Étang de Thau in Southern France

1 February 2019 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Bon appétit Reading Time:  7 minutes

Barrou Neighbourhood and the Étang de Thau with its Oster farms seen from Sète © Christian Ferrer/cc-by-sa-3.0

Barrou Neighbourhood and the Étang de Thau with its Oster farms seen from Sète © Christian Ferrer/cc-by-sa-3.0

Étang de Thau or Bassin de Thau is the largest of a string of lagoons (étangs) that stretch along the French coast from the Rhône River to the foothills of the Pyrenees and the border to Spain in the Languedoc-Roussillon. Although it has a high salinity, it is considered the second largest lake in France. Located between the towns of Sète and Marseillan in the Hérault département, the Étang de Thau is shared administratively by the communes of (running clockwise): Balaruc-le-Vieux, Balaruc-les-Bains, Frontignan, Sète, Marseillan, Mèze, Loupian and Bouzigues. The Bassin de Thau provides a habitat for a variety of wild animals, notably birds such as herons and pink flamingos and a rich marine fauna, including bivalves (oysters and mussels), jellyfish, fish, and algae. Periodically in the spring and summer, the Thau Lagoon has algae blooms of Alexandrium catenella which sometimes reach such high levels that it results in contamination of the lagoon’s bivalves with algae toxins.   read more…

On the Canal du Midi from Toulouse to the Mediterranean

14 May 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  10 minutes

Carcasonne © Pinpin

Carcasonne © Pinpin

The Canal du Midi (Occitan: Canal de las Doas Mars, meaning canal of the two seas) is a 240 km (150 mi) long canal in Southern France (French: le Midi). The canal connects the Garonne River to the Étang de Thau on the Mediterranean and along with the Canal de Garonne forms the Canal des Deux Mers joining the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. The canal runs from the city of Toulouse down to the Mediterranean port of Sète—which was founded to serve as the eastern terminus of the canal. The Canal du Midi was built by Pierre-Paul Riquet.   read more…

Sète, Little Venice of Languedoc

12 May 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

The Maréchal de Lattre de Tassigny Embankment and the Canal of La Peyrade from the Louis Pasteur Embankment © Christian Ferrer/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Maréchal de Lattre de Tassigny Embankment and the Canal of La Peyrade from the Louis Pasteur Embankment
© Christian Ferrer/cc-by-sa-3.0

Sète, known as Cette until 1928, is a commune in the Hérault department in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in southern France. Its inhabitants are called Sétois. Known as the Venice of Languedoc and the singular island (in Paul Valéry’s words), it is a port and a seaside resort on the Mediterranean with its own very strong cultural identity, traditions, cuisine and dialect. It is also the hometown of artists like Paul Valéry, Jean Vilar, Georges Brassens, Gregory Del Piero, Hervé Di Rosa, Manitas de Plata, and Robert Combas.   read more…

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