It’s a sunny afternoon in Beziers Mont Blanc France. We are parked at a motocross park with an easter event on. We have come for the WiFi and hopefully the Parker fight tonight. Since coming into France on Wednesday we have mainly stayed at farms or vineyards. They are usually free and we generally buy a local product from their shops. We headed to Trebes on Thursday and as we drove into town we passed the Super U that had been the scene of the terrorist attack last week. It was still closed and we had arrived on the day of the funeral of four victims. The small town of Trebes and its 6000 residents descended on the local church for the service, also broadcast on big screens to accommodate the many mourners. We parked at the local olive farm and headed for a quick look around town. It was hard to really see the town without feeling you were intruding on their day of mourning. The police presence was extremely high and a lot of the officers were visibly upset. So we walked the canal and watched the amazing lock working as a canal boat travelled down. We bought an olive pate and a bottle of local rose from the owners of the aire. The next day we headed to Carcassonne, parking up just 5 mins away from the amazing medieval fortress Cite de Carcassonne. The fortified city with its 53 towers and is still mostly intact. We heard it was the biggest fortress in Europe and it relies greatly on tourism, which was clear by the busloads arriving by the minute. After a couple of hours waking both the inside and outside of Cite de Carcassonne, we headed to Beziers and a vineyard. As we pulled up the road all you can see is the town of Beziers up on the hill. Mind-blowing is one way to describe how stunning it looked. Our host greeted us with a map and directions to the famous Canal du Midi a UNESCO site. We headed for town waking the beautiful old bridge Pont Vieux with its stone arches. Heading up to the Cathedrale Saint Nazaire. Panoramic views looking down over the canal and town below. We walked back along the canal and the famous site Des 9 Escluses de Fonseranes, a 9 lock sequence on the canal. It is on a fairly steep incline so a great feat of engineering. Next week we are hoping to go to an oyster farm for a night, and of course sampling the produce. It’s funny how every time you leave a country you miss something of the country you have just left. We miss the cheap fuel and meat in Spain, and believe it or not the good roads that we found in Spain.
Wanderlust Craddocks 