Beziers

  Béziers, Languedoc-Roussillon, France
Thursday, May 29, 2008

The showers at St Christophe were not the best. The water was never quite as hot as we wanted and had a feeble flow. If someone else pulled some water off it got cooler, and the shower head was fixed overhead, which I hate. The cubicle didn't give enough room to swing a cat, or enough hanging space. That was the only complaint really, but quite an important one.

St Nazaire

We set off for Beziers, but as we left the town we found the camping municipal. The sign led us up a road between 2 supermarkets and past a tired looking block of flats to a reasonable and clean camp site. We had our pitch for the night and that made the rest of the day easier.

St Nazaire

St Nazaire

We spent most of the day in Beziers.  The cathedral of St Nazaire was beautiful, and the views in front of it over the countryside below were stunning. I seem to remember reading about hundreds of Cathar heretics being burned at the stake outside the cathedral, but there was no mention of any questionable past inside.

View from St Nazaire cathedral

The park and bird sanctuary

We took a leisurely lunch in the main square and then explored the town. For those shopaholics amongst you, Galleries Lafayette is just a pale shadow of its big sister in Paris.

A Beziers street

The car park was a bit of a joke. Ralph had wanted to use a car park rather than leave the Bongo on the street, because he thought the technology inside would be safer. We parked in the main square as it was one of the few car parks without height restrictions. It was the kind where you take a ticket on entry and pay on exit.

On leaving, I got to the back of the queue to pay. A man at the front was frantically waving his hands at the intercom and we all waited. Eventually he gave up and left in despair. The next bloke paid his money and left with his ticket validated, then the next person had the same problem as the first man. A couple of people in the queue indulged in some hand waving of their own and set off down the nearby stairs. Eventually the person at the ticket machine did the same.

Then it was just one person between me and escape. His ticket was rejected as well and I hastily tried mine. It too was not authorised. I followed him down the stairs to the back of an even longer queue for another machine. Everybody in this queue was being rejected so eventually I followed them to a third queue, which led to a real person. I stood through several minutes of hand waving from my fellow queue-ers, watching to make sure we didn't run into the next time slot, and practicing the French to argue if I was overcharged. When I got there though, he put the ticket in his machine and it came up with a figure half the amount shown on the tariff, so I paid up, smiled meekly, and made my escape.

The camping municipal at Pezenas is quite respectable. The pitches have plenty of space around them and a lot of privacy. The facilities are clean and the shower is adequate. There is no internet connection, but other than that it's
fine. It cost €13.30 including electric.