It is no part of my job to announce new Ryanair routes – the airline has taken
quite enough of my money to fund its own front-page ads – but I’m making an
exception for the Bristol-Béziers service, which kicks off on March 31.
I am doing this for two reasons. First, Béziers is a handy departure point for
an off-season drive to the beaches and mountains of Languedoc.
And, second, I like the place.
(I admire Bristol, too, but, like Ryanair, it can look after itself.) Béziers
is my kind of mongrel southern town: part noble bloodline, part dishevelled
mutt.
Up on its hill, the centre looks masterful – the gothic cathedral, especially,
would be whipping the vast surrounding wine lands back into line, given half
a chance. But chance hasn’t always been on Béziers’s side. It first made big
news in 1209, when papal crusaders showed up and slaughtered the population
as heretics.
Subsequently, the town has grown fatter and thinner with the ups and more
recent downs of the cheap-wine trade. It has played rugby, held bullfights
and generally been effervescent in the Latin manner. Then it has gone back
to work. Or the bar. Or welfare. So, off the lovely esplanade and main
squares, many old streets have a lived-in look – lived in not by Parisian
gallery-owners, but by people who are meant to live there, the ones doing
washing, pushing pushchairs and hanging around clapped-out cars, wondering
how the hell to get the doors back on.
It makes for engrossing wandering, once you’ve had your fill of gothic. And
we’ll come back to it at the end of our drive – which you could also join,
with minimal adjustments, from Montpellier.
Day one
Leave the airport, heading towards Agde, and take the tiny right-hander to the
hamlet of La Tamarissière. Here, where the River Hérault glides into the
Med, you are introduced to the Languedoc littoral. This is not a coast of
quaint coves. It is flat, endless and unkempt, a seaside apparently left to
its own devices.
Except, of course, it hasn’t been. Tourism came colonising in the 1960s,
mainly in the shape of quick-build resorts such as Cap d’Agde, along the
way. The apartments, villas and bars with jolly awnings also straggled out
to hidden spots like La Tamarissière, entwining themselves with pine trees,
dunes, fishing boats and nut-brown ancients who would wear flip-flops only
at gunpoint. There’s a sense of mild anarchy – as if the rule of law, and
central planning, might have run out on this distant edge of France.
Walk the beach to the west of the estuary before continuing to Agde, on the
other side of the Hérault. Agde makes much of its 2,500-year-old Greek
roots, though there’s not much evidence left. What you have instead is a
dignified riverfront with a splendid medieval warren rising behind. Take in
the 12th-century fortified cathedral. You can’t miss it: fronting the river,
it’s in dark volcanic stone and still spoiling for a fight with the
Saracens. Then stroll on, before lunching at La Place (00 33-4 67 94 77 03;
mains from £10).
Later, skirt Cap d’Agde – a happy holiday camp of a place in season, but right
now an empty shell. Head instead for Sète, along the finger of land that
separates the sea from the Thau lagoon. It’s an elemental, deserted and
rather stirring stretch, the Med giving the impression that it could
dispense with the causeway whenever it damn well pleased.
First job is to drive vertically up through residential zones to Mont Saint
Clair, around which the town clusters, for arresting views of this watery
world: oyster beds in the lagoon; port and associated industry; lowlying
vineyards beyond. Then descend to the town. France’s second Mediterranean
port, Sète is a great place.
With water on three sides, the geography is a squeeze. The port reaches pretty
much into the centre – fishermen on some boats could chuck their turbot
directly into the kitchens of waterfront restaurants. There’s a salty
atmosphere of honest labour and, as in all ports, shadowy skulduggery.
Conversations in waterside bars don’t all concern tuna yields.
Tourism has added sprightlier shops and blow-up dolphins to the mix of ships’
chandlers, classic frontages, cranes and fish soup. Check into the correctly
named Grand Hôtel (04 67 74 71 77, www.sete-hotel.com;
doubles from £72), dine at its Quai 17 restaurant (menus from £19), then
bar-hop the main canal. You’ll bump into memories of Georges Brassens,
moustachio’d chansonnier and Sète’s most famous son. Say you
like him or face the consequences.
Day two
Head inland, to the east of the Thau lagoon, then along its northern edge to
Bouzigues, a hankie-sized oyster and mussel port. Amid the tangle of
shellfish sheds, seek out L’Arseillère, an oyster snack bar (04 67 78 84
12). The molluscs slip down a treat with a mid-morning hit of local Picpoul
de Pinet white.
Thus fortified, continue to Mèze before leaving the water for the wine plain
and, via Montagnac, the period drama that is Pézenas. This was a pretty
important place in the 16th and 17th centuries. Molière spent several
seasons in town – not that that’s much of a recommendation. (I’ve never been
to one of his plays without wanting to flee at the interval.) The reason he
was here, though, was that Pézenas was the effective capital of Languedoc,
thus full of nobles, jurists and other potential audience members.
They needed grandiose townhouses, loggias and courtyards, which still pack the
labyrinth of the old town. Pick up a map from the tourist office on Place
Gambetta and amble off, wondering whether the world was not a more civilised
place when nobles and jurists, rather than footballers and futures traders,
had the big money. Lunch at L’Entre-Pots (04 67 90 00 00; from £15).
Now go northwest to Roujan and over the top, direction Clermont-l’Hérault.
Here the land rises ruffled and rugged. The spiky garrigue
vegetation is as tough as the rocks from which it grows. Continue through
Bédarieux to the little town of Hérépian, then settle in at the newly
transformed Couvent (04 67 11 87 15, www.couventherepian.com;
doubles from £84), at present my favourite small hotel in France. Dine there
simply – mains cost £7 – if you’ve reserved ahead. Relax. There are more
adventures tomorrow.
Day three
If you can squeeze an extra day into your break, romp off into the Haut
Languedoc Natural Park. The mountains, rivers and gorges were remote when
Neolithics used to bring their animals up here for the summer. They haven’t
got noticeably less so since.
Should time be tighter, make for Mons. From there, take an eight-mile, only
slightly hairy round-trip detour to the Héric gorges. Apparently carved by
an Almighty Axeman, they afford a taste of what you’re missing by not
staying the extra day. Bob along to Olargues, a glorious old spot that
climbs steeply up the slope from the River Jaur. They’ve had firm thighs
here for a thousand years.
Now backtrack to follow the D14 along the gorges of the River Orb – beautiful,
obviously – to Roquebrun. This hangs over the river as if completing
nature’s scheme for the site and raises, yet again, the question: “How come
medieval people, with all their disgusting habits, were so much better at
building villages than we are?”
Buy some St Chinian red at the admirable cave coopérative, lunch
at Le Petit Nice (04 67 89 64 27; from £15) and continue onto the plain to
Béziers.
On entering town, follow signs for Les Neuf Ecluses (locks) de Fonserane.
These raise the Canal du Midi more than 65ft over a 985ft stretch. A
stunning 17th-century engineering feat, they nevertheless constitute a
man-made canyon of hell for the novice boater. (I’ve done them, and ended up
being pulled apart by ropes, steering with my feet, crashing into anything
that could be crashed into, and weeping.)
Head up the slope to the centre of Béziers and check in at the value-for-money
Hôtel des Poètes (04 67 76 38 66, www.hoteldespoetes.net;
doubles from £40; reserve parking when you book). Stroll the esplanade,
the cathedral and anywhere else you fancy before dinner at L’Ambassade (04
67 76 06 24; menus from £20). I promise you will like this city. It will
suit your lack of pretension.
Getting there: Ryanair (www.ryanair.com)
will start a Bristol-Béziers service on March 31, with three flights a week.
The airline also flies from Stansted to Montpellier, 42 miles away, and from
Stansted, East Midlands, Dublin, Cork and Shannon to Carcassonne, 56 miles
away. Rail Europe (0844 848 4070, www.raileurope.co.uk)
has fares from St Pancras to Béziers via Paris, a 7hr 28min journey, from
£96 return. Or try European Rail (020 7619 1083, www.europeanrail.com).
Holiday Autos (0871 472 5229, www.holidayautos.co.uk)
has car hire for the trip period from £73. Or try Europcar (0870 607 5000, www.europcar.co.uk).
