Agde

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02 October 2011

We visited the beach at Portiragnes (our arrival at the Med on this trip) and then drove into Agde, a charming fishing town on the river Hérault. Agde’s major buildings are built in black basalt rock from a local quarry and it has an impressive fortified Cathedral built in this stone. It is also well know as the point where the Canal du Midi meets the Mediterranean. We had a lovely lunch in a floating restaurant on the waterside.

Agda is at the western end of a huge inland sea 18k long called the Bassin de Thau. We were particularly interested to see this as we had listened to a book on the drive through France which described a journey a couple had made in a canal longboat from Calais to Carcassonne and they had an exciting journey across the Bassin in bad weather nearly colliding with the many mussel beds in the process. In the afternoon we drove around the Bassin but were disappointed not to get many views of it.

Our stop was at a beautiful vineyard between the towns of Meze and Marseillan on the inland side of the Bassin de Thau.

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