May 2022

While it seems we’ll be stuck in Toulouse for another year, the only thing left to do is keeping on exploring the region of Occitanie. Even if the amount of places easily reachable within two hours start growing thinner. This time our Robbie went back to Hérault, though instead of following the coast like we did last year, drove deeper in the inland. We both felt a strong need to be away from Toulouse where we were living with my friend’s family who left Ukraine because of war. Driving together in our own capsule was one of the few places where we could be just two of us.

Pézenas was the first stop on our itinerary. Last year (or was it in another life?) per our tradition of reading to each other out loud, we discovered – and rediscovered, Molière, a famous French poet who didn’t loose his relevance even after crossing the centuries of literary fame. Xavier and I both loved it. Molière spent many years in this town and his artistic self is said to be originated from here. Thus, walking its streets was particularly moving for us both.

I’m sure that I have already and not once said it on the blog, but I hate comparisons like “French Maldives”, “Northern Venice” and so forth. But I guess finding resemblance points is a part of our brain work, because it was impossible not to think about Cappadocia and its… err… elongated geological formations. Cirque de Mourèze is another amazing spot of France that I had never heard before actually coming there, and such surprises is something that will never cease to amaze me about France.

Years go by but our obsession for the most beautiful villages of France doesn’t. Especially living in Occitanie avoiding them is impossible, as the south of the country contains the large majority of these villages. This time we could cross two of them out of the list (and we even pushed further to actually buying a book with the whole list of les plus beaux village – if you have ever collected anything in your life, you can understand our joy)!

For the night we stopped just as always – in the middle of nowhere, but this nowhere was definitely the most beautiful one of this whole trip. As if we were in the sea made out of grass. Putting our camping table and dining with this view was a moment to remember on our deathbed.

Bouzigues shouldn’t have been in this article. Its place is in our last year itinerary Hitting the Road to Sète, when we came to enjoy the seaside part of Hérault. Somehow, we didn’t take enough pictures of that wonderful oyster paradise, so I’m going to make it up to Bouzigues here.