THE CANAL DU MIDI IN AGDE

The Canal du Midi crosses Agde from west to east, from the Saint-Joseph bridge, registered as a historical monument in 1997. It then passes through a succession of engineering structures: the Port of Agde and the round lock, the Canalet bas, the Canalet haut and then, after crossing the river, the lock and the Prades bridge, the Saint-Bauzély bridge, the lock and the Bagnas spillway and beyond, the bridge and the Onglous mouth which opens onto the Thau Lagoon. Agde is the last stop before the Etang de Thau and finally its terminus, in Sète. At the Agde stop, a river port where the old "Hôtel de l'Administration du Canal" and the round lock can still be seen gives an idea of the importance of such a work in the history of the region. Once a merchant route, the canal is a natural and architectural treasure, and deserves to be discovered as it was lived, along the water. A vast project of valorization of this site is in progress.

Completed in 1676, the round lock of Agde, with a diameter of 292 decimeters for a depth of 52, is unique in its kind on the Canal du Midi. By its shape, this work, which has been registered as a historical monument since 1996, is indeed both an architectural and technical success, since it brings together three levels of water:

the Canal itself, which leads to Béziers, the Canalet haut, which opens upstream of the "Pansière" and allows to reach the Thau Lagoon and Sète, the Canalet bas, which joins the Hérault downstream of the "Pansière" and allows to reach the Mediterranean Sea via the mouth of the river.