Matthew Fort: Cycling the Ancien Canal du Berry

Matthew Fort cycles along the Ancien Canal du Berry. "Built – or réalisé , as the French so elegantly put it – ­between 1808 and 1840, 261km all told, with 97 locks to carry freight (coal, bricks, clay and iron) to and from Montluçon in the south, and to and from Fontblisse by way of V­allon-en-Sully and Saint-Amand-Montrond" Photograph: Marion Poussier/Guardian Photograph: Marion Poussier/guardian.co.uk A fisherman alongside the Ancien Canal du Berry Photograph: Marion Poussier/Guardian Photograph: Marion Poussier/guardian.co.uk "When it was there, it was reassuringly broad and placid, its path marked by poplars, chestnuts and oaks" Photograph: Marion Poussier/Guardian Photograph: Marion Poussier/guardian.co.uk The Ancien Canal du Berry "has a habit of disappearing completely" Photograph: Marion Poussier/Guardian Photograph: Marion Poussier/guardian.co.uk A bridge over the Ancien Canal Photograph: Marion Poussier/Guardian Photograph: Marion Poussier/guardian.co.uk On the road in Berry Photograph: Marion Poussier/Guardian Photograph: Marion Poussier/guardian.co.uk The Canal goes missing again Photograph: Marion Poussier/Guardian Photograph: Matthew Fort examines a map of the region/guardian.co.uk A grocery en route Photograph: Marion Poussier/Guardian Photograph: Marion Poussier/guardian.co.uk Berry is famous for its goat's cheeses – crottin de Chavignol, Pouligny-Saint-Pierre, Selles-sur-Cher, best washed down with a glass of nameless red wine Photograph: Marion Poussier/Guardian Photograph: Marion Poussier/guardian.co.uk "The food was impeccably French, haut bourgeois , country house, of a kind familiar to me from recipe books no longer read, grounded in the ingredients of the region, suave, generous in ­matters of butter and cream..." Photograph: Marion Poussier/Guardian Photograph: Marion Poussier/guardian.co.uk