The Répudre Canal Bridge at the start of Paraza

Park in the car park on the right after the bridge, Rue du Moulin de Couget in Paraza.

(S/E) Leave the car park and turn left onto the towpath on the left bank of the Canal du Midi. Follow it on your right and turn with it. Continue along a reed hedge and you will reach the Pont-Canal du Ruisseau du Répudre.

(1) Cross the bridge and look for a path on the left, after the bridge, heading north-east and up the hill. At the signpost, turn right and go around a piece of wasteland. Pass by a house and you will come to a fork with a track. Take the left track and turn north along a vineyard. Turn left and head west. Go around a vineyard to the north, then return to a good path that leads to the Répudre valley. Follow the Travers, following the mountain bike trail markers, yellow triangle - No. 2. You will come to another crossroads.

(2) Turn right, leaving the mountain bike trail. Quickly cross the Ruisseau des Broutières stream and then find a tarmac road. Climb the Roudelles hill, passing in front of the Croix des Treize Vents cross. Continue on to reach the village of Sainte-Valière. Cross the D367. Take Rue de la Coopérative opposite and arrive at Place Marcellin Albert. Here you will find the Petite Caminade^PR® marked with a yellow line.

(3) Take it opposite Rue du Portanel to Place de la Mairie. Turn left onto Place de l'Église and continue straight ahead. At the intersection where the municipal library is located, go straight ahead and leave the village via Chemin de Bize. A few hundred metres further on, you will come to a bus shelter at the fork in the stone cross.

(4) Turn left onto Chemin du Moulin towards the olive groves. After passing a tennis court, leave the access road to Les Pontils (housing estate) on your right and take the dirt track below. Pass in front of a stone hut, a small memorial that has been created. After the Andouarrès stream, join the Camin Romieu at an intersection with a trail marked with two yellow-blue stripes and the Scallop Shell.

(5) Turn left towards Pouzols. For more than two centuries, three culverts have facilitated the passage of the Andouarres stream. At the end of the vineyard, reach the Brooklyn-Narbonne Bridge.

(6) Cross the bridge, then go around a vineyard on the left and continue along a path coming from the left. Join the Sainte-Valière road. Turn right and you will reach a crossroads after the Domaine de Crevas-Tinas (bed and breakfast).

(7) Turn right and cross the Répudre via a concrete ford. Join the Minervoise. Cross this busy road carefully at the pedestrian crossing to reach the village of Pouzols-Minervois opposite. Pass the Jardin de Bacchus, with its different grape varieties and picnic table, and follow Rue du Minervois to Place du Monument aux Morts. Here, join the^GR® 78 marked with two white and red stripes.

(8) Leave the yellow markings here and follow the white and red markings, crossing the large square and then the adjacent basketball court. Look for the markings near a children's playground. Take the path through the hedge and walk along a sports field and then a pine forest to the D5.

(9) Cross it again, taking the same precautions, and follow a small road opposite between the vineyards. After a long straight stretch, a right turn allows you to go around another vineyard. Turn left and cross the Ruisseau du Répudre stream again. Then walk along the Cantarane hill. You will reach the ruined mill on the hill.

(10) Turn right and cross the Répudre again via a ford, then the Grand Poirier stream. Immediately afterwards, a path on the left offers a shortcut (not shown on the map) compared to the^{GR® trail}, which makes a detour via the D67 and serves the hamlet of Réganil.

(11) Leave the road and follow the^{GR® trail} to the left. Return to the Répudre valley, still heading for the mill (photo). Descend to cross one of its tributaries, the Ruisseau de Crabido. Climb steeply through the pine forest and rejoin the tarmac road near Les Bouscarels. Pass the entrances to two leisure providers. After a gas installation, you will arrive at Paraza.

(12) Continue along Chemin du Bouscarel. When you reach Place de la Bascule, turn left towards the church, then right onto Rue du Combal. At the junction with Rue de la Fontaine Fraîche, stairs on the right lead down to the Canal du Midi, to a mooring quay for houseboats. Turn left along the canal to the bridge, then head for the car park on Rue du Moulin de Couget (S/E).

After (7) Jardin de Bacchus in Pouzols-Minervois: picnic area
(8) Picnic table on the sports field in Pouzols
The section between Pouzols-Minervois and Paraza, Chemin des Piémonts, is always exposed. It is best to undertake this hike outside of periods of intense heat.

(1) The Ruisseau du Répudre canal bridge was built in 1676 by Pierre-Paul Riquet, master builder of the Canal du Midi, with the help of engineer and cartographer François Andréossy, to cross the Répudre. This tributary of the Aude may seem modest, but it can swell suddenly and cause torrential floods, so violent that they sometimes damage the canal bridge, as was the case in 1999.
Listed and protected as a historic monument in 1942, the canal bridge is one of the most remarkable engineering structures on the Canal du Midi and one of the first to be built in France in the^mid-17th century.
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(5) The three culverts over the Andouarres streams: one of these bridges had even disappeared, swept away by the floods. It was rebuilt in 2016 by the Pierres Anciennes youth workshop to facilitate the continuation of the walk.

(6) The Brooklyn-Narbonne Bridge, on the Romieu trail, was built by young Americans and Narbonne residents in 2019. This wonderful initiative is the result of work carried out by the Camins association, in conjunction with the Pierres Anciennes workshop of the departmental council, which gives young people who have left the school system the opportunity to discover manual trades.

Before (7) Domaine de Crevas-Tinas: the name (broken barrels) refers to a rather violent episode that took place in the winter of 1904/1905, during the winegrowers' revolts that foreshadowed those of 1907. In the past, in this building called Auberge du Coq d'Or, a toll was levied on goods. The village consuls, a kind of municipal council, held their meetings there.

After (7) Le Jardin de Bacchus: this miniature vineyard garden was created in 1993. Named after Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and intoxication, it is located next to the Pouzols-Mailhac Cooperative Winery. Since its inception, this educational plot has benefited from the advice of Jean-Michel Boursiquot, an ampelographer (from the Greek word ampelos, meaning vine) and scientific expert on vines. The vineyard museum brings together 80 grape varieties on the site, harvested each year by schoolchildren from the villages of Pouzols and Mailhac.

Off the beaten track: the Mitad del Camino Roma-Santiago
On the edge of the D5, at the crossroads with the Sainte-Valière road (D405), a bus shelter has been repainted in the colours of Saint James. It marks the halfway point between Rome and Santiago, 1,116 km from both cities.