Europe's answer to Suez Canal is incredible 223-mile £18m waterway
Europe's answer to Suez Canal is incredible 223-mile £18m waterway
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Dubbed as one of the most 'remarkable feats of civil engineering in modern times', this one-of-a-kind canal links the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Believed to have been built between 1667 and 1681, during the reign of Louis XIV, the Canal du Midi runs through the southeast French region of Occitanie.
Boasting a whopping 328 structures, such as locks, bridges, spillways, and tunnels, the 360km (around 223 miles) waterway starts in Toulouse and spans all the way to the Thau lagoon in Marseillan, and then on to the Mediterranean Sea via the small fishing port of Sète. It is said the construction lasted a staggering 14 years, involved 12,000 workers, and cost almost £17 million.
Work began again from 1687 to 1694 to after some of the infrastructure had been damaged. This included the creation of irrigation canals to drain run-off flows, building 48 aqueducts to help prevent flooding, and increasing the Saint-Ferréol dam's capacity.
"Providing a link between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic would mean that boats would no longer need to go around the Iberian Peninsula and the Straits of Gibraltar, controlled by the Spanish crown," the canal's website explained. "[It was also ] an excellent way to avoid the taxes involved, as well as the pirates and other privateers known for their barbaric behaviour in these waters.".
Thanks to his knowledge of hydraulics, Pierre-Paul Riquet, who spearheaded the project, came up with an ingenious system to collect the waters of the Montagne Noire and therefore, supply the canal with water all year round. UNESCO has hailed the engineer for taking so much pride in the canal, arguing he 'turned a technical achievement into a work of art'. Riquet even paid for some of the improvement costs - and his work has truly been immortalised.
