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The Canal du Midi

The Canal du Midi is one of the emblematic works of our department.

The Canal du Midi is a French canal that connects Toulouse to the Mediterranean Sea since the 17th century. First called "royal canal in Languedoc", the revolutionaries renamed it in 1789 "canal du Midi". It is considered by its contemporaries as the largest building site of the seventeenth century. Beginning in the 19th century, the Canal du Garonne, which doubles the Garonne from Bordeaux to Toulouse, extends the Canal du Midi to provide a navigable waterway from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea: the two canals as a whole Of the Two Seas ".
It is the wheat trade that motivates the construction of the canal. Colbert authorized the beginning of the works by a royal edict of October 1666. Under the supervision of Pierre-Paul Riquet the site lasts from 1666 to 1681 during the reign of Louis XIV. The Canal du Midi is one of the oldest canals in Europe still in operation (the prototype being the Briare Canal). The implementation of this book is closely linked to the question of river transport in modern times. The challenge raised by Pierre-Paul Riquet was to transport the water from the Black Mountain to the threshold of Naurouze, the highest point of the canal.
Since 1996, it has been inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List.

(Source Wikipedia).

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Numerous animations and discoveries are proposed from this work of art, more informations here.
 

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