Agen: The Canal Bridge Over the Garonne and the Five Goyas
Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France
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200
XP
+100 France
= 300 total
1 day
Agen: The Canal Bridge Over the Garonne and the Five Goyas
200 + 100 XP
The canal bridge at Agen carries the Canal de Garonne 539 m over the river on 22 piers, entirely in dressed stone and narrow enough that boats can only pass one way at a time. Finished in 1847 and opened in 1849, it was the longest canal bridge in France until Briare's opened in 1896 and is still the second longest. The Musée des Beaux-Arts, founded in 1876 in four Renaissance town houses around their courtyards, holds five paintings by Goya bequeathed by the comte de Chaudordy, French ambassador to Spain — the self-portrait of 1783 among them — and the Gallo-Roman Venus of Le Mas d'Agenais. The pruneau d'Agen carries the town's name because its boats went down the Garonne from here to Bordeaux and the world, though the orchards are 30 to 40 km north around Villeneuve-sur-Lot.
Required Activities
1
of 4
Walk or cycle the 539 m across the canal bridge, counting the 22 piers below you, and see for yourself why two boats cannot pass: the channel is only 8.82 m wide across a deck of 12.48 m, so traffic waits in the basin at the lock at one end
2
of 4
Find all five Goyas at the église des Jacobins on rue Richard Cœur de Lion, where the museum's headline pictures hang while it is closed for works — and not just the 1783 self-portrait: the Messe des relevailles, the fantastic scene called Caprices, the sketch for the equestrian portrait of Ferdinand VII and Le Ballon — then go down to the Gallo-Roman room for the Venus of Le Mas d'Agenais
3
of 4
Buy pruneaux d'Agen in the market and read the calibre on the box — the lower the pair of numbers, the bigger the fruit, because it counts how many fill 500 g — then work out that between 3 and 3.5 kg of fresh prunes d'ente went into each kilo in your hand, and that the orchards they came from are up the Lot, not here
4
of 4
Walk down to the old port on the Garonne below the canal bridge and work out the trade: prunes went out from here because they kept on long voyages and held off scurvy, which made them a staple for sailors in the 1600s and 1700s and for emigrants in the 1800s
Walk or cycle the 539 m across the canal bridge, counting the 22 piers below you, and see for yourself why two boats cannot pass: the channel is only 8.82 m wide across a deck of 12.48 m, so traffic waits in the basin at the lock at one end
Find all five Goyas at the église des Jacobins on rue Richard Cœur de Lion, where the museum's headline pictures hang while it is closed for works — and not just the 1783 self-portrait: the Messe des relevailles, the fantastic scene called Caprices, the sketch for the equestrian portrait of Ferdinand VII and Le Ballon — then go down to the Gallo-Roman room for the Venus of Le Mas d'Agenais
Buy pruneaux d'Agen in the market and read the calibre on the box — the lower the pair of numbers, the bigger the fruit, because it counts how many fill 500 g — then work out that between 3 and 3.5 kg of fresh prunes d'ente went into each kilo in your hand, and that the orchards they came from are up the Lot, not here
Walk down to the old port on the Garonne below the canal bridge and work out the trade: prunes went out from here because they kept on long voyages and held off scurvy, which made them a staple for sailors in the 1600s and 1700s and for emigrants in the 1800s
Before you go
The towpath across the canal bridge is shared by walkers, cyclists and the lock traffic, and there is no barrier between the path and the water on a 539 m crossing. Hold on to young children.
The Musée des Beaux-Arts is closed for building works, and from 29 October 2026 the headline pictures — the Goyas among them — are shown instead at the église des Jacobins on rue Richard Coeur de Lion. The Jacobins opens 11am to 6pm every day from 1 April to 31 October and, from 1 November to 31 March, 11am to 5pm Monday to Friday with 2pm to 6pm at weekends; it is shut every Tuesday and on 1 January, Easter Monday, 1 and 8 May, Ascension Thursday, 1 and 11 November and 25 December, with last entry 45 minutes before the doors close.
Prunes are harvested between 15 August and 20 September. Outside that window you are buying dried stock, which is normal, but the orchards and drying sheds are only working in late summer.
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Challenge Location
XP Breakdown
Challenge XP
200 XP
France country bonus
+100 XP
Potential total
300 XP
Country bonus earned on completion of your first challenge in France.
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