Aigues-Mortes

On Friday, our last day in Montpellier, we took one last trip toward the Mediterranean. This time our goal was a historic town just inside the barrier island, in the middle of the salt marshes. Its name, in fact, means stagnant water. What do you build when the land is totally flat? Apparently, a perfect […]

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 […]

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like…

Noël! The Christmas market opened this weekend and we walked over on Monday evening to check it out. We arrived before dark so we could experience both the daytime and nighttime looks. No surprise – it’s definitely more fun at night. More people, the lights are sparkling, and the vin chaud (warm spiced wine) hits […]

Pézenas

The owner of the apartment we’re renting told us the town of Pézenas was worth a visit, so we drove about an hour to take a look. Arriving around lunch time, we had a mediocre meal at a restaurant chosen at random – I should have done some advance research! Pézenas’s old town is filled […]

Les Gorges de l’Hérault

About a 45-minute drive away, the gorges of Hérault are a national park and a “grand site de France.” As we drove in, it wasn’t very impressive. It’s not super hilly as you approach and once you arrive, the road runs along a river in a small gorge, which I expected would be scenic. Not […]

To The Sea!

We’ve visited three resort towns along the Mediterranean coast so far: Carnon, La Grande-Motte (the big dune) and Le Grau-du-Roi (the king’s inlet). They’re all on the barrier islands, backed by a series of lagoons, that run along the coast all the way to Marseille. It was really windy on Wednesday when we visited Le […]

Le Lac du Salagou

We drove about an hour northwest to a large lake, the Lac du Salagou, for a hike. The day started off quite cloudy and the mistral (a strong, cool, dry wind from the northwest) was blowing. We were glad for all our layers as we started out over the wine-colored dirt. But wait, I’m getting […]

Montpellier

We’re down near the Mediterranean in Montpellier for a month. Our rental is quite the change from an Umbrian hillside. We’re in a residential neighborhood near the historic city center and can walk to everything we need. A good bakery is a mere eight minutes away, the grocery store is 15-20. We still see beautiful […]

Odds and Ends

Somehow I forgot to mention in an earlier post one of the things that makes hiking here so special – herbs! As we hike along the aqueduct, or just walk up the road, wild herbs are everywhere – rosemary, thyme, oregano, bay laurel, … Sometimes they are a little hard to identify; they often have […]

Hill Towns

That picture you have in your head of what an Italian town should look like – old stone buildings with weaving, narrow alleys, sudden bursts of flowers, ancient walls – Umbrian hill towns have it in spades. Even the one valley town we visited looked that way, too; we just didn’t have to huff and […]