Judging by the TV footage, devastating is an understatement.

I did not know about it. I checked YouTube and it is very bad. My understanding it is worst flood in the century.

For us I think it is too late to change plans. Our trip year from now. I am not sure if canal will be functional but all booked and paid.

The floods and devastation are terrible, my thoughts are with those affected.

As you trip is 12 months away, hopefully all will be restored for those affected and to get the Canal and tourism functioning again.

Re your trip- looking at my Guide Fluvial- Trèbes to Carcassonne is 12km and 7 locks. If you mean by your first day, the day you pick up the boat, then it may not be feasible to travel that distance and number of locks in the time you will likely have on the first afternoon, all depends on when you get away and if you end up in a group of other boats using the locks together. It takes time for the boat orientation, test driving and for you to provision the vessel, and can be impacted by how many other boats they are getting ready for departure.

Carcassonne has a marina/ port de plaisance (right at the train station) and you will have to pay to stay there, if there is room. When we stayed there a number of years ago we used free mooring canal side on the Trèbes side of the port, if it is still free and you can find a space, just pull up and peg in.

As I suggested before in another thread, you need to get one of the official waterways guides to do your planning. You can see on these maps how close canal side towns are or not. Most people rely on bikes to see points of interest away from the canal. A vessel for 6 will have bike space for 6 bikes, usually in racks on the foredeck.

Remember that in a 7 day trip you only have 5 full days and drop off is usually 9 am on the last day so you often have little option than to be at the base the final night. Consider that in your planning. From Carcassonne back past Trèbes to Narbonne it is about 63 km and 40 locks (I have included the actual number of locks not just the number of flights on the map as some are doubles and triples).

BTW this is the forum for the little town of Canals, not for general canal boating in France. It might help to post on the general France Forum or those specific to the areas you will pass through. :)

If for any reason you cannot make the trip because of weather related events your travel insurance will come into play. But it's a year away, so no need to worry as yet. Although the flooding is obviously very severe many of the videos I've seen related to places north of Carcassonne, up in the hills. From what I read, a year's rain fell in one night. Nowhere can deal with that!

And yes Canals is a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. Post questions about Carcassonne in that forum, Narbonne also has its own.

(In French the plural of canal (ie the waterway) is canaux.)

We had a week on the Canal du midi - Narbonne to Trebes 3 weeks ago. You can download a Le Boat app that will tell you all you need to know about locks and times between. You can stay at the Le boat bases (Trebes has one) with hook up for free, but you have to pay for any other hook up stops. Hard work at times but brilliant fun, we loved it.

The bikes aren’t best quality! but we enjoyed having them to explore. They just sat at the back of the boat, bike locked together.

Thanks for advice about app. I could not see how it is possible to fit 6 bikes on the back of the boat.