Riding to Sete

After I dropped the kids at school this morning, I got on my bike to head toward the Mediterranean town of Sete.  I wasn't sure how far it was, so I decided to ride for an hour out before turning around.  In fact, it turned out that Sete was almost exactly an hour away and instead of riding on a dirt road by the railway tracks as I had expected, it was a two lane paved bike path all the way.


Bike path to the hill town of Sete

In my world, it was stunning.  The entire way from Marseillan-Plage (the beach town that shares its name with our home of Marseillan-Ville) to Sete there is uninterrupted beach along the south side.  That's about 20 km of sand.  The bike path itself is bordered by stick fencing to hold the sand back and tall grasses.  Being the end of February, the path is not yet swarmed with beach-goers, though I can see that it will be in a few months.



Sand dunes on the Mediterranean

The best part, however, after 60 minutes of hard peddaling (I was determined to get all the way to Sete in a hour once I realized it was achieveable) was when I turned around and discovered that for a large part of the path, the snow capped Pyrenees are in view. 







 The view from Sete toward Marseillan plage - squint for mountains