Seuil de Naurouze

There is a symbiotic relationship between the Canal du Midi, the Toulouse-Narbonne railway line and the A61. They live side-by-side, sometimes crossing over or under each other. They are like a geological transection of conduits of transport: a stratum of canal beside a stratum of railway, beside a stratum of motorway... each layer different, faster, more in a rush.
I peeled off the motorway early; in need of a change of scene. I took the Route Nationale (possibly the old Roman Road between the cities of Narbo Martius and Tolosa - another stratum in the rockface), and found myself by chance, at the Seuil de Naurouze. Here, I found out, is the highest point between Narbonne and Aquitaine - the perfect place for Riquet's watershed. From here, the water falls west into the Atlantic Ocean and east into the Mediterranean sea. The simplicity of this belies the complexity of the engineering involved in the construction of the canal, and it's subsequent links with lakes to provide irrigation for the fields of the Lauragais.
Ironically, my photo hasn't a drop of water in it. From the motorway I follow the double rows of plane trees that border the canal, their branches regularly pollarded and I liked the fact that someone, at possibly the same time as the canal was constructed, had bothered to plant out this avenue, and for the very slowest form of transport - feet.