Les Bateaux Toulousains — Local services in Toulouse

This hour and a half long cruise takes you on a gentle meander along the Canal de Brienne, which connects the River Garonne to the Canal de Midi and thereby allowing barges to travel either East to the warm waters of the Mediterranean or West to the somewhat more tempestuous depths of the Bay of Biscay, via Bordeaux. Your journey starts from the lovely Place de la Daurada, where the locals hang out, contemplating the river as it wanders past, while the imposing Church of Notre Dame de la Daurada watches over the scene. The cruise quickly takes you into a lock which marks the link from the river to the canal - an interesting bumpy, up & down experience. From there you gently glide through the tree-lined banks surrounded by lots of buildings, old and new - houses, offices & factories - all individual and all interestingly unique. The turning point is the Port de l'Embouchure, where the Brienne Canal links up with the Canal du Garonne and the Canal du Midi, each one a major engineering feat in its own right. Their connection at this point provided Toulouse with the commercial powerhouse that enabled the city to become one of France's premier cities. The commentary was only in French but a useful booklet was available in English which gave a good summary of the highlights. Remember to duck at the bridges... some are very low !!! The staff were all very helpful, welcoming and more...

I don't usually take tourist boat trips, but this was definitely worth it! A lovely trip and views of Toulouse, particularly on the canals. A helpful, if a bit cutesy, recorded commentary (in French only) explained our trip but also a lot on local history.

Only negative - At the beginning of our trip, for about 10 minutes bvefore we entered the canals (and while the recorded commentary told us we were entering the canal), it seemed like the boat was being buffeted by the waves and those of us in the bow looked at each other not understanding what was going on until we saw another boat of the same company exiting the canals and we could finally enter. When I mentioned this on the way out to a staff member, he said "that's normal, we were waiting for another boat to leave." Ok I said, but they could have told us. Had the staffer seemed the least bit interested in my comment wouldn't...

Waste of money and time! Wish we had read the reviews beforehand. We did the 60 minutes boat tour (Garonne river and the canal Brienne). 40 minutes are spent going and coming back along the canal which has NOTHING worth seeing (just modern apartment buildings), the rest was the time to leave the mooring and to go back there. Disappointing is an understatement. Wish we could get our money back, we feel scammed! Reply to their comment: we used your website (as instructed) for the explanations and commentary as we don’t speak French. Basic info and not that interesting (basically the history of that one canal). Way too expensive for what...