This has been quite a strange and exciting day, although it does not take much to cause excitement on Canal Midi.
LelleBelle in front of the port office in Castelnaudary.
Lock keeper with dog.
We decided that we take a stroll up the hill to the village Montesquieu. We thought that the Angel statue was in the church in Montesquieu.
Fantastic view. We thought we could see Toulouse in the horizon. This was not the Angel we were looking for.
The Hotel de Ville
The church
The village has 955 living souls and 85 young ones, according to a young mother who said she loves living in the village. No bar in this village !
A very picturesque and well to do village.
Outside the church a statue of St James. Santiago!
Took a morning walk around the Grand Basin in Castelnaudary and saw a round house, like the house we live in at home, just a bit older.
Then set off for the first lock, full of confidence because of course we know how to do this, but it turns out that this lock is a do it yourself lock. I hurried up to the lock as usual and when I got there, nobody in sight. Fortunately , Fabienne, this very friendly walker, from Bordeaux, had to read how to handle this lock and helped me. I did not have my glasses and could not read!
Here's Fabienne walking back again.
Then we went through a few locks together with a family, with me taking control of the operations.
The young man on the boat, Vincent came over to tell as that he was studying lansdscspe architecture and was going to a practical in Alvesta ( Sweden) during the summer.
We had a long chat mostly in english, with Vincent being very helpful with my French pronunciation.
By now I was convinced I was a lock keeper of the best kind, but when we came to the next lock I pressed the wrong button! Which resulted in the lock emptying out and not working. I had to call the emergency man, ( no English, but j'arrive, he said) he was the sweetest man who without complaining fixed the lock and off we went.
We came to Villefranche earlier than expected and decided to move on to Negra, which will save us at least 11/2 hour for our trip to Tolouse tomorrow.
We had to wait for a lock on the side of the canal where two young men were lazing in the sun. They turned out to be Antii from Finland and Thomas from Germany, Politcal Science graduates. Great chat while waiting for the lock to open. We left them with the task of fixing the politics of the world, since they have studied political science.
And so we are spending the night on the side of the canal, a few km from the town Negra, where there is a church with a sculpture of an Angel by the famous polish sculpture, Josef Pyrz, according to our Guide Fluvial.
Because we still wanted to see the Angel we, at 17.55, entered the mayors office to ask if we could see the church.
Inside a big picture of St James. We asked at the library at the Hotel de Ville if it was possible to have a look inside the church and with the help of the helpful the librarian and the Marie's secretary they manage to locate the woman with the key and she gave us a tour of the church.
No statue of the Angel, but a lovely church with a sweet informative guide, in French! The pastelle coloured walls with fine decorations was special for this church with dates back to 1400. Since it was all in French were are a little uncertain that we got the date right.
Eventually understood that the Angel in is a chapel down by the port! But we had a fantastic walk up to the village.
The Chapel port was closed and the Angel is resting inside.
A cylist, whose named is Juan, like Don Juan, he informed us, stopped and offered 4 tickets to the Sweden-Belgium game in Nice. Any takers for the tickets please contact us and we put you in contact with DonJuan. Retired policeman, spending most of his time cycling and running and thinks every day is a Sunday. Not like us who thinks every day is a Friday.
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