The Canal Builders

In the days before railways, shipping wine from Bordeaux to Paris took a while. It would be loaded on a ship in Bordeaux and brought up to Nantes. There it would be transferred onto a special flat bottomed river boat to ascend the Loire. The Loire was always a nightmare for boats because it is shallow and extremely variable, now a raging torrent difficult to navigate, then a trickle of water barely enough to wet the boat.

On reaching Orléans not a few barrels were no longer drinkable. These were converted into vinegar, a traditional industry of Orléans. The last manufacturer of vinegar finally disappeared only in the 1970’s.

But the wine was still 150 km from Paris. The rich bourgeois was impatient awaiting his fine wine. The last stage was the canal, the Orléans canal, which after a roundabout route connects with the Seine and hence to gay Paris.

The railways destroyed canals probably faster than the internet is killing papers. Before the railways, passengers would travel from Paris to Orléans in a stage coach then take the boat down to Nantes, a journey of a few days. Overnight it was Paris Nantes within the day. The trains travelled at the stupendous speed of 30 km per hour. Our local newspaper recently reprinted its aticle describing the inaugaral journey Paris Orléans.The same thing happened to the wine from Bordeaux to Paris. So it was bye bye river boats and bye bye canals.

The Orléans canal is still there, to the east of Orléans, though not navigable at the present time. If you look at the picture above you can see the Orléans canal to the left of the Loire. This picture is taken about a kilometre from the starting point of the canal in downtown Orléans. In the early 1950’s that last kilometre was filled with soil and rubble and the space used for parking and the vegetable market.

The picture above is taken from a bridge looking east. What if I look west?




Yes it’s a massive building site. That first kilometre of the canal is being rebuilt. The parking spaces have been suppressed and the market moved. In Orléans we are building: fast trains, autoroutes, internet superhighways and……….canals.