France's best-kept secret

Hidden in a tunnel of plane trees, winding sinuously through the hillsides of the Languedoc, the Canal du Midi exists in a different world. Here, things happen - if they happen at all - with a languor little changed since the canal opened more than 300 years ago.

The construction of a link between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean presented 17th century France with a huge engineering challenge, and it was a Béziers nobleman, Pierre Paul Riquet, who, in 1666, finally obtained royal assent for a canal between the sea and Toulouse.

Beyond Toulouse, the Garonne River was seasonally navigable to Bordeaux and to the Gironde estuary beyond. There are quicker ways to cross the country, but using the canal, people generally prefer to take their time.

The canal was one of France's best- kept secrets until it became a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1996. Since then, increasing numbers have discovered its tranquillity, far removed from the over-development of Provence and the Cote d'Azur. Airlines now fly to local airports and the new A75 motorway provides the most direct route from Paris to Béziers.

Gill and Ian Jarvis bought a house in a village in the area more than 10 years ago. "We wanted to be in the vine-and-olive region of southern France, rather than the leafy bits," Ian explains. "Provence and the Luberon were too expensive, and the area around Orange in the Massif Central was too isolated. We're still urban people and the canal is not far from the motorway. Within five or 10 minutes there's always something. The canal is further south than Florence, and so it was a sort of poor man's Tuscany."

There are two distinct parts to the canal. West of Carcassonne, the Lauragais section leads towards Toulouse. Oliver Kirner came here 13 years ago and specialises in helping foreign purchasers. "When I first arrived, prices were amazing," he says. "Houses with land cost about FF500,000 [about £50,000 at the time]; now they're six or seven times that amount."

These steep rises began to level out a year or so ago. "Prices are still rising," he says, "but it's the asking price, not the paid price." Notaires and the local papers are usually considerably more realistic about price than estate agents.

Ironically, the main buyers, especially nearer Toulouse, are French. "Business in Toulouse has become so important, particularly since Airbus arrived, that Parisians are moving down here and buying property back from foreigners," says Kirner.

East of Carcassonne, the canal continues past Béziers to the Mediterranean. Its banks are lined with seemingly unending vineyards and their undulating rows of dusty vine leaves shimmering in the summer haze are some of the canal's most enduring images.

The route follows the natural division between the Minervois region to the north and Corbières stretching to the south; dègustations (wine tastings) are on offer along the towpaths, while many lock keepers also sell a range of produce. Until recently, much of the local wine was fit only for industrial alcohol, but