

The Louvre

Decorating a bridge

Going Down

White water in the lock

When we left Argens-Minervois, where we picked up the boat, we went up the Canal du Midi towards Toulouse. We also went through twenty four locks by the time we got to Carcassonne where we turned around. All of them were going up; we entered the lock empty and it fills with water to lift us up. As the water pours into the lock, you need to hold the boat in place with ropes, and at times it is hard to keep it from moving; we had Ryan and Ben well trained in this task by the second lock. I do not know exactly how much we climbed on the way, but some of the locks were pretty deep. 

At Carcassonne, we dropped Ryan & Ben off to explore on their own and we turned back to return the boat. We are now heading down the canal with just the two of us to do all the work, so we were a bit concerned about how we would do, but it actually turned out very well. 

This is much easier

When you are going down, you enter the lock with it full of water, so the “Crew” does not have to get off the boat before the lock. In fact we quickly discovered that we could just stay on the boat and throw the ropes off and around the Bollards on top of the lock walls. It is much easier to hold the boat in place when the water leaves the lock as when it rushes into the lock. Then, once the lock doors open, you just flip the ropes off the bollards, and motor out of the lock. The only reason we got off the boat was to give the lock keepers pins from back home. 

So, going down is WAY easier than going up.

Waiting for the lock

Cruising the canal

A calm early morning cruise in the rain

Piloting from the top

And from inside (out of the rain)

Cruising the Canal

This is not what we saw

If you do an Internet search of the Canal du Midi, you will likely get a picture of the canal with beautiful rows of plane trees (That is a species of tree; not just boring trees) on either side. Those pictures are likely from years ago because at least on the section of the canal we traveled most of these trees are gone. During the second world war it is felt that a disease was brought from the US in ammunition boxes that has slowly infected most of the plane trees and they have had to be cut down. All the way along the canal these days you see replanted trees of different species that will replace the plane trees, but it will be many years until the beautiful tree lined canal will return. 

However, it has still been a beautiful trip with spectacular French scenery. The canal is very well maintained with a nice bike/pedestrian path alongside the canal which we see a steady stream of vacationing bikers using. 

Here are some photos to illustrate our journey (45 km) up and down the Canal du Midi.

Now that is a CASTLE!

We are doing about forty five km up the Canal du Midi, and it is taking us Three days to cover that distance. This really is “slow travel”. At a town called Carcassonne Ryan and Ben are leaving us to explore some more of France on their own and we will turn back to Argens-Minervios. 

The highlight of the town of Carcassonne is a massive castle which protected the town way back in the days of knights, Romans and other medieval folk, and it has been “imaginatively” restored. I think that means they restored the castle and fortifications to close to original and then recreated the town within the walls to be able to allow modern business and shops to rent locations and help provide revenue. Seems like a good compromise to me. Rather than describing the castle I will just post some of the great pictures I took while exploring the castle. 

More Lock Work

A lock on the Canal

I have written before about the locks on the canals in the UK, and the ones on the French canals are the “same but different”. They of course do the same thing, allow the boats to go up and down in elevation. They also work much the same with doors on either end to allow boats to go in and out and allow the locks to fill and empty of water. They are however much bigger with curved walls inside the lock allowing more than one boat in at the same time. The biggest difference is that all the locks we have encountered so far are operated by dedicated lock keepers who open and close the doors and control the water flow with remotes. They also direct traffic and control when you can enter the locks. Although the actual work of operating the locks is done by the lock keepers, the boat “crew” have to hold the boat in position while in the lock with ropes, so there is still work for the crew. Some of the locks have a system of lights telling you the status of the lock; two red lights mean it is closed, one red light means it is being prepared or being used by other boats, and a green light means you are good to enter the lock. 

The "crew" at work

Piloting the boat, you have to position the boat carefully to enter the lock through a narrow door and then maneuver to one side to allow another boat in beside you. Sometimes there are three boats in the lock at once, and if the boats were small four could fit. As the locks are filled or emptied of water, there is strong currents, so the crew must get off before the lock and then hold the boat fast to the side of the lock with ropes. Otherwise the boats would move around and bumping one another. 

The lock keepers also try to control the use of the locks so that more than one boat is going up or down at once. It takes a lot of water to fill a lock, so this is an effort to make things more efficient. 

Filling the lock (Going up)

After a few locks, everyone gets pretty good at the various tasks involved. I was able to get the boat in and out without scraping the sides, and the ropes rarely dropped into the water when tossing them up to the shore crew. But, at one point, two boats were in a lock going up and we realized that there were also two boats in a second lock coming down . . . . duh . . how does this work? The lock keeper coordinated everything, directing one boat to come into our lock in front of one of the boats then the boat beside, moved into the other lock and so forth until everyone was switched around and ready to move to the next lock. 

Sharing the lock

The only problem is that the boys are bailing on us in Carcassonne, and we will turn back to Argens-Minervois to  return the boat. With two less crew members, Regis is going to have to handle all the lock work or she is going to have to learn to pilot the boat into and out of the locks. 

The lock keeper's dog

Waiting for the lock to fill

Squeeze them in  

Hold her steady crew