May has been a hectic month. This doesn't sound too
surprising or unusual, until you learn that in France, May is the month of
random holidays. There are a total of four national holidays scattered
throughout the month. Off the top of my head, I couldn't name a single
one of them. So you would think, with four extra days out of the office,
May should be a great month! And it was, but it was also busy.
Stepping back for a moment, I'll explain the two month blogging absence
in two sentences: In March we spent three weeks searching for and
purchasing a car. In April we spent one week preparing for a trip to
America, two weeks in America, and one week recovering from a wonderful, but
exhausting trip. And now, we are back to May!
Two of this month's holidays happened to fall right next to each
other, on a Wednesday and a Thursday. Had I known about this in advance,
I would have planned to take Friday off as well and take advantage of a 5 day
weekend like the rest of the country did, but I didn't know, and instead I had
four days warning of the upcoming time off. So with a sunny, but only
mildly warm forecast ahead, we decided to pack up the doggies and head to the
beach for a couple of days. While there are plenty of beaches nearby that
don't require an overnight stay, we opted to trek a little bit further out of
Montpellier and explore the small port town of Sete, France.
About an hour's drive from the center of Montpellier, Sete is one
of the Mediterranean's largest fishing ports. The entire city is built on
a big hill, with a handful of canals lined with colorful buildings and
restaurants winding through the base to support the active seafood
industry. The city doesn't really house any "must-see"
monuments, museums, etc, but the pull of the town is obvious - beaches,
beaches, beaches. Long stretches of white sand and clear blue waters abound. Add to that some of the freshest seafood in the world,
and I think I'd skip the museums even if they were world famous. We
started our short stay in Sete by heading straight to the beach. Around
April each year, all along the Languedoc coastline, workers can be seen quickly
assembling pop-up restaurants on the beach, many of which are complete with
lounge chairs, cabanas, bars, and even dance floors for when the sun goes down.
We stopped in at a flashy place called Le Dome for a yummy, but certainly
overpriced lunch. I suppose this view just doesn't come cheap.
After lunch we rented chairs at a nearby, much less noisy, pop-up
and enjoyed a couple of relaxing hours in the sun. Even with the clear
skies and the heat of direct sun over head, the water was a bit too cold for
swimming. By 6:00 we had our sweaters back on and were headed back to the
hotel to clean up for dinner. Our hotel was on the outskirts of town,
closer to the beaches, and therefore not walking distance to the heart of the
city with the restaurants, bars, and passing boats. This was a mistake -
there is so much life and movement in Sete; I'd much prefer to be in the center
of it all. Think of it like a very scaled down Venice, with a French
twist. In true European fashion, by the time we had made it to the town
and were browsing dinner menus, the rains set in. So while we did have a
canal view, it was a rainy one. We chowed down on as much seafood as we
could handle - fresh oysters, bouillabaisse, grilled shrimp, and a selection of
fish from the morning's catchings. The canal activity was minimal due to
the weather, but I imagine on a sunny day their would be a constant stream of
boats and fishermen hollering greetings to each other while going about their
day's work. It's an atmosphere that I certainly feel merits a return trip
to Sete.
Another perk of staying in the middle of the city, as opposed to
the outskirts, is that your morning pastry and coffee are only a block away.
Instead, we drove around for 20 minutes looking for our morning java.
Since parking was limited in the city, we decided to evoke the French
method of 5 minute parking. It goes as follows: leave your car where ever
you want in the road that is convenient for you, bonus points if other cars
still have space to get around you. Turn on your flashers so others know
you won't be more than a few minutes, which may or may not turn into half an
hour, depending on who you run into or how talkative the shop owner is, then
hope there isn't a line of cars with upset drivers waiting on you to move your
car when you come back out. And if there is, wave and smile, letting them
you know that you are having a great day and that you appreciate them wasting
20 minutes so you could have a nice chat with an old pal. I'm not
kidding, people do this all the time.
Fortunately for us, traffic was light and the pastry shop quick,
so we were on our way before anyone had a chance to realize we were parked
illegally.
I mentioned earlier that Sete is built on a hill. See, big hill:
As such, one of the best (and only) attractions Sete has to offer
is some stellar views from the peak of their tiny mountain. There are
hiking paths to the top that require about an hours walk, but we took the lazy
route and drove. We blamed the dogs for this - our senior citizen pups
couldn't handle an hour of uphill hiking. The drive is only about 5
minutes, and the parking lot is reasonably large enough. Taking in nearly
360 degrees of the town, bays, canals, mountains, and oceans from the top of
Mont St. Clair is not such a bad start to the day.
We had just under 24 hours in the small city of Sete, which
certainly wasn't enough for me. Sete is a place where you can soak up
some genuine French sea-side culture, without the imposing feel of a tourist
town. As festival season approaches, Sete will play host to a number of
entertaining events, including a sizeable music fest on the beach, and a water
jousting tournament in August, and I feel very hopeful that Sete will make it
on our agenda again before the summer is up.
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