We spend most of the day riding along the Canal Lateral a la Garonne, on the bike path that has been constructed alongside. Depending which sign you read, you are on the ‘Canal des 2 Mers’, the ‘EuroVelo 3 Scandiberique’ or the ‘La Vallee du Lot a Velo’ bike route - as these are concurrent along most of our riding today. The ride out of Marmande before getting to the canal was through fields of green - maize mostly, but with potatoes and greenhouses evident too. Reaching the Garonne, and before heading out on the bike path, we stopped to have a look at Le Mas d’Agenais. Perched on the top of a limestone terrace overlooking the Garonne Valley and the Canal, Mas d’Agenais is one of the oldest villages in the Lot-et-Garonne. Occupied by the Romans, the site has more than 2000 years of history! Not much action happening on our visit though, as it was still relatively early and the day was beginning to heat up. It was just as well that the start of the bike path was shaded with plane trees - it was like riding through a green tunnel for much of the day. The canal is used by recreational boats these days. The Canal de Garonne, formerly known as Canal latéral à la Garonne, is a French canal dating from the mid-19th century which connects Toulouse to Castets-en-Dorthe. The remainder of the route to Bordeaux uses the river Garonne. It is the continuation of the Canal du Midi which connects the Mediterranean with Toulouse. Together they and the Garonne form the Canal des Deux Mers which connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. Nero and Augustus in ancient times, then Charlemagne, Francis I of France, Charles IX of France, and Henry IV of France were all interested in constructing a canal which avoided the passage around Spain. They asked for the idea to be studied and many projects resulted, but none were realised. The primary difficulty was in supplying sufficient water at the watershed between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic to ensure continuous navigation. Work started in 1838 with a budget of forty million francs. Construction began at several points simultaneously, with thousands of workmen building the 193 kilometres of canal and remarkable structures such as the famous Agen aqueduct. In 1844, the section from Toulouse to Montech to Montauban was opened. The canal was open for navigation to Buzet-sur-Baïse in 1853 and upstream by 1856. The canal was completed at the same time as the Bordeaux to Sète railway, which followed the same route. The first trains left Agen station in 1857. At first the railway did not compete with water transport but later the state conceded the canal's exploitation rights to the Compagnie des chemins de fer du Midi, the direct competitor of the boatmen. The railway company increased levies on water transport such that by the time the concession was withdrawn in 1898 the damage had already been done: between 1850 and 1893, water freight diminished by two thirds. However, until about 1970, the Canal Latéral à la Garonne was still concerned mainly with the transport of goods. Nowadays the main activity is related to tourism - and we saw plenty of boats either parked in the shade today, or wafting along slowly in the sunshine. The surface of the bike path varied - from good to fair, with some sections of gravel - otherwise sealed. Occasionally the bike path went on a side road, but there was hardly any traffic. We detoured to see the bastide town of Damazan. Scholarly debate has taken place over the exact definition of a bastide. They are now generally described as any town planned and built as a single unit, by a single founder. The majority of bastides were developed with a grid layout of intersecting streets, with wide thoroughfares that divide the town plan into insulae, or blocks, through which a narrow lane often runs. They included a central market square surrounded by arcades (couverts) through which the axes of thoroughfares pass, with a covered weighing and measuring area. The market square often provides the module into which the bastide is subdivided. The Roman model, the castrum with its grid plan and central forum, was inescapable in a region where Roman planning precedents survived in medieval cities such as Béziers, Narbonne, Toulouse, Orange and Arles. Damazan was founded by Richard the Lionheart. Most of these are in the southwest, and the majority of them were built in the two centuries from 1200 to 1400. At the time, the southwest of France was a frontier region, belonging partly to France, and partly to the kings of England. Until the mid fifteenth century, when the "English" were to all intents and purposes driven out of France, the kings of England, French-speaking, were actually Angevins, one of the four great French dynasties, who had moved their power base from Angers (in the Loire valley) to England, but still had large possessions in France, notably Aquitaine. The large number of bastides in the southwest of France were set up in order to establish a more modern society in what was, at the time, a rather wild and inhospitable part of Europe. The establishment of bastides was a way for rulers to bring the population together in centres which could be more easily controlled and defended than isolated farmsteads or hovels, while helping to develop trade and other activities associated with the town. The bastides, by promoting economic activity, also allowed the lords who founded them to raise more taxes, while ensuring a better standard of living - and also more importantly the status of freemen rather than serfs - for the people who moved into them. Since they were built at a time of relative peace and prosperity, before the start of the Hundred Years' War, the early bastides were not fortified; however once Anglo-French relations deteriorated into a state of on-off conflict, many bastides were fortified either on the initiative of individual occupants, who built walls at the outer end of their properties, or by the coordinated building of town walls. We reached a baking hot Agen this afternoon after crossing the amazing Agen Aqueduct. This is where the canal crosses the Garonne River. The aqueduct was built entirely of stone blocks, 539m long with 23 arches. On 25 August 1839 the first stone was laid. In 1841 the building of the Bordeaux to Toulouse railway interrupted work on the canal and the aqueduct was rented to farmers for use as a short cut, avoiding the Bridge of Agen. The tolls however, were too high to make this idea work. On 5 May 1846 the work was ordered to resume by a vote of a government act. The aqueduct finally came into service in 1849. Agen is a lovely town, with lots of old sandstone buildings, and yet another location on a Compostella route (hence the sculpture below). We walked around the centre to admire these sandstone buildings, and also the older timber framed ones. Agen is also the home of the Agen prunes!