Umbrellas in Beziers

Friday

A long weekend away, escaping the endless grey skies, ceaseless rain and flooding. We left home yesterday afternoon, and drove as far as Aumont Aubrac, south of Clermont Ferrand - about 4 1/2 hours driving. The scenery would have been beautiful during the latter part of the drive, if we could have seen it properly through the cloud and rain. The rain had finally stopped by the time we reached our overnight stop, so after dinner in the hotel, we went for a walk around the village.
This morning we had a little less than an hours drive before reaching the spectacular Millau viaduct (shown in my extra). After taking pictures and visiting the visitor centre, we continued on to our chambre d'hote, in the village of Montady, just outside of Beziers. Having dropped our bags of and changed into clothes more suitable for the warmer weather, we set off to explore. We thought we would start with the nearby Fonseranes canal locks, a succession of seven locks on the Canal du Midi, unfortunately we discovered they are currently being worked on, and we couldn't get close. However, we did find a nice restaurant by the canal to have lunch. We found Beziers to be an attractive town, dominated by Saint Nazaire Cathedral, up on a hill, affording great views over the town. We first caught sight of a couple of these pedestrian areas covered by umbrellas from the tower of the cathedral, and as we walked around the town discovered several more. We then walked down to the lower part of the town by the River Orb and walked across the aqueduct which carries the Canal du Midi across the river, then along the river for a stretch, returning to the town across the old many spanned stone bridge. We felt we had covered most of the highlights of the town by about 6pm, so we enjoyed a drink in one of the squares, enjoying the evening sunshine, and appreciating what a difference 24 hours and a 7 1/2 hour drive can bring! We enjoyed a good dinner in town before returning to our comfortable room at our chambre d'hote. The other extra is a view of the town from the river, showing the cathedral and the stone bridge.