This was published 7 years ago
Why it's time to visit the other French Riviera
Languedoc offers the very best of Mediterranean France – without the quelle horreur prices.
By Paul Byrnes
Julius Caesar launched his Gallic Wars from my cellar. Well, he could have. Most of the cellars in the oldest part of Narbonne in southern France were built by the Romans. They established their first colony outside Italy here in 118BC.
Caesar came as governor 60 years later and set about beating the unruly French tribes into submission with his new Tenth Legion (Legio X). Most of them died for him; to those who survived, he gave lands around Narbonne on which to retire. Roughly 21 centuries later, I arrived.
The colourful scene along the Mediterranean seafront at Collioure, near the Spanish border.Credit: Alamy
Our plan was to escape the Australian winter and spend half of each year in France. In November, we would fly south like the ducks, back to Australia. The Endless Summer Plan. Winter would be strictly controlled, like in Camelot: "The climate must be perfect all the year." And it is.
Languedoc hugs the Mediterranean coast from west of Marseilles to the Spanish border and rejoices in 300 days of sunshine a year. This whole stretch of coast is a series of inlets and lakes – étangs in French. Narbonne has protection from storms. A large limestone outcrop called La Clape rises between the town and sea. At the time of Julius Caesar's reign it was an island, but 2000 years of silt have filled in the gap. I can now ride my bicycle across the small strait where triremes once rowed. La Clape produces some of Languedoc's best wines, allowing me a new favourite joke: "I'm just out to get a case of La Clape," I say, laughing hysterically.
Once derided as inferior, Languedoc’s wines now attract glowing reviews.Credit: Alamy
In some respects, Languedoc is one of the best-kept secrets of France. It's less famous, less pretentious and less expensive than Provence, its neighbour to the north, but with the same signature aromatics of grapes, olives and rosemary. There are fewer English writers and a richer history. Between the 12th and 14th centuries, the Catholic Church did its best to exterminate the gentle Cathars, who believed in equality of the sexes and in not paying tithes to Rome. Persecution HQ was the archbishop's palace in Narbonne. It's a story so terrible and brutal that it is hard to read without a large glass of Languedoc rosé – as good as any from Provence.
Languedoc is the largest wine-growing region in France, but the French still regard its product as inferior, which it once was. They don't quite appreciate that it is now the area with the greatest wine innovation and new investment in France. But keep it to yourself: we like the low prices.
The super rich prefer the Côte d'Azur, and it has to be said the coves and beaches around Cannes are delightful – if you like crowds, vulgar yachts and diamond-encrusted flip-flops. Languedoc's beaches are longer and broader and the towns that border them are nearly all post-World War II "resorts" built for the French working man and his family, courtesy of Charles de Gaulle, who wanted his people to holiday at home.
Some might say these towns are architecturally uninspired, but that's harsh. They have their charms. Most have cute waterfront boulevards full of cheap seafood restaurants and bars, with perhaps a pirate village on the outskirts for les enfants.
Narbonne Plage, 10 kilometres from us, fills up in July and August with families from the north. They want sun, sand, seafood and cheap wine. Some also want to doff their togs: this coast has a lot of naturist camps.
The two little-known jewels of Languedoc-Roussillon (the area along the Spanish border) are Sète and Collioure, both of which can be reached by train from Narbonne. Collioure has a longer history than Narbonne and an amazing heritage in 20th-century art. Sète has big fishermen who joust in boats – men with big mussels, one might say.
Collioure was a Phoenician trading port from about 600BC and remains the most picturesque coastal village in Languedoc, with a stunning small harbour and lovely beaches. Spain is 20 kilometres to the south, so it is both Catalan and French. Until the 1970s, it smelled of oil paint and anchovies: the fishermen caught the anchovies and their wives processed them by hand in small factories. They were the best in the world, but they fished them out and now there are only two factories left, processing anchovies from Argentina.
The painters came just after 1900. Henri Matisse and André Derain liked the light, the harbour, the colourful Catalan fishing boats. They set up easels and invented fauvism, trading canvases for food and wine at Le Café des Templiers – which is still there, its walls covered in beautiful art.
Sète is 150 kilometres north, a bustling and pretty town with a series of canals lined with picturesque 18th- and 19th-century buildings. This is the biggest fishing port on the French Mediterranean coast; no better place to eat seafood. Sètoise cuisine mixes French, Italian and North African influences, courtesy of its long maritime history. Choose from one of 50 restaurants along the quays and tuck into renowned Bouzigues oysters followed by tielle – a spicy octopus pie – then perhaps some moules farcies (mussels stuffed with pork and beef). Most of the best seafood comes from the Bassin de Thau, a large inlet north of the town teeming with Mediterranean species.
Space does not permit me to talk about Languedoc's fabulous interior: the castles, the mountains, the great wines of Corbières. Oops, shouldn't have said that. Forget about the wines.
Paul Byrnes travelled to Languedoc at his own expense.