Canal du midi - Day 23

Homps

Saturday, 13 October 2012
We had a nice slow start to the morning, then headed down to Homps (which is about 5 minutes drive away). We passed a lake area which must be very nice in the summer. We walked down the canal for a while (the opposite direction of our upcoming boat trip). It was a beautiful day! We passed a lock and were about to turn around then I saw a sign pointing to a restaurant and we kept going - and found this nice restaurant next door to a double lock. We sat outside and were quite protected from the wind by the trees. It was great. Bruce really enjoyed is vegetarian salad and I finally had Magret de Canard - duck is such a wonderful meat.
Then we strolled back to Homps to buy our tickets for our boat ride. This was a great Gabare ride. One of the really great things was that the commentary was in French and English ( and Spanish) and live! So if an interesting boat went past he would tell us about it. We learnt all about the history of the canal, the different styles of the bridges, the reason for the aqueduct we went over (originally the river we crossed merged into the canal but it meant they had to keep dredging the canal so they creates the aqueduct to go over the bridge). We went through one lock which the boys in particular loved.
After some chill out time 'back home' we headed back to Homps for dinner at a restaurant beside the canal.

	Strolling the canal [Map]		Boats moored [Map]
	The boys on the boat trip [Map]		One of the many bridges we had to cross under [Map]
	Getting closer [Map]		Lunch! [Map]
	The double lock [Map]

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