I visited Beziers, a small city near the Spanish border in the South of France on a “Four weekends for £400” challenge. I was expecting the usual décor and flash that I’ve almost always been exposed to when visiting the land of escargot and frogs’ legs. I was pleasantly surprised.
Beziers isn’t polished or flashy like Chamonix or glitzy like Paris but raw and real with dirt, sweat and porn shops. The architecture is truly ‘French’ with Juliet balconies around every corner and colonial influences from eye-level to the roof-tops. The locals are not fluent in English like the majority of tourist traps dotted along the French coast and wine really does run through the gutters of this small city in the South of France.
Although the city itself is beautiful, it’s hard to stay away from the coast when the sun’s beating down at 25c at the beginning of November. A 15 minute drive to the coast and you’ll reach the famous nudist community of Cap d’Agde where banks, shops and restaurants all revel in the freedom of nudity. The beach at Cap d’Agde is a beautifully rugged cove with Jurassic cliffs that interrupt the hazy horizon. The shells that have turned the beach black are something I would usually turn my nose up at, here however, it only adds to the enchanting atmosphere of this small part of France: it’s honest, it’s unrefined and it’s absolutely, unexplainably elegant.
Walking along the Canal du Midi on outskirts of the city centre, also known as the Canal of Two Seas, in the Autumn sun gave a refreshing change to what can be presumed to be a busy hustle-bustle of children and bicycles in the summer. I got to the canal just as the sky was turning angry. It seemed as though Autumn had hit within the past hour; the trees were turning skeletal and a carpet of leaves was slowly getting thicker under foot. The quiet turn of autumn is a real charm for Beziers with it’s quiet, yet seductive landscape it begs to drag you back, on your knees and crying for more to see it flourish at every season’s arrival.
A short drive to the old part of the city and to the castle that dominates the Beziers skyline rewards you with a view across a burnt-orange landscape to the Pyraneese and Alps in the distance. This was the point where I fell completely and utterly, head-over-heels in love with this quaint city that veers far from the beaten track of tourists. Walking through narrow, high, maze-like alleyways where the sun invades and interrupts the quiet stillness to the castle captured my imagination of long-ago times of washing hanging, billowing out of windows and women chatting in the streets. There was a real feel of history in these winding, cobbled back-streets, a feel so intense that it threatened to suffocate you and whirl you back to 1943. Bombs, ration cards – the works.