France -Canal du Midi

I am hoping for some TTOL knowledge of the Canal du Midi. We are chartering a self drive barge from Locaboat in May and would love any advice. We are a group of sailors who have done lots of bareboat charters in the BVI's and have appreciated all of the great advice that TTOLers have given us in the past for those trips. I am hoping some of you may have experience in France as well.

Cannot help you, but truly looking forward to your trip report. Why did you choose the Midi vice the Lorie Valley or Burgundy? Would love to cruise canals/rivers of France for my retirement trip. Still have a few years. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Wink.gif" alt="" />

I wish I had a better reason but we chose the Canal du Midi mostly on recommendation from our travel agent. It is supposed to be very barge friendly. It seems like it will be easy to walk and bike around little towns and villages and everything is close by to the canal. I am sure that can be said about most of the canal trip options though.
I will do my best with a trip report!

No useful info I'm afraid as I'm still at the stage of wanting to do this trip!

I have visited many towns along the route of the CdM but always by car. Best advice I can give is to start early each morning, stop at the first beautiful location you come to after midday and then enjoy the magnificent food and wine for the rest of the day. Repeat.

It truly is a most magnificent part of the world. I'm planning to buy a Dutch Barge and cruise the French Canals for many years now my offshore sailing days are over.

Looking forward to reading your report.

That is certainly advice I can take. Thanks!

I did a Canal du Midi barge trip in May 2014. Truly one of our best vacations ever, weather notwithstanding. Here are my blog posts about it, which should give you a lot of information (I've also included the posts that include our pre-barge days in Barcelona and Carcassonne, and post-barge days in Paris):

Blog Part 1
Blog Part 2
Blog Part 3
Blog Part 4
Blog Part 5
Blog Part 6

To put things in persepective, we too are sailors, with many BVI and other charters under our belts, and took the barge trip 2 weeks after returning from 6 months on our own boat in the Bahamas and up and down the ICW. You are MORE THAN QUALIFIED to do a self-drive barge trip; in fact, you'll find yourself looking for things to fix, because the trip is so easy.

Thanks so much for the links to your blog posts. Your blog and pictures made me even more excited than ever. We have a day and night in Paris as well so that part was also helpful. I love your husband's line. "Sometimes you’re watching the show; sometimes you are the show." I got some great tips about how to provision and I will be sure to try all kinds of Rose wine while there. This is exactly why I love TTOL. Thanks!

Lovely blog Eva.

We did a Burgundy canal trip (Canal du Nivernais). Auxerre was magnificent and the canal scenic, but we would choose the Midi if we did it again. The canal was used for the wine trade in it's day, but now most of the transportation is done by truck. Because of this, most of the small canal villages have lost their income source. The shops (boulangerie, patisserie,restaurants,etc)are now closed. Oddly enough, there still seemed to be one florist open in each village. Since the shops are closing, there isn't much work, so the young people are moving to the urban areas. Again, it was beautiful, but it is truly self catering these days. We transited 42 locks in 6 days and drank uncounted bottles of amazing wine, but often had to scrounge and cook on board. Those we talked to said the Midi was still bustling. As a concept, we heartily endorse canaling!