We picked up my Canadian friend from the train station and before heading home to Capestang to make French style mussels, eat piles of cheese and drink a carafe of local wine, we decided to check out the famous nine locks in the Fonseranes area of Beziers. In a boat, you actually go into six basins with nine gates, taking you the twenty-one meters from the bottom to the top. Canal boats wait patiently on either end.
Leonardo DaVinci’s Miter lock invention from the 15th century is still in operation and here you get to see it in action. It really is something else to think how long ago this exact design was invented and that it is still working today.
A coypu, France’s version of a Beaver except with a long skinny rat-like tail, lives in the last lock nears the gate itself. He did not seem to care that droves of people were there checking out his home.
Glad we had the chance to show my friend the nine locks in Beziers, a must see while visiting the Languedoc.
That’s Hamori!
- Nice Locks
