Escale à Sète

To the lovely town of Sète today, for the tall ship festival that happens every two years. We decided to make it a proper trip and stay overnight. As I browsed AirBnB for potential places, S glanced over my shoulder and said, "Book that one!" So I did -- a room in a lovely little chalet on the Pointe Courte, overlooking the lagoon. Owner Isa is an artist who makes driftwood sculptures, mostly of birds. We arrived early, about ten a.m. but she was happy to let us park the car and leave our luggage.

After a walk into town along the canal and a quick first look at the moored ships, we made a lunch date at a bar in Les Halles, Halles et Manger (say it fast in a French accent). This was a bit of a marathon; it's a tiny place and like everywhere else in Sète this week, it was full to capacity. There's only room for one person in the kitchen and the flow of orders for food and drink was controlled by only one of the three other staff being allowed to take them, in strict order of arrival of the clients. So it was over half an hour before we even saw a menu. But the cheery Maitre d' must have noted twitchiness among those of us sitting at the bar because as he whizzed by he filled all our glasses with Picpoul de Pinet to keep us quiet.

A simple lunch thus took two hours ... afterwards we walked up and down the quais looking at the boats and the various activities that were happening. It was overcast and I quickly decided not to rely solely on photos of boats and actually took a bunch of portraits ... very unusual for me! You can see the small collection so far here ... I took over 200 photos and even after deleting the many duds I have lots left to process. Other potential blips were this one and this one.

When we were tired, we walked back to Isa's for a wander round the Pointe Courte, followed by a little rest and then had dinner out at Quai 17, a very nice restaurant ten minutes' walk away. Sète is such a delightful town, and it was truly a privilege to stay on the Pointe Courte. More tomorrow ... I still have a whole day's photos to go through!