Mareis Walkabout: Southern France 2021

Finally vaccinated, we were able to travel without further restrictions to Leucate, France (near Perpignan in the Occitane area/ Langedoc-Roussilon). With a stopover in Dijon we drove the 1126 km comfortably in 2 days to France and left the cloudy weather in Germany to exchange it with nice 20-24 degrees Celsius and sunshine. Though there was a lot of wind and the beach where our apartment was located turned out to be a secret hotspot for kite surfing… the smaller beach ‚Leucate Plage‘ was mostly protected from the wind and provided perfect conditions to spend the whole day lying in the sunshine.

Chambres d‘hôtes à la mer

Kitesurfer at La Franqui

La Franqui

Walk from La Franqui to Leucate Plage

Our lovely host Delphine however had many recommendations what to see and visit and we had already made some plans ahead of the trip.

In order to get to Leucate Plage Delphine suggested to walk over the cliffs with an excellent view. The walk took about 1 1/2 hours and was enjoyable but difficult with so much luggage we are used to bring to the beach: air loungers, blanket, drinks, food, towels, air mattress, books and so on.. but the photos we made were really nice. Even next to the cliff was a little vineyard - like almost everywhere in the region.

The other times we went to the beach we took the car though…

Leucate Plage

The first city we wanted to visit was Narbonne with its Roman history and a beautiful cathedral. Delphine told us to drive via Peryiac-de-mer and Bages and look out for flamingos. It was really windy at Peryiac-de-mer but already from the car we saw flamingos in the old salt production area where they used to retrieve the famous fleur-de-sel in the past. The lagoon has lots of shallow water where flamingos have optimal conditions.

Flamingos between Peyriac-de-Mer and Bages

Bages is a really nice village where we also saw flamingos along with windsurfers… the only disadvantage of visiting France after the main season is that most restaurants and cafes are closed in villages, only in cities everything is still open.

Bages

So in order to eat something we had to continue to drive to Narbonne. The cathedral can be seen from far away and was built 1272-1332 so very young compared to the general foundation of the first settlement around 700 before christ. The name Narbonne came then 27 b.c. for one of the most beautiful cities with many inhabitants along with Lyon in Gaul.

Narbonne

One of the proofs for Narbonnes ancient Roman history is the Horreum, basically the Roman refrigerator for everything that was sold on the local market. Impressive to visit, knowing how long this basement already exists.

Also visible is the Via Domitia in the center of the area in front of the cathedral, built between 122 and 118 b.c. which went through the whole city.

Here is Leucate with its Spanish influenced restaurants: Tapas including the usual Gambas al ajillo or patatas bravas and also the Camembert au Four with walnuts and honey and mussels.

Dinner options at Leucate - influenced by Spain

The other trip - a few beach days later - we went to a medieval city called Carcassonne, or to be exact, we only visited the La Cité, the largest fortress in Europe.

Carcassonne

Since we met a Swiss woman who recommended to visit Gruissan as they built many houses on stilts at the beach and she said it was worth visiting we went there after Carcassonne hoping to spend two hours at the beach. However the wind was too strong there, so we just took a short walk and breathed in the - which I thought - American atmosphere.

Gruissan

Another beach day in between and we booked the Salvador Dali Museum in Figueres, Spain for Sunday, where we wanted to travel via Girona almost to Barcelona to visit a colleague and friend: Chiara.