We have nothing to invest in a walk; it is too slow, too cheap. We crave the astonishing, the exciting, the far away, and do not know the highways of the gods when we see them.
- John Burroughs, Exhilarations of the road (1923)
The scenery is definitely less exciting in this part of France than on the Via Domitia between the Alps and Arles. Flat land means easier walking, physically speaking; but the challenge becomes mental, as anyone will know who has walked the Mesetas in Spain, or the plains of the Po Valley in Italy. Yesterday's twelve-kilometre cycling path is a case in point. So is the towpath along the Canal du Midi, which I could have walked all day today, and will be walking all day tomorrow.
I started the day following the cycling route out of Marseillan Plage, a bit of a ghost town in November: I passed a marina, an amusement park and a campground, all deserted. Then I reached the Canal du Midi and walked along a dirt track beside it, turning off the canal and onto a small road when I reached the outskirts of Agde.
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| The end of the Canal du Midi, where it flows into the Étang de Thau |
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| Looking upstream along the canal |
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| Agde: aerial view (in the tourist office) |
Agde is one of the oldest towns in France, founded in the fifth century BC by Greek colonists from Massilia (Marseille) under the name Agathe Tyche, meaning "good fortune". A fourth-century BC bronze sculpture that had been lost in a shipwreck, the Ephebe of Agde, was found buried in silt in the river Hérault in 1964; it is now displayed in the archaeological museum, which is unfortunately neither in the town centre nor on my route, so I didn't see it.
In ancient times, and up until the eighteenth century, the inlet at the mouth of the river Hérault was the most important trading port in the Occitanian region of the Mediterranean. The port lost its importance when tall sail ships were replaced by motor merchant ships, and the town became primarily an agricultural and wine-growing centre.
Agde is situated on an 800,000 year-old volcano, source of the distinctive black basalt used in buildings such as the cathedral of Saint Stephen, built in the 12th century to replace a 9th-century Carolingian edifice which was in turn built on the foundations of a fifth-century Roman church.
All this black stone gave the town a somewhat gloomy air, on a grey November day. But in one square just around the corner from the cathedral, the atmosphere has been lightened by painting colourful façades and shutters onto what is actually a plain and featureless wall over a parking lot!
Having obtained my stamp from the tourist information office, where I rested on a comfy sofa for a while watching a video about the history of the town, I visited the cathedral and then decided it was too early to have lunch in Agde, where most of the businesses seemed to be closed anyway - I later realised it was Armistice Day, an official holiday. I decided that rather than follow the course of the Canal du Midi for the rest of the day, I would cut across country to the village of Vias and get some lunch there. So I asked Mapy.cz to recommend a pedestrian route through Vias to Portiragnes.
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| Pont St. Joseph |
The route it came up with followed the Canal du Midi for a while, passing by the Écluse Ronde, locks built in a circular shape to allow boats to turn around inside, which I didn't really look at properly or photograph because I was too busy looking at the spooky abandoned building next door! 😅 I passed an old bridge and continued until the bridge on which highway D912 crosses the canal. I went up onto the bridge and walked two kilometres beside the highway into Vias; after the first kilometre, which had a broad grassy verge, it became an urban road with a sidewalk and a low speed limit. In fact, a low speed limit enforced by a traffic light - an excellent idea! If the approaching vehicle is detected to be travelling faster than 50 km/h, the light turns red. No-one gets fined, but the car has to stop, and when it starts up again it will be going slower! Another idea to add to my growing list of good ideas from France, which I started yesterday, with lockers on public beaches. You put your valuables in a locker and take the key swimming with you - it's on a wristband. Two simple, inexpensive ideas, of public utility!
Vias turned out to be the perfect place to stop for lunch. The village had a much more cheerful feel than Agde, despite being largely built out of the same black volcanic stone. There were plenty of cafés and restaurants, with outdoor seating, ranging from burger, pizza and kebab places to fancy seafood restaurants... I chose a wine bar and ordered a couple of tapas with a glass of the local white.
When I got moving again, I decided against walking an extra kilometre to rejoin the Canal du Midi, but followed the main road out of town. Before it got too big to walk on, I turned off onto a dirt track through the vineyards, then a small and little-used paved road appropriately but unimaginatively called Chemin de Portiragnes à Vias. And in fact this road took me all the way into Portiragnes, though not by the most scenic of routes; it passed by a light industrial zone and then a closed campground and caravan park. Soon I was in Portiragnes letting myself into my Airbnb flat, which has a washer/dryer! All my clothes are now clean and sweet-smelling, and none of them appear to have shrunk in the dryer... not even my puffy jacket, or my merino wool socks and T-shirts! As soon as I had enough clean and dry clothes to be able to go out decently covered, I walked about 50 metres to the local Carrefour supermarket, which is open despite the holiday and carries a large selection of ready-made microwaveable meals - another excellent idea worth copying from the French!
Marseillan Plage - Portiragnes 22 km
