Agde

14-19 December

Agde is one of the oldest cities in France, founded by the Phoenicians in 540 B.C. Many of the buildings are constructed of the volcanic rock from nearby Mont St. Loup. A Romanesque Cathedral dating from the 12 century has walls 2 – 3 metres thick, a veritable fortified church as are many in this region and dating from that era.

The strategically important Canal du Midi runs through Agde on its route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. The only round lock on the Canal is in Agde. Built from volcanic rock in 1676, it was something of a technical wonder of its age since it deals with three different levels of water allowing barges to exit for Toulouse to the north, the city of Agde and the Mediterranean a few kilometres to the south and via the river l’Heriault to the south and east toward Montpellier.

Cap d’Agde (Cape Adge in English) is a few kilometres to the south on the Mediterranean. Essentially a resort town it was largely deserted during our December visit. But here we at last found sunshine and warm weather – for one blissful day 17 C. in the shade and 28 C. in the sun, a wonderful combination for cycling or walking. Unfortunately, it then turned windy, rainy and cold – with one night of strong winds and a series of gales passing overhead with torrential downpours that Roger would associate with the south Pacific, or even the north Atlantic in winter.



Cap d’Agde boasts a series of 3 pleasure craft harbours. Here are a few of the thousands of boats with the cape in the background.








There are kilometres of beautiful sandy beaches; we had to imagine them covered with people in the summer, from the thousands of closed-up apartments we saw in December.


There was a wonderful sailboat race on Sunday, with the finish line in the harbour. With the wind from the northwest, and thus offshore, at 15 – 20 knots it was an excellent starboard reach in flat water along the coast, and an exhilarating port reach into the harbour and the finish line.


There is an amazing service area able to accommodate at least 250 boats on the hard at any time, two large travel lifts, one of which can haul catamarans up to 55 feet. A lot of the labour force in the yard is Polish, there are many brokers – Dufour, Beneteau, Jenneau and others – although the one chandlery we visited was somewhat limited.





There are a couple of Super Maramu’s moored here. Uve and Maria, eat your hearts out. But also check the name on one of them. Actually, the name is a good reminder to everyone.









All but one of the 5 nights we were here, we spent in a free parking area for motor homes; no services other than garbage and a sanitary dump for waste water – but the price and location were ideal. While in the summer it probably accommodates 100 motor homes we never had more than 3 neighbours. We did spend one night in a 3-star campground that Marie-Claire described as “dégelasse” – disgusting. So far, in our limited experience, we have found the private campgrounds disappointing and over-priced. A French couple explained that there are lots of Germans coming to the south of France and the owners want to “rip them off”.

Even though they might put on a better face when fully operational in the summer the unheated toilet and shower buildings with no exterior doors and lukewarm water when you are lucky, no toilet seats and even the “balance in a squat toilet-less” toilets certainly don’t merit a price of 20 Euros.

We’ll have to do a separate piece on the sanitary facilities complete with pictures so that you will all know how spoiled we are in North America.