The South of France / Regions
Languedoc
The biggest vineyard on earth, an inland sea and a canal you can walk for days — the South, unbuttoned.
From the canals of Sète to the ramparts of the Cathar country, a land of oyster beds, plane-shaded waterways and vineyards that run to the horizon.
The Grand Report · Hérault Canals, joustes and the lagoon of Thau on the doorstep. The island of the singers Brassens and Valéry, where oysters come up by the dozen.
Riquet’s seventeenth-century waterway under a green tunnel of planes — the towpath is flat the whole way.
Tasting cabins on the lagoon, where the Bouzigues oyster is opened a few metres from where it grew.
Fifty-two towers and a double rampart — the largest walled city in Europe, restored by Viollet-le-Duc.
Where Matisse and Derain invented Fauvism — anchovies, a Templar castle and a sea of pure pigment.
Garrigue, schist and altitude — the appellations giving the Languedoc its serious reds.
Molière’s town, its petits pâtés and antiquaires, and the most theatrical Saturday in the Hérault.