Today's daytrip was to Sete, a town around 30kms from Montpellier and said to be "The Venice of Languedoc" though that would be an overstatement, yes there are canals but nothing like Venice.
A vantage point was the lookout at the top of Mont Saint-Claire so we set off up the hill which became steeper and steeper until the heart rate was going through the roof! We literally staggered to the lookout at which point the activity meter on the iPhone indicated that we had climbed 50 flights of stairs and our legs certainly were telling us that was close to the truth.
The town sits between the Mediterranean (to the right of Sherry in the photo below) and the Basin de Thau (left in the third photo) which is a salt water lake used primarily for oyster and mussel growing.
It is also a port for some of the cruise ships plying the Mediterranean as well as the local fishing industry - there are restaurants for Africa all along the street at sea level offering fresh fish meals.
Also at the top of Mont Saint-Clair is a rather unique church which consists of two altars in a curved cave like environment well decorated with paintings featuring activities from the area through the ages
At sea level the town was bristling with cars, tourists, shops & restaurants however the bristling fell away slightly around 1pm as a good number of the shops closed for 3 hours during the heat of the day.
The canal which runs alongside of the "downtown" area was quite a busy waterway with both pleasure and tourist boats fairly active (but not when I took the photo it would seem)
By 4 o'clock we were done, Sete was done and we returned to Montpellier arriving when there was heavy traffic downtown which made the last few kilometres a little hair raising especially when you get into the wrong lane and require some kindly Frenchman to let you in - they do seem rather reluctant!
Dinner in the apartment closed off another enjoyable day of our European holiday.
No comments:
Post a Comment