Lattes to Montpellier

Friday, September 28th

The sun rises ever later, and with the lock opening at 8:15am we didn’t have for niceties such as breakfast.

We called the “lock keeper” on the intercom and realised he could see us on the various security and lock control cameras that surrounded the very primitive (and disused) lock control room.  It was just like the automatic locks of the first days of the trip, but it was controlled remotely from God knows where.

The final leg of our canal journey was about 1 km and 10 minutes. As we entered the port of Ariane at Lattes, and the multitude of apartments and empty restaurants and cafes, we saw the Canadians – they had arrived several days earlier, having gotten ahead of us somewhere around Homps and gotten caught in a storm crossing the Etaing! But they survived...

We emptied the boat, had a final “inspection” by Locaboat (or Loco Boat as Prue has started to call it, affectionately), bid "farewell" to Dennevy:

and had coffee and delicious cakes from the only place that seemed open. After an hour of swapping stories, they headed off to a train to Paris, and we in a taxi to Montpellier.  As we left, the German armada sailed into port, still greeting us with more friendliness than some of the other crews they encountered.

We found our hotel, which is really a B&B tucked into the back of a garden complex and attached to the owners house, and settled in. Unfortunately, this will only be for tonight, and we still have to deal with accommodation for the next two days.

We took a walk for a couple of hours around the old centre of town, and Prue agreed that Montpellier really is a charming and lovely town – quite different to Beziers. 

During the walk we found a laundromat and then had coffee:

Then it was back to the laundromat for some well needed clean clothes. Even better, there was free WiFi and that's where I’m typing this - on a table in the alley outside the shop, and Prue’s reading on her Kindle – ah, the joys of inner city living, and traveling.