We went swimming in the Mediterranean only once in our time in Languedoc during this summer. I wouldn’t be a great beach person at the best of times, truth to tell the notion of sprawling on a hot beach sunbathing for hours on end is about the equivalent, to me, of similar time spent on a dentists chair.

We did make a quick burst down to Serignan Plage (about 20 minutes away) at the begining of July but soon discovered that once the French school holidays began the area by the sea became a no-go area of traffic jams and queues.
The same is not at all true for river swimming which we began to discover this summer.
There are plenty of organised Plages in the Orb river which flows within about a kilometre of our village, and, there are also some unorganised ones which we are starting to discover.

Eileen and Deirdre cavort in the Orb in Cessanon

This bridge in Reals, near Murviel (about 3 kilometres away) goes over a selection of little beaches on the Orb.

Isabel does an Undine on a rock in Reals.

This lovely swimming pool was actually on the river Jaure about 20 klms away.
(The boys caught nothing but a Mink/Martin clambered down from the trees and was more successful)

This is the nearest swimming place to us,also in the Orb
about a kilometre from our house which we only discovered a week
before we came home

This is the Orb as it flows majestically into Beziers
(photographed from the belfry of the cathedral)

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