Monday, February 22, 2010

Par la mer chez Sete

Up early Sunday morning to catch the 0900 train to Sete for the day I arrived at the station to buy my ticket around 0830 and for the first time ever I used the machines where you buy your ticket with out the help of an agent even forgot to change the language to English and managed to get my tickets to Sete and return. Caught an earlier TGV and was in Sete before 0900. Took this short video clip to give you an idea of how fast the TGV moves but on this short run I doubt if they got it up to full speed.



It was cool windy and gray in Sete when I arrived with the sun peaking out every so often. It is about a thirty minute walk from the train station to the sea shore side of Sete on my way I passed by two men harvesting mussels, you have to look closely to see the second man he is in the water in a wet suit.

Harvesting Mussels.

The beach at Sete is perfect sand with lots of seashells and goes for kilometers in the distance, you can see another town a long way off and high snow covered mountains a long way behind the town. Unfortunately not possible to capture on my little camera. This photo is looking back at Sete.

Sete

After I had eaten my picnic lunch down by the sea two men arrived and started doing Kite Surfing at least that's what I called it for lack of a better name, it sure looked like fun. They have trapeze type bars that the hold onto to maneuver the kite but it is also fastened to them by a harness so they don't loose it, I assume there is some sort of emergence release too. They put on quite a show and really looked like they were having a great time.

Looks like Fun - Sete

I just happened to be ready with my flip camcorder at the right moment to get this little clip when one of them came really close in to shore.



Bernie looking just a bit scared that I might leave his by the sea. Don't leave me I'm scared of the water.

Don't leave me I'm scared of the water.

On my way back to the train station I took this photo of the lovely harbour on the Etang side of Sete very much calmer on this side and wouldn't you know it the sun came out and it was beautiful when it was time to leave.

Sete

Though you might like to see Beziers at night this is a photo of the Theater looking down the Allees Paul Riquet . There are a few more night photos and some more pictures of Sete on my flickr site you can get there by clicking on any of these photos.

Besiers at night

Well this is my last few days in Beziers making plans, along with Pru , to move on at the end of the week to start Le Voie du Puy. We have been advised not to start from Le Puy even though you can't see any snow on the live Le Puy web-cam reports are that the trails are snow covered an impassable. Right now it looks like we will start at Conques which is at the 207.5 kilometer point out of Le Puy en Velay, of the 740 kilometer GR65 trail to Saint-Jean-Pied-De-Port, but what is more important is that Conques is down off the L'Aubrac high plateau and hopefully snow free. There are areas on the high plateau which reach 1300 meters and Conques is at 280 meters. My plans are to walk to Saint -Jean-Pies-De-Port and then go back in April to walk from Le Puy to Conques when the snow will hopefully be just a bad memory.

Ultrea !!! Buen Camino !!! Bon Chemin !!