Harbour

Port-Neuf de Béziers

Name: Port-Neuf de Béziers
Address: Béziers, FR

Type: Harbour

River port on the Canal du Midi at Béziers, Hérault, at the foot of the Fonseranes lock flight and 2.9 NM west of Villeneuve-lès-Béziers.

Guide

Approach and anchoring

Approach from the Canal du Midi, Freycinet gauge. Maximum draught 1.40 m, air draught 3.30 m. The port lies between two locks; in summer the locks work from about 09:00 to 19:00. Most boats berth stern-to against the quay, or alongside when there is room, with the harbour staff directing arrivals. The Fonseranes lock flight upstream lifts boats 21.50 m over seven basins, passage by appointment with VNF.

Practical

Berths along the quay with water and electricity bollards, both unlimited, but no showers or laundry on the quay. Capitainerie open in season, sharing premises with the tourist office where bikes can be hired. Berthing runs about 18 to 23 euros a night with power and water. The quay backs onto a road that carries some traffic at night. Supermarket and bakeries within 600 m in the Faubourg area of Béziers.

Ashore

Écluses de Fonseranes, the seven-basin staircase completed in 1697, is 300 m upstream and receives around 320,000 visitors a year. Cathedrale Saint-Nazaire de Béziers on its rock above the Orb, 1.8 km on foot. Pont-canal de l'Orb, cast-iron aqueduct of 1858, crosses the river 400 m from the port.

History

The Canal du Midi reached Béziers in 1681 after Pierre-Paul Riquet died in 1680 without seeing the work completed. The Fonseranes flight was his engineering answer to a 21 m drop in a short distance and still functions with its seventeenth-century stone chambers.

Story

Riquet financed the canal partly from his own fortune and died in debt. His family recovered the investment only a generation later when royal revenues from canal tolls caught up.