Scenic, but not as good as the Midi-summer madness

AS we sailed through the huge salt water lagoon of Etang de Thau, a thousand tiny jellyfish appeared from nowhere like something out of a fantasy film.

It was clear that this one-week adventure was going to be quite different to the one which ignited our love for this kind of holiday in the fading days of summer 2006.

Back then, we drifted slowly under the leafs of oak and chestnut trees, passed solitary fisherman and stuttered our way through the creaking, 500-year-old locks of south-west France's Canal du Midi.

But this time we saw none of that. It was only a few dozen miles from the previous route, but it could have been a different world.

In those days it was all about the delights of rural inland France. This year it was all about the sea.

The route took us briefly along our old friend, the quaint, tranquil Midi before it opened up into the Etang de Thau basin and dumped us in the bigger, badder and altogether tougher Canal du Rhone a Sete, of the Camargue region.

The hamlets and villages of last year's route gave way to busy ports and large towns, and the occasional holiday boats of the Midi were replaced by giant freighters making their way to the sea.

Our own ship was the one we know and love - holiday company Crown Blue Line's magnificent Calypso Elite. Three cabins. Two bathrooms. Giant lounge/kitchen containing everything you need, including a fridge large enough to store several bottles of wine and beer, cheese, pate, cold meat, salads and all the other essentials for a holiday in France, and a large sundeck ideal for sunbathing and dining.

But back to the route. The first point of interest is, just like the Midi, you can moor pretty much where you like. This is fine when the largest vessel you encounter is a similar sized holiday boat, but not when humongous freighters with the power to drag boats from their moorings rumble past day and night.

We were woken twice as our boat lurched from side-to-side in the blackness of the early hours, as it was ripped from the bank by a giant container ship steaming past with little regard to anything in its way. Encounters with these ships are rare, and you could sail for weeks without seeing any. We were unlucky, but be careful.

However, the beauty of the Camargue and everything it has to offer certainly outweighs the negatives.

Here we found a flat, barren landscape dotted with white horses and pink flamingos, often less than a mile from the Mediterranean.

After leaving the base at Port Cassafires, we soon came across the first of two locks, which can be daunting to a novice but are more a source of fun for those who have been on this sort of adventure before.

Back to main news index. In fact, we missed them greatly, and only wished there had been more of them.

Very little happens before you arrive in the Etang de Thau - a giant saltwater basin full of fish, jellyfish and home to hundreds of thousands of farmed mussels and oysters which grow on giant steel posts.

It’s tempting to just steam on through the lake, but the tiny fishing port of Bouzigues is worth a visit, and is an excellent place to moor for the night. The busier harbour of Marseillan is also worth a look, as is the bustling town of Sete, which is just a 15 minute bike ride from mooring posts on the right hand bend which takes you out of the basin.

The site of the ancient walled city of Aigues Mortes heralded the halfway point of the holiday. And what a site it was. In a way it’s reminiscent of Carcassonne - small, extremely pretty and full of history. It was clear that although it attracts thousand of tourists each day it had been left untouched for hundreds of years.

And so it was time to start the return leg, and navigate the fairly bland stretch of canal between Aigues Mortes and the lake. But at least the sun was shining. And that’s why this route is so successful – sun, sea, sand and a dollop of culture.

And for us it was another great adventure on another great boat. The scenery was beautiful, the weather was good, the food was faultless and the wine was cheap. And if we had nothing to compare it too it would have been a truly exceptional holiday. But we did.

And despite everything that the Camargue had to offer, we couldn’t help but wish we were just a few dozen miles east, gently bobbing down the Canal du Midi, without hassle, without traffic, without sprawling ports or tourist towns, and where the only requirement was to be ready and prepared for an encounter with our old friend, the locks.