the trip down the locks (ecluses) was a great experience. The entire Canal du Midi was the best vacation I have ever had and of all the locks, these were the most exciting. We spent the night at the top so were amongst the first down in the morning. Beziers is a great place to tour too.
Get here on a lovely day and enjoy gawking at all manner of boats bumping and grinding in an attempt to transcend the flight of 8 gates (9 locks). Food, drinks and an excellent Office d'Tourisme sit on site for your convenience as you do so.It is a short walk from the town and well worth a saunter down the canal for. Also what lovely piece of 17thC engineering.
A good fun afternoon or morning visit. A. pretty walk along the canal from the Nine Locks to the Port of Beziers. Its very good fun to watch the hire boats going up or down the locks. The restaurant opposite is a good vantage point. Very good lunch menu at the restaurant, with daily specials, nice wine and good coffee.
we saw couple of boats going up which allow us to the ecluses opening up and closed. Not done manually any longer. could do with some new tarmac, no friendly at all if you were physically disable. good to see on a sunny day. not much around.
Having had an enjoyable visit to Bingley Five Rise Locks in Yorkshire the thought of 9 locks prompted us to seek out this place. We visited in February which is out of season admittedly but...We didn't have a sat nav but had an idea where it was and when we saw a large sign for the Locks at the side of the main road near Beziers we thought (mistakenly) that it would be well signposted. As with most French signage they put one sign up and then expect you to know where to go after that or they put it on the other side of the road and only see it when you've gone past.We found it... eventuallyIt was all a bit of an anti climax. The locks appeared to be in a poor state of repair. We walked up to the top in about five minutes and at the top there were some picnic tables but nothing else. Everything was shut (expected) but even if it had been open it wasn't that pretty or exciting.Might be fun on a boat but as a visitor attraction it doesn't add up to much.
Visited the locks by getting the Dotto tourist train from Beziers. The locks are amazing - such a feat of engineering. It's great to watch the boats go up and down the hill. It's also fun, but somewhat embarrassing and rude to write about, to watch the amateur sailors manoeuvring the boats into the locks. Why do the men steer and the women have to be the ones to jump on and off and moor up?It's a lovely place to visit. There is a small cafe with limited menu, but drinks etc. And access to toilets. A few tourist and craft type shops. Plus you can walk along the towpath back into Beziers or further along the canal. A must for most tourists.
One of the must do things in this life, but sail on through Beziers, they don't want tourists. The Quayside is run down and nowhere close to the town centre, with no maps to guide you there.
We really enjoyed the 7 locks. Our le Boat charter made the whole canal trip a great experience, even for a senior-citizen couple.
Read a lot about this attraction and awaited the experience with great anticipation. Our boat broke down and we had to wait for a new one (we got excellent service from Le Boat regarding this breakdown) to be delivered at Quai du Port Neuf (Beziers), so we cycled to the locks to see what this well known engineering masterpiece looked like up close and personal. Seeing that it was early in the season, not much was going on, but the locks were very impressive never the less. We enjoyed a cold beer at the La Guinguette Bar-Restaurant right next to the locks, before heading back to wait for our new boat.On our new boat, we headed for the Ecluses de Fonserannes. If we thought it was impressive and exciting looking on from the side, we were in for a big surprise. Navigating these locks is something else. It is exciting, exhilarating, testing, impressive, overwhelming and at times even a little scary. if you're going to do a boating holiday in France, make sure you do the Canal du Midi, so you can experience this. This was probably the no 1 highlight of many on our cruise.