The best running trails around Ginestas

The Canal du Midi, formerly Canal Royal, is a 17th-century technical feat designed by Pierre-Paul Riquet to connect the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. Today, it is above all a place for relaxation and discovery, where heritage, nature, and conviviality blend together.

Le Somail features remarkable buildings, including the inn, which has retained the same appearance as in 1773, the chapel, built between 1684 and 1693, and even an ice house. This supplied the inn and the shops of Le Somail with ice during the hot summer days of Languedoc. Everything is still in place! In the heart of the village is the Pont Saint-Marcel with its remarkable semi-circular shape, typical of the early bridges of the Canal du Midi. Nearby, one can still admire the guard's house, which also housed the postmen. On the banks of the canal, you can still see the old watering trough for the draft horses.

This 3-arch canal bridge was built between 1689 and 1690 by master mason Jean Goudet. This work of art is 64m long. It was, however, built more than a century and a half earlier. On the bridge, the canal overlooks the river by about twenty meters.

The Junction Canal was commissioned in 1787 to connect the Canal du Midi to the Canal de la Robine in Narbonne. 5 km long, it is partly lined with magnificent umbrella pines that shelter you from the sun. This canal is part of the UNESCO World Heritage site "Canal du Midi", just like the Canal de la Robine.

a good way to stock up

We pass along the Canal du MIDI to arrive at the small port so characteristic of SOMAIL. A picture-postcard landscape when the blue sky and the sun accompany you.

Very beautiful work of art on the Canal du Midi

Very pretty canal, less known than the Canal du Midi, shaded. Do not miss the Gailhousty site, at the downstream outlet of the Canal de Jonction on the Aude river. This canal, put into operation in 1787, allows to make the connection between the Canal du Midi and the Canal de la Robine de Narbonne. The Gailhousty site consists of a lock, a spillway, a bridge and a dry dock. Upstream of the lock, the canal is protected from the floods of the Aude thanks to a system of dikes which surround it up to Sallèles-d'Aude. Downstream of the lock is a space designed to be able to be submerged during heavy floods: the spillway. The bridge is designed to provide rapid access to all points of the site, is of neat architecture, with a low arched vault and four quarter-circle staircases placed at each corner. During floods, it is necessary to be able to react quickly and maneuver the defense systems in time. Placed on the downstream head of the lock, it participates in the system of containing the strongest floods. The monumental spillway, 30 meters long, is located on the left bank of the canal between the Gailhousty lock and the Aude. Its front facade on the canal side is pierced with vertical crenellations that plunge into the water. At the rear, it has 5 arched openings at the foot of which launches an 8km long landing channel called "La Saignée" directed towards the Capestang pond. This building houses no less than 15 oversized valves. It is not intended to evacuate excess water from the Jonction canal but must allow the passage of flood water from the Aude river. Originally, it was planned that this water loaded with fertile silt would be directed into the Capestang pond to fill it and promote crops there.