The Canal du Midi is a 17th-century engineering work that still functions as a holiday waterway, and it is the easiest boat in this guide to take out. You need no licence and no experience: holiday boats restricted to 15 km/h and under 15 metres are exempt, and the handover briefing is the training. All 279 of our boats here are motor cruisers or houseboats — there is not a single sailing yacht, and there could not be.
The figures are worth knowing before you plan a route, because they decide your day. There are 91 working locks along the canal's 240 kilometres, with a further 13 on the 37-kilometre Canal de la Nouvelle branch. You will pass through several every day and that, not distance, is what you count.
The dimensions matter too. The canal was designed for two metres of depth and holds a minimum of 1.80, with a permitted draught of 1.50 metres — though regular users will tell you that even at 1.40 you touch the bottom in places where silt has built up. The lowest bridge sits 3.25 metres above the water. Hire boats are built for this; it is only a concern if you were thinking of bringing your own.
The canal has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996, and the plane trees that arch over it were planted in the 1830s for three practical reasons: to hold the banks together, to shade the water and to slow evaporation. Many are now being replaced because of disease, with the tree work done in spring and autumn — so a stretch may be newly bare where you expected a tunnel of shade.
Season matters more here than on the coast. Spring and autumn are the best of it: around 20 to 25 °C, green banks, and no queue at the locks. July and August are hot, busy at every lock gate, and the part of the year most regulars avoid. Weekly rates start at €624, and 37 of the boats change over on a Monday rather than a Saturday, so short breaks are genuinely available.
