We started off down the canal path the next morning, after a
breakfast of coffee, fruit, yogurt, croissants, and homemade jams. The weather became a bit warm, and the wind
in the AM was at our back, but in the PM it shifted until it was in our faces,
but we persevered.
After a bit, we left the trail for the roads as the trail
was in very poor condition, much like just before Carcassonne.
We went up a hill into the old town of Bezier for
lunch. [It is thought by some to be the oldest city in France, with construction by the Greeks dating to the 6th century BC.] It was quite a climb, long, but
not too steep. We found the town square
with a statue of M. Riquet, and several restaurants open. We selected one and had a pleasant lunch,
with beer in order to better hydrate.
Roger had fish, the rest of us bacon cheese burgers, with choice of
cheese. Tom and Gerard had Reblochon, a
soft white cheese, while I stuck with cheddar.
The French version of burgers is usually interesting, but good, with
different condiments or sauces that add a little variety.
 |
| Cathedrale Ste-Nazaire in Beziers |
 |
| Statue of Riquet in Beziers |
13 of the remaining 18 kilometers of the trail were
asphalted, so we made good time even with the afternoon head wind.
[Unfortunately, we then missed a couple of engineering sites
on the canal - one where a cascade of nine locks had to be built to lower barges
25 meters in a length of 350 meters. The
other was a tunnel that had been controversial at the time because it was felt
that it would be too difficult to dig.]
We finished in the old walled town of Vias in a decent small
hotel run by a pleasant gentleman who went out of his way to assist us. We stayed here two nights as Roger wanted to
go to the town of Sete the next day and had not been able to get a hotel there.
 |
| David in front of hotel in Vias |
This area of France is interesting as it is a big summer
vacation spot for the French. Just
outside of Vias is an enormous amusement park called Europark, which is open
only three or four months per year. A
mile or so south, towards the Mediterranean, is the ‘new’ town of Vias-Plage
[plage=beach] with wall-to-wall restaurants, motels, trailer parks, etc, That
evening we headed for Vias-Plage as Roger wanted to have dinner at a beach
restaurant.
 |
| David and Tom at dinner on the beach |
 |
| Beach at Vias-Plage in the evening |
We found one and enjoyed the view while we ate. After dinner, I remembered the lights on my
bike did not work, and headed rapidly back to the hotel before dark. 68km for the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment