Driving each other......for forty two years now

 

 The French have gone home after their holidays. There remains one week before schools start and students are moving to the cities and their university studies. And quite a few youngsters are on the roads to get their driving licences.

Down here Pignan way, the beaches are still active as there are still a few 'types' including people in early retirement and those not able/willing to afford a longer holiday have perhaps just a week of vacances. Accommodation prices are rapidly dropping.

 

 

For us, we have remained in quasi middle territory this last week. Driving Miss Daisy inland to the quite spectacular and remote village set into the cliffs of St Guilhem le Desert for an afternoon. This was a tight driving and a challenging parking opportunity. The nearby 'beach' along the Gorges of the Herault river was packed during the late afternoon we were there.
 

We also enjoyed our 42^nd wedding anniversity with a seafood lunch at one of our favourite places here, the bayside village and port of Meze. Complete with a cateraman sail on the bay of Thau.

 

A day in Montpellier city - is a city, is a city and we also took the short drive to the major fishing port of Sete which is celebrating for the 271^st time, the Festival of St Louis. The highlight of this festival is jousting from old fishing boats in much the same way as the medieval jousting on horseback as we anglos know it. We have also spent time around the pretty port of Marseillan (a spot on the canal de Midi) and some beach time as well. And earlier in the week we re-visited Pezenas, an artistic oriented and well preserved, if now a bit too touristy, old town. So we are still essentially tourists here.

So what do we make of this summer life here as we try and mix tourist activities with day to day living in places we already like or find along the way?

 

This could be Randall on his Med Cruise-but it is not