Destinations

Montpellier is not a seaside city: it is a city toward the sea. Start on Place de la Comédie — “the egg”, locals say — between the Opéra Comédie, the Gaumont and the terraces. Behind it, the Écusson: medieval lanes, one of Europe’s oldest medical schools, the shade of pale-stone façades.

Climb to the Peyrou for the triumphal arch, the water tower and the aqueduct. Drop down toward Antigone, Ricardo Bofill’s district, then take tram 3 or 4 if the beaches are the goal. Allow 35 to 45 minutes to Palavas or Carnon.

On the ground

• Place de la Comédie and the Three Graces fountain
• Musée Fabre — one of the South’s great museums (Courbet, Bazille, Soulages)
• Peyrou promenade at sunset
• Jardin des Plantes, France’s oldest botanical garden (1593)
• Halles Castellane or Laissac for lunch

The Thau lagoon stretches about 19 km. It is not a lake: it is a salt lagoon, linked to the sea by the graus of Sète and Marseillan. Oysters grow here (Bouzigues) and mussels too. Rheumatic joints are treated at Balaruc-les-Bains, France’s busiest spa town by visitor numbers. Some mornings, flamingos appear.

The villages — Bouzigues, Loupian, Mèze, Marseillan, Balaruc — line the northern shore. Lunch almost with your feet in the water, a jug of Picpoul de Pinet, a dozen oysters. In Balaruc, the FLAMINGO ART studio turns the lagoon into paintings: the souvenir that will not melt in the cool box.

A one-day circuit

• Morning: stroll and spa at Balaruc, or kayak
• Midday: tasting in Bouzigues (a cabin, not a beach restaurant)
• Afternoon: Marseillan and Noilly Prat, or Mèze and its harbour
• End of day: FLAMINGO ART studio or sunset on the lagoon

FLAMINGO ART shop

Béziers looks out over the plain from its hill. Saint-Nazaire cathedral dominates the Orb. Below, the nine Fonseranes locks — Unesco — drop the Canal du Midi like a water staircase. Pierre-Paul Riquet, a local son, built here the most spectacular stretch of his line.

Walk the Allées Paul Riquet, cross the Pont Vieux, push on to the canal bridge. In August the feria fills the town. Fifteen minutes away: the beaches of Valras and Sérignan.

• Fonseranes locks, on foot along the pounds
• Saint-Nazaire cathedral and the view
• Orb canal bridge
• Valras-Plage late afternoon

Jean Balladur designed La Grande-Motte in the 1960s: white pyramids, harbour, pines. What was controversial became an icon. You walk it for the architecture as much as for the beach.

Westward, Palavas stretches its jetty and lighthouse. Carnon holds the back lagoons. Maguelone, a cathedral-island, is reached on foot or by bike, away from the blocks.

• Architectural stroll in La Grande-Motte
• Palavas jetty and lighthouse
• Maguelone cathedral, there and back on foot
• Lido cycle path, Carnon–Palavas