Moissac to Carcassonne: Enroute to the Canal du Midi

Our final day in Moissac is a simple walk to the train station. We check out and leave the hotel around 9 a.m. and head to the markets in the village square with our suitcases. While there are still produce stalls, today there are also stallholders with clothes and art. We have our final coffees at our favorite cafe and head to the train station, a leisurely 1 km walk, arriving with about 30 minutes to spare. It's a two-train trip to Carcassonne, the first being a 45-minute trip to Agen. With a six-minute window to find the next platform, we switch to a regional service for the final leg into Carcassonne.

The Airbnb we have booked is a 10-minute walk from the train station. Just a minute or two from the station, we cross the Canal du Midi, and seeing

several boats from our company, Le Boat, moored here fuels our excitement for the adventure to come. Our accommodation is on this street that runs perpendicular to the train station. As it’s 1:30, we decide to stop at a restaurant, knowing they all close at 2pm. It's cold and overcast day that threatens to take the shine off our canal trip. Checking the weather online shows a high probability of rain. We enjoy our lunch of rabbit, at a table on the footpath with our suitcases parked next to us, and rugged up against the cold. We continuing on to the apartment after lunch. It’s on the second floor, which means taking suitcases up one at a time. We only have one night here, so we drop the bags and head to the Medieval walled city, which has two towers, two concentric walls, and 3 km of ramparts. On approach, it looks as if it’s from a fairytale. It's a steep walk to the entrance, something we are now very used to. Then across the drawbridge into a very busy and vibrant village. One can only imagine the amount of blood that would have been spilled here over a thousand years.

After exploring the medieval city, we head back to the Airbnb and get ready for dinner with our friends Wendy and Paul, who are joining us on our Le Boat adventure. We dine and swap stories of our recent adventures, ours on the Camino, theirs in Portugal. It's an early night, as tomorrow our

adventure begins. We will be meeting at 11 at our apartment for a taxi transfer to Homps, where we will be picking up our canal boat for our 7-day adventure from Homps to Port Cassafières.

In the morning we take a quick walk through the town square and toward the train station to the canal, where an American couple on a Le Boat are about to navigate the lock. It was great timing for us to watch and have a quick chat to the Americans. They were on their 7th day and their confidence in handling their boat in the lock was very reassuring.

Next stop, somewhere along the canal....