Sète

Driving back from Pézenas, we saw a single conical hill rising along the coast and wondered what it was – and if there was good hiking there. It turns out it’s the town of Sète, and the hill is mostly covered with houses, though one small section has been preserved as a forest park. While there wasn’t much off-road hiking to be done, we did a nice loop walk that took about four hours.

Sète has a grid of canals through its downtown and is known as the Venice of Languedoc. The canals are lined with all kinds of boats, from small motorboats to much larger fishing vessels. We saw all the fishing boats and had to wonder: how many fish are left out there in the Med?

Our first stop was the mariners’ cemetery, which climbs up the hill near the sea. All Saints Day chrysanthemums were still on many of the grave sites, looking a little worse for wear. This cemetery looks quite a bit different than the one we visited in Brittany in 2019. Many of the memorial markers have photos on them and ceramic flowers are pretty common. Quite a few of the plots have been enclosed in little buildings. And surprisingly, virtually all the family names sound Italian (or perhaps Spanish?). I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise – there must have been all kinds of people moving along the Mediterranean coast over the centuries.

We ate our picnic lunch (pb&j and carrot sticks) on a bench along the sea, while some French people ate something much more French-looking a short distance away. During our shorter trips to France, back when we were still working, we ate French-looking lunches, too. Baguettes, olives, cured sausage, cheese, …. What’s happened to us? These days, when M suggests yet another trip to the pâtisserie, I often remind him we’re living here, not on vacation. I need to get back in that vacation vibe for some things, obviously. Why are we eating pb&j when we could have a baguette and aged Comté cheese?

After lunch, we headed down the promenade along the coast, again appreciating the way the French do public spaces, then turned inland to go up and over the hill.

Breakwater building and maintenance must be big business here. Multiple breakwaters surround the port, protect the beaches, and, as in the third photo below, are sometimes quite distant from land. We had wondered how large the waves get here in the confines of the Med. The answer is: apparently large enough to cause a lot of trouble.

As we headed into the forest park, we found a newish iPhone lying in the middle of the path. What to do? Take it with us and try to find a police station? Since we had no idea how long a walk that would be, we ended up just leaving it there in hopes that whoever lost it would retrace their steps and find it. Here’s hoping they did – that’s a pricy thing to lose.