Béziers (from the train) in the afternoon light
Here are two albums of photos (mostly taken with my phone) from a visit to southern France in September 2024. With two friends, I cycled along the Canal du Midi from Toulouse to the port of Sète on the Mediterranean. In the week before our tour, however, two of us stayed in the city of Béziers and took a train, each day, to visit one of the other cities in the region of Languedoc: Narbonne, Nimes, Montpellier and Toulouse.
1. "Meridional Gothic" is an album focussed on the Southern Gothic style of basilicas from the 13th and later centuries in France. It's a form of Gothic architecture that reflects the political and religious violence that characterised Southern France during the rise of the (Northern) Capetian dynasty and the suppression of the Albigensian heresy by both a bloody "Crusade" promoted by the Pope and by the notorious, Dominican led, Toulouse-based Inquisition.
2. "The Canal du Midi Tour" records our journey along the Canal du Midi bicycle path: 260kms of mostly beautiful country-side and variable track conditions.
As always, I encourage you to download the PDFs from my Google Drive and view them at 'full-screen' on your computer or tablet.
