Two loops from Gruissan

April 4, 2022

Conditions are definitely improving. The sun is out, the sky is clear, the winds have abated, and it’s starting to warm up again. Still, it’s only 38 when we first check the the temps this morning so there’s no rush to head out the door. We take our time over the minimalist breakfast on offer (a croissant, toast, OJ, coffee), and at ten I go out myself for the short walk up to the ruined castle that crowns the small hill that rises above the lagoon to enjoy the 360 degree vista. It’s surprisingly wam and calm as I climb the south-facing stairs, but when I walk around to the windy, shaded north side I’m quickly chilled and don’t linger for long.

The view from the top is impressive in all directions, but the lighting was best in this one.

Back at the room and thawed out again, I review the loop I’ve mapped out for the day with Rachael. She takes note of the large portion of it on unpaved surfaces, considers the still cool temperature and decides that this would be an excellent day for a hike - so it’s another two adventure day ahead. We’ll start with hers. She stayed around the room until around noon and then left on this hike she and I plotted out together for her:

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It looks like a long walk to me, one that’s outside my own comfort range; but in fact she came in even longer, at 12.5 miles - the longest walk she’s taken since before her feet started bothering her in California two months ago. And they’re doing fine! Really wonderful news.

And she brought back a few photos, mostly of the last few miles when she climbed away from the shore and gained some elevation and views. If all she wanted was the views, she could have saved herself about twelve miles and four hours by just climbing up to the fortress above our room.

Considering that she just shot this with her zoomless phone camera, these must have been in quite close to the shore.

By the time Rachael left for her walk, I had already been gone an hour. I was still just past the outskirts of town though, puttering around along the lagoon and salt pans just south of town. I put in my miles today, but I set some sort of record in doing it - I left the room at eleven, but when I stopped beside the canal to eat my banana and leftover pizza it was nearly three and I’d only covered twenty miles.

Twenty miles in four hours! That’s not much more than walking speed, though of course there was a lot of time spent standing still and looking around, and the irregular road/path surfaces definitely slowed things down. And of course this includes ten or fifteen minutes for lunch so it’s not really as bad as it sounds at first.

Looking across the saltworks back to the marina.

Flamingos, bay, wind turbines, a mountain.

The small ancestral fishing village at the end of a dead-end road a few miles south of Gruissan. It’s not quite dead-end though - on foot or a bike you can work your way through a rough few hundred yards to a second road to the west and make a loop of it.

At the fisherman’s village. A very interesting, colorful spot. If there weren’t so much else to see on today’s loop we could be looking at another half dozen images from here.

Vineyard and ruins, just a mile inland from the fisherman’s village. The entire ride was remarkable for its diversity.

For several miles I followed the Robine Canal to its end, riding a thin filament of road with the canal on one side and the bay on the other.

Fishing nets, I assume. Across the way is the fisherman’s village we saw earlier.

After lunch I realized it was time to step on the gas a bit. Fortunately I was at the canal at the outskirts of Port-la-Nouvelle, with most of the unpaved surface behind me. With still 24 miles to go I made reasonably good time biking back north along the west side of the lagoon and made it back by 5:30, in plenty of time for dinner. It helped that I had the wind at my back now and was back on pavement - mostly.

It’s a good thing Rocky took a walk today. I’m pretty sure her patience would have run out by now.

Peeking through the fence of the African wildlife refuge, Sigean.

The scenery was striking all along the ride, save for a few miles on the shoulder of a highway. If we lived nearby here - say in Narbonne, just a few miles away - we could come down here any time we wanted to.

Such excellent cycling roads. A shame there’s hardly a hill in sight though.

In Peyriac-de-Mer, a village on the west side of the lagoon that’s worth lingering in.

Bages, another attractive lagoon-side village with enough going on that it could make a pleasant overnighter.

Along the Robine Canal, still a few miles from town.

A wine chateau. It’s a remarkable landscape. We’re probably less that two miles from the salt works.

Returning to Gruissan. It’s nice to see the ruined tower from this side, in the sun.

Video sound track: Dindi, by Cyrille Aimee

Dinner was memorable, but not in the best way. It’s Monday, and few places in Gruissan are open today this early in the tourist season. We ate at Plan B, the spot we originally proposed for our lunch date with Rich and Robin. With a fairly limited menu heavy on beef and ‘fish’ (cuttlefish, octopi and the like), we were happy that we ended up meeting with them in Narbonne instead.

And, we were particularly happy to not have them as an audience for the most embarrassing display of restaurant behavior I’ve put on lately. It began when I absent-mindedly poured our water into our wine glasses, leaving our server looking perplexed when she returned to the table with our pichet de vin rouge. I poured our water into the correct glasses and she transferred two fresh wine glasses from the neighboring table, and then she can’t have been more than five steps away on her way back to the kitchen before I somehow knocked the wine bottle over. I caught it, preserving probably 450 of our 500 ml serving, but not before the remaining 50 ml found their way to a chair, the floor, and against the white-painted brick wall. It earned appreciative smiles from the only other couple dining this early (fortunately the place hadn’t filled yet, which it would within another fifteen minutes); but it was fairly mortifying standing around while our server swabbed the deck and wall before leaving us with a smile and a consoling pat on my shoulder.

Let that be a warning if you see us coming, folks. Keep your distance. Anything can happen.

Rachael was elated to find that the limited menu included salmon as the fish of the day.

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Ride stats today: 43 miles, 1,100’; for the tour: 421 miles, 22,300’

Today's ride: 43 miles (69 km)
Total: 421 miles (678 km)

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Keith Adams"Twenty miles in four hours" ... that's my kind of pace!
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2 years ago

marilyn swettYou posted some stunning pictures today! Makes me want to go there myself. I didn't know there were flamingos in France. You mentioned that the restaurants have octopus on their menu. Is it charred? We've found that we both really like it! Who knew?!
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2 years ago

Scott AndersonTo marilyn swettIt’s a really wonderful area. Lots of flat miles and we’ll developed bike infrastructure all along this part of the coast wheat of the Rhône. Flamingos (but a different species than the American flamingo) are common all along these lagoons.
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2 years ago

Scott AndersonTo Keith AdamsI can’t believe I wasted so many years of my life trying to put in longer days.
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2 years ago

Scott AndersonTo marilyn swettOh, the octopus question. I have no idea. Neither of us eats octopus and I don’t took at it closely when others do.
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2 years ago

Keith ClassenLooks like a great place to explore and spend some time. Great photos!
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2 years ago