A haircut and Sete

As is becoming a habit we got down to breakfast about 9 then mucked around for a while. Mark went to get a haircut and I had a walk to the Cathedral/fortress (Saint Nazaire) there was a service on so I just stood inside the door for a minute then headed out and down to the back from where there was a great view. I found the entrance to the Cloister and had a wander around, it was obviously very old and beautiful but it was set up for a performance which rather spoilt the effect.
It was  lovely weather so we headed to the beach at Valras-Plage where we parked a bit farther from the beach than necessary. The beach had a wide expanse of fine golden sand and the waters edge was heaving with near naked bodies, towels and beach umbrellas. Both Mark and I swam, the water was a bit cool but soon felt great.
Next we drove to Sete, or at least Mark did, and he found it a pretty frustrating experience with all the Sunday traffic heading along the coast and clogging the beach car parks. However when we got to Sete we found a park easily and wandered along the canals and around the harbour where enormous modern fishing boats were moored. It’s an attractive port town with a few wide, clean canals lined with boats of all sizes and shapes and houses, shops etc along each side.
The town is famous for water jousting and we were lucky enough to watch a joust between two groups of youngsters. Two boats with strange high extended tails are driven at each other, two jousters stand high on the tail with a lance and a shield and try to hit the others shield and knock him in the water. Meanwhile traditional music is played by musicians in the front of the boat.
Back at Beziers now, it’s still hot but I guess we’ll have to go dinner hunting shortly.