Two French fishing ports

In the past two days we've visited two different fishing ports, one big and one small. The big one was Séte, known as the Venice of Languedoc because of its many canals. It's a city of maybe 50,000 people at the eastern end of the Canal du Midi, and the largest fishing port in Southern France.  These boats are used for the traditional sport of canal jousting. It wasn't happening while we were here though.

All along the main canal are multi-storey buildings dating from a century or two back. It's a vibrant city with lots of places to eat and shop.  These tea towels caught my eye. They are cotton with lovely French designs and I selected quite a few to bring home with me.

This little bateau also caught my eye. There were a few traditional boats tied up along the canal but this one with its name Linette was one I wanted a photo of. This is for you, Linette McElroy.


Today we visited a much smaller fishing village. This one is Gruissan, a few streets of old buildings clustered around the base of a ruined castle.

It's close to Narbonne, only about a 20 minlute drive through the countryside to the êtang de Gruissan. The étangs are the salt marshes that dot this area. And there are a lot of them. In fact Séte is also on a big étang.







This is the Gruissan étang.








When we got to Gruissan we were reminded that today is yet another French holiday. It's WW II victory day and it was being celebrated in Gruissan with a parade led by some very old fellows with medals and a big marching band. This was followed by many of the residents and their families. We felt privileged to be a part of this celebration.



Gruissan was a pleasant surprise in that it had lots of nice restaurants, cafés and stores. After walking around and exploring the main square, the patisserie (yummy pain au chocolat) and the cemetery up on this hill, we settled on a restaurant called Il Tavolo for lunch. Run by an Italian fellow it featured delicious pizza and an amazing Capresi salad. We ended up adding the salad ingredients to the pizza for a most delicious lunch.

Then we visited a lovely store selling olives and olive oils and tapenades. The young man behind the counter told us that his family has been operating this store for more than 40 years.  Tonight we're enjoying some of the most fresh and delicious green olives I've ever tasted.

Here are two final photos from Gruissan. It occurs to me that I didn't get any photos of the fishing fleet from either of these spots. But never mind--we found some lovely spots and enjoyed both our days.