This came up in conversation with some friends last night as a potential holiday in September. We would prefer to head south and do a one way trip.
Pictures of fantastic French scenery and tales of superb food are more than welcome.

I’ve done a French carnal trip, any help?

Not technically a canal (well bits are) but have cruised the Marne from Paris to Epernay. It was awesome, but did involve a lot of Champagne!

No, but you could get yourself in the mood by reading Narrow Dog to Carcasonne by Terry Dalton.

Sounds ace.

I did one up north. The canal that runs through Auxerre. Good fun, but a lot of locks to deal with, do not exactly sitting on deck sipping wine all day. Canal du Midi is what you are after. The only problem is that they are cutting down all the trees by the canal due to disease. Might spoil the view and the sense of peace.

I have, three couples in a large 3-bedroom boat on the Canal du Midi.

We picked a boat up in Marmande and sailed to Condom via Agen. It was very pleasant – I’m sure we’ll do something like it again sometime. It’s not an activity holiday, you just potter about for a week. If you’re the kind of person who needs to be doing something you might get frustrated. And the weather makes it or breaks it – obviously the chances of good weather are high in the south of France but if it’s raining it wouldn’t be much fun.

We bought wine, cheese, fruit pate etc and had lunch on the boat in the sun. Evening meals were wherever we turned up – not all excellent to be fair as some of the stops were in tiny out of the way places. Rural France is boring for vegetarians.

/\ You had me at condom

Had a week in a wee village not far from carcassonne a couple of years ago. Stunning area, loved it. We stayed in a wee place called Laure minervois, but spent some time having lunch etc in trebes, which is well advertised as a starting point for canal du midi boating hols.

We’ll definitely do it in the next few years.