Looking flying to Beziers in summer and renting a house to stay in. Stayed in Pezanas a fews years back which was good, but looking for somewhere different. Enjoyed going into the hills to river beaches last time so keen for something similar. Any ideas STW massive??

I stayed in serignan and its alright, nothing special but the local food was decent it’s not the most
Picturesque part of France tbh and beziers was ok but again not great. The raffinerie is a good restaurant in Bez.

Nissan lez Ensurune is alright, the village centre is nice and there are mtb trails on your doorstep if you are taking bikes, good location but a bit charmless out of the village centre..

Vias is nice and a lot cheaper than other resorts .

Roquebrun is a nice little village with a river beach.

roquebrun

Hah, we used to go on holidays near there when I was a kid 🙂

+1 for Nissan Lez Enserune.

thanks. Was looking at Roquebrun. Have you been Donald? worth staying in? Lots of nice accommodation there, but is there much else there apart from the river?

Yes we stayed there for a couple of nights. It’s a nice wee village in pleasant scenery but there wouldn’t be much else to do. It’s quite rural round there.

Have a look on here, we have stayed in some excellent places from this site in the Loire and Burgandy

Alasdair Sawdays

Enjoyed going into the hills to river beaches last time so keen for something similar.

+1 for Roquebrun, its nice round there, on the Orb valley.

if its not too far, I’d recommend visiting le Pont du Diable, great swimming and nice river beach, also worth taking a look around Saint Guilhem-le-desert while you’re there.

lac du salagou, if you haven’t been, fairly popular but a lot of watersport stuff there

vineyards to buy from:

domain de brescou
cabrieres
st pons de mauchiens

avoid moliere in pezenas – overpriced pish.

brescou are particularly excellent.

and take a bike, the cycling is bloody great in the hills north of beziers

Carcassonne?

jambalaya. That site looks good. Lots of very nice looking places on there.

monkfinger. went to Pont du Diable and Saint Guilhem-le-desert last time. Liked it a lot. trying to find somewhere we can stay for a couple of weeks. Have little kids with us so not after nightlife!! Just somewhere good to chill and go to rivers, some days at the beach and easy to get to small towns for days out. Do you think Roquebrun would be a bit limiting for two weeks?

Roquebrun is nice, but everything between there and Beziers is flatish vineyards, so you’d end up driving a fair bit.

The Orb valley just north is lovely – it’s the south side of the Caroux massif where there are some nice granite gorges (Gorges d’Heric is an easy walk and has some good river spots) and there’s canoe hire on the Orb itself, but the kids might need to be a bit bigger. http://www.ot-caroux.fr/en/

TBH there isn’t a huge amount round there that isn’t wine or hills. Lots of picturesque villages, not too far from the beach I suppose (although you’d have to go pretty much through Beziers to get there). Depends what kind of days out you do.

robw, two weeks in roquebrun itself would be pushing it, as tim says you’ll need to drive.

when we took our five month old he wasn’t old enough to worry about what we did, so we ended up doing some local coastal villages (meze, bouzique, marseillan, most places on the etang du thau have good fish restaurants, marseillan plage which is a bit quieter than adge) and some hills and then just lazing around in the local village & surroundings, drinking the local co-ops finest table plonk and eating bread and cheese.

thanks for all the advice. I think we went up to the Gorges d’heric too. Found a good site for places to swim in rivers / lakes (http://www.creme-de-languedoc.com/Languedoc/beaches/river-lake-swimming.php) and a few of them are familiar. Think we may be better going a bot further south but somewhere we can easily drive into the mountains from.

Not really near Beziers, but around Quillan in the Aude is nice – not too high up in the mountains, but hilly and interesting with lots of things to visit – caves, castles and I think there’s even a dinosaur museum somewhere nearby. About and hour and a half to the coast though.

@robw when I was a student (early 80’s 🙁 ) we used to go to Cucugnan in the hills behind Perignan, we liked it for the rural feel, swimming in the rivers etc. From what I understand there are a few villas with pools around there now, its quiet a way from the beech though.

A few years ago spent a week in a tiny village called Palairac in the Aude. Super-remote and quiet, it was an event if a vehicle passed through the place.

Road biking was great but offroad was not so good as there were no trail maps so we just made it up as we went along. Had a good time though 🙂

Up the vallée de l’Orb is beautiful, but for the small kids there can be a bit too much current and it would be more suited to wine tourism (top tips: Canet Valette in Cessenon and domaine Rambert in Berlou for St Chinian)

As far as Beziers is concerned, it is a miserable place with miserable people, a FN mayor and voted in four FN county councillors just the other week. Have a gander at the neuf écluses and then go somewhere that appreciates foreign money being spent.

Lac de Salagou is not a bad plan. The east and south sides are close to the autoroute and you can be in Montpellier in 45 minutes or Millau in an hour.The water is fairly shallow for quite a way out, although it can be a bit murky sometimes, but you get the added bonus of possibly seeing a Canadair scooping up water if there’s a forest fire nearby.

If you’re after s big place, a friend of mine has one in that area, Languedoc Rousillon.
6 bed, 22m pool and so pretty swanky by all accounts.