Day Twenty Four: Sete to Beziers: Goodbye Mediterranean Hello Canal du Midi

April 20, 2017

Our route today. Look for Sete on the right, and the long beach run from that. Then there is the canal du Midi, and our end point for today, Beziers.

Our 99 euro hotel in Sete at least had the advantage of being directly on the bike route out of town. It's not that we were eager to leave, but still it was good not to have to search for the exit.

The exit in this case is a straight shot down the beach. It is another of those situations with sand dunes and sand retaining fences, with periodic access points to the beach. If our hands had not been so freezing it would have seemed a lot more "Mediterranean", but definitely the blue colour and the sandy beach were there.

The Med from Sete. Although the beach ahead is all sand, Sete is hilly and rocky

Set into the beach path, a welcoming mosaic

Palm trees at Sete look tropical, but right now the place is very chilly, and so are we.

It's a straight hot down the beach at Sete

We are getting ready to leave the Med, so nostalgic shot

The end of the line was Marseillan-Plage. Beyond this point we would leave the sea and soon engage with the Canal du Midi. We remembered that the Canal path varied from broad paved veloroute to bumpy earthen one track. Still it was a bit of a shock to leave the beach drive and set out on earth. As a special treat, the Canal people start things off with a nature preserve, featuring salt tolerant plants. So featured are these plants that there is little room for a bikeway. We got the hint from a trailside sign that began "You are walking beside the canal that was built in the 17th century by Pierre-Paul Riquet and is now classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site." Walking? Yeah right.

In fact, for an unloaded mountain bike the path is fine, maybe fun. But for a heavily loaded small wheeled Bike Friday - not so much. Dodie hit tree roots twice that jarred her knee enough to cause extreme pain.

We could not help but reach Agde, of course, because it is only a fw kms down the dirt path. There was a market in progress in Agde, but not so great because it was all clothing. The clothing (plus handbag, iphone case, etc.) stalls extended for several city blocks. It was quite amazing actually, and must reflect the lack of a Walmart type option for cheap clothes.

We found the Saint Etienne cathedral open, though is closed shortly after we left. It was a quite unremarkable place for something begun in 8720, except that it also includes a chapel that was built in the 19th century using the remains of a Roman cloister that existed beside the church.

The other church in town, St. Sever, was closed (we understood) because of the recent death of its priest.

We ate our sandwich at a bench by the Herault River, which gives its name to the region. Then we just grabbed the nearest exit and left town.

This ut us back on the one track, where we understandably made only slow progress. One impediment was cyclists coming the other way. Usually we would stop and let the others pass. But in one case the approaching mountain biker never even slowed, just barged through. We knew there was a family with small kids just behind us, so we yelled at him.

At another point some kind of construction put us on the road, following a detour. This was on an "official" part of the path, known as L'Herault a Velo. Still we faced a stream of oncoming cars, on a very narrow road. We found that generally they did not slow down and did not pull over. We took to waving them over, producing some angry responses. And I took to riding down the middle of the road, to encourage the drivers to slow down before hitting me. In fact, each one preferred to hit me at full speed. We were really glad to reach the end of the detour and regain the canal path.

The last 10 km or so into Beziers was paved bike path, so we again made good progress. We delayed for quite some time to field UQs from a local couple on bikes. They knew a fair bit about St Jacques pilgrimage, making the conversation more interesting for them. They spoke slowly and clearly, making it an excellent French lesson.

At one point I referred to our sleeping bags as "sacs a coucher". The man corrected me to "sacs de couchage". Later Dodie pointed out it was the second time someone had made that correction. "Yeah, well that's how we say it in Quebec!" was my retort. "You're not in Quebec" was the well taken reply. Now, with internet at hand, I am admitting that I must have independently invented this term. It's a fine point, and actually we are not at all down to fine points in general. Still, we can now both walk up to a person and start speaking, without rehearsing and mentally checking to see if we actually know the needed words.

p.s. Try saying "pelerinage" seven times quickly!

Rarely (hopefully) in this blog I will share some memories made when we passed through some of the same itinerary four years ago. In the case of Beziers, the first major town along the Canal du Midi, Dodie was sick. So much so that I got her off her bike, blew up an air mattress I think, and installed her by the trailside. Then I went off looking for help. Just ahead was Gym, appropriately called Canal Gym. I went in and the owner was able to guide me to the nearest hotel. It was over the bridge right there and about a km straight up into the town of Beziers. I collected Dodie and walked her up there, at 1 km/hr. Fortunately, a good night's sleep (as so far always happens) put her right.

So this time we came along the canal, armed with GPS, and looking for the turn to go into town. Aha, it was exactly the bridge by the gym. Dodie had earlier taken care to fall ill at just the right spot.

The start of the devilish Canal du Midi path

The Canal du Midi path near the beginning. We now have a large extravagant Canal du Midi tourism book, showing all towns and services. But they forgot to mention that the path is like this.

The chapel in St Etienne church, Agde, made from a Roman ruin

There are thousands of old plane trees lining the Canal du Midi. Now a disease is forcing their being cut down and replanted.

A worm's eye view of the rotten Canal du Midi path.

Le Boat is a huge boat rental concern. Here at a basin along the Canal, a large number of their large house boats wait for customers. Hey, we could avoid this dirt path and sail to Toulouse, we briefly thought. File that with the earlier impulse to buy a car!

These were some of the oncoming fast moving cars we were dealing with. To be fair, the photo (which you will appreciate was taken with the camera to my face in the middle of the road!) does show the cars quite pulled over.

Dodie returns to the Canal Gym, in better health.

I thought we would repeat our trudge up the hill and land in our "old" hotel. But the now not sick Dodie wanted to find the TI, to get a Creanciale stamp. The GPS lead us around the lower part of the city, which I found shabby and choked with traffic. Then we pushed up into the historic old town and found the TI. The had a nice stamp. We also asked about pilgrim accommodation, and unlike Sete, that denied all knowledge of pilgrims and/or stamps , they circled the pilgrim hostel on a map and volunteered to phone them.

The phone call produced an unexpected kindness. The man in charge of the hostel (Gerard) said he would be at the TI in three minutes to collect us. Gerard then walked us to the centre, gave us an orientation to the place, left us the keys (to put back through the mail slot) and went home.

So here we are in a de facto two bedroom apartment with garage, by ourselves, to enjoy the evening and views out over the city. The donation amount was 30 euros.

With a bakery around the corner and supplies like butter and jam in the fridge, we will be able to have a good start tomorrow!

Gerard leads us to the hostel. The street, in the upper city, looks more packed with cars than shown in the lower city photo. But actually the upper city was relatively peaceful.

Today's ride: 58 km (36 miles)
Total: 1,164 km (723 miles)

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