Lespignan

Nissan-lez-Enserune (French pronunciation: [nisɑ̃ lez‿ɑ̃seʁyn]; Occitan: Nissa d'Ausseruna, Niça d'Ausseruna), also spelled Nissan-lez-Ensérune, is a French commune in the department of Hérault, region of Occitania, situated just south of Béziers. Its inhabitants are called Nissanais in French.

Colombiers (French pronunciation: [kɔlɔ̃bje] ; Occitan: Colombièrs) is a commune in the Hérault department in southern France.

Vendres (French pronunciation: [vɑ̃dʁ]; Languedocien: Vèndres) is a commune in the Hérault department in the Occitanie region in southern France.

The Malpas tunnel carries the Canal du Midi under the d'Ensérune hill in Hérault, France. Excavated in 1679, it was Europe's first navigable canal tunnel and is a monument to the determination of Pierre-Paul Riquet, the chief engineer. It is located in the commune of Nissan-lez-Ensérune near to the archaeological site Oppidum d'Ensérune. There was great disappointment when the works reached the hill d'Ensérune. A few metres of digging in hard rock revealed a very brittle sandstone subject to slippage. Colbert, the prime minister, halted the works when he was made aware of the situation. The portal was blocked and the workings re-sited. Riquet's detractors took advantage of this situation to impede the project. Colbert announced that he would send royal commissioners to decide the canal's future. The advice of the Chevalier de Clerville, architect to Louis XIV, was to cross the river Aude rather than tunnel through the hill. Riquet, however, maintained his preference for a tunnel because of the extra problems that crossing the Aude would create. Riquet's response was to ask his master mason, Pascal de Nissan, to continue tunneling in secret despite the risk of collapse. In less than eight days, the tunnel was complete with a concrete ceiling throughout. The tunnel is 165m long with an arch 8m above the canal's surface, and removed the necessity for an extra lock. By the time the Malpas Tunnel was excavated in the seventeenth century, the hill had already for several centuries been the site of a tunnel, dug in the Middle Ages, to drain the Étang de Montady. This pre-existing tunnel is said to have been Riquet's inspiration for the Malpas Tunnel. In the nineteenth century, a third tunnel was excavated, passing through the Hill d'Ensérune beneath the Malpas tunnel to house the Béziers to Narbonne railway line.

Fleury (French pronunciation: [flœʁi] or [fløʁi]; Occitan: Fluris, [flyˈɾis]), unofficially Fleury-d'Aude for disambiguation, is a commune in the Aude department, in the administrative region of Occitania, southern France.

Fonseranes Locks (French: écluses de Fonseranes, les neuf écluses) are a flight of staircase locks on the Canal du Midi near Béziers. They consist of eight oval-shaped lock chambers, characteristic of the Canal du Midi, and nine gates, which allow boats to be raised a height of 21.5 metres (71 ft) over a distance of 300 metres (980 ft). The flight was originally built as an eight-rise, which together with the ninth lock (the écluse de Notre-Dame, 710 metres (0.44 mi) to the northeast) allowed boats to cross the Orb river on a level and re-enter the canal further downstream. The "nine locks" name dates from this time. However, in 1858 an aqueduct was built to replace the crossing of the Orb. Boats now enter and leave the lower end of the flight through the side of chamber seven, which is permanently kept at its upper water level. The flight is therefore effectively made up of six locks. The lower gates of the seventh chamber are now permanently closed; the eighth chamber and the ninth lock, the pre-1858 route descending to the Orb, are disused. This side exit from chamber seven causes some confusion in describing the flight of locks. While most sources now ignore the disused eighth chamber, some still describe the flight as a seven-rise, despite chamber seven being permanently at the lower canal level. In 1983 the Fonseranes inclined plane was built adjacent to the locks, to allow commercial traffic and boats too large for the locks to bypass them. Unfortunately the project encountered technical problems, and after many years of attempting to solve them the inclined plane was abandoned in 2001. Traditional buildings such as the stables and the lock keeper's house still remain. These and the locks themselves have made the site the third most popular tourist destination in Languedoc-Roussillon, after the Pont du Gard and the town of Carcassonne. Though Pierre-Paul Riquet rightly receives much credit and acknowledgement for the creation of the Canal du Midi, we may forget that many individual parts of the canal were built by subcontractors other than Riquet. The subcontractors for these locks were two illiterate brothers, Michel and Pierre Medailhes. Many of the workers were women.

The Fonseranes Water Slope (French: Pente d'eau Fonséranes) is a disused inclined plane on the Canal du Midi parallel to the Fonseranes Locks. It has a rise of 13.6 m (45 ft) and a slope of 5°. This technique for a water slope was described by the French engineer Jean Aubert in 1961. It was designed to lift vessels of up to 350 tonnes displacement. The slope, the second and last to be constructed in France, was built between 1980 and 1983 with the intent of augmenting the seven locks at the Fonseranes Locks, allowing larger boats to pass without extensive rework of the existing locks; these would continue to serve smaller boats. Trial operations commenced in May 1984. However, within weeks a number of technical problems emerged as oil leaking from the hydraulic system lubricated the concrete tracks and the wheels on the lift were unable to gain sufficient traction to raise the chamber to the top of the slope. It took until 1986 to resolve the technical, contractual, and insurance issues. This problem was never satisfactorily resolved and the slope was abandoned officially on 11 April 2001. The first water slope in France was the Montech water slope on the Canal de Garonne in the commune of Montech.

Salles-d'Aude (French pronunciation: [sal dod] ; Occitan: Salas d'Aude) is a commune in the Aude department in southern France.

A water slope (French: Pente d'eau) is a type of canal inclined plane built to carry boats from a canal or river at one elevation up or down to a canal or river at another elevation.

The Étang de Montady (English: "pond of Montady") is a drained endoreic pond or lagoon, is now more accurately a former freshwater wetland, located near Montady and Colombiers, midway between Béziers and Narbonne in the western department of Hérault in southern France.

The Oppidum d'Ensérune is an ancient hill-town (or oppidum) near the village of Nissan-lez-Ensérune, France, located between Béziers and Narbonne close to the D609 (formerly RN9) and Canal du Midi. It has been listed since 1935 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture. The settlement was occupied without interruption between the 6th century BC and 1st century AD on a hill with good views over the coastal plain, being close to the Via Domitia, the Montady lake, and fertile agricultural land below. There is a museum on the site which offers a display of some of the finds on the site, as well as giving more information about the fort and the field system. Below the oppidum was the swamp of Montady, (centred on 43°19′12″N 3°07′24″E ), which is now wedge shaped fields separated by irrigation ditches that converge in the centre. In the 13th century, the swamp was drained; the ditches allowed water to flow to the centre of the circular depression, from which it was conveyed through underground pipes several kilometres to the south. The drainage is still functional and remains in use.

The Orb Aqueduct (French: Pont-canal de l'Orb, Pont-canal de Béziers) is a bridge which carries the Canal du Midi over the Orb in the city of Béziers in Languedoc, France. The aqueduct is 28 metres (92 ft) wide, 12 metres (39 ft) tall and at 240 metres (790 ft) is the longest on the Canal du Midi. Prior to the opening of the aqueduct in 1858, the Canal du Midi traversed a short section of the Orb itself. The opening of the aqueduct allowed boats to avoid the river, which was unpredictable and sometimes dangerous, and often caused extended delays. For example, in 1779 exceptional floods caused the river section to be impassable for seventeen days. Various schemes were proposed to bypass the Orb; an aqueduct of over 1 km in length was proposed in 1739 and in 1756 a plan to carry the canal in a tunnel under the Orb was put forward. However, neither proposal was implemented. In April 1854, the Chief Engineer of the Canal Company, M. Magues, prepared designs for the present aqueduct together with new channels to take the canal from the side of the seventh and second lowest chamber of the Fonserannes Lock, across the Orb and to rejoin the original course of the Canal du Midi. The plans involved the construction of two new locks, the Orb Lock and the Béziers Lock, as well as a canal basin to the east of the Orb. Permission for the new works was granted by a decree of Emperor Napoleon III in June 1854 and the construction was completed by May 1856 and opened for use in 1858. The aqueduct is built of stone with seven spans and carries the canal in a masonry trough sealed with a layer of concrete. There are towpaths on each side of the waterway and underneath are two arcaded walkways. The walkways are now not accessible except for maintenance. The concrete seal was replaced in 1951 but otherwise the original structure is intact.