Waterways: natural and built

Here is a picture of the canal surrounding Perpignan, whose border is exquisitely maintained. This is February - imagine the May view.

The history of canals is fascinating reading for those who wonder how all of humankind's inventions come into the world, why they do, who's involved in propelling them along, stopping them, imposing tolls on them, using them, or slumping themselves along the circumference when the sun comes out.  They make an excellent study for the "product lifecycle theory" that I learned in economics (I hope it's still called that).

Many canals in Europe and North America got used for cargo transportation for a relatively short time, as history goes, before trains and trucks were developed and overtook this mode of transportation as a more efficient one.  The canal around Perpignan is an exception.  It was built in 1425.  See the interesting article on its history prepared by Anne Dubois in 2004 for a seminar.  Good practice for those of you learning French, but there is an English abstract.