WONDERFUL BEACHES IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE

ALL WASHED UP at St Pierre. 

The A9 autoroute in South Western France sweeps in a wide arc following the Mediterranean coastline from the Spanish border in the west to Montpelier in the east, and nowhere is it much more than 15 km from the sea. 

 

 This part of the region known as the Languedoc, is located on a huge bay called the Golfe du Lion with an almost never ending stretch of superb soft sandy beaches that are popular with holidaymakers of all kinds. It’s especially attractive to naturists, as all along this coast there are many officially recognised naturist beaches and dedicated naturist holiday and leisure centres.  Easily accessible on foot and also most of them by vehicle there is no scrabbling down over dangerous rocks or walking  miles through forest and field to get to any of these beaches and even on ordinary textile ones there is always some part where we can sunbathe au natural without any problems. 

 

Some are just tiny places, but others have plenty of facilities, like the Cap d’Agde naturist village, set in 200 acres and known internationally as “The Naked City”.  By contrast the vast stretch of open sands which extends for 20 kilometres from Marseillan plage to Sete is just beach with the occasional ice cream seller by the roadside, where you can park anywhere along the way to enjoy a quiet swim in the warm Mediterranean and lay out in the sun to dry off. 

 

With so much choice its difficult to say which is the best place for a day out , but our favourite one of all must be the naturist beach of St Pierre.  Although it’s probably the furthest away from the autoroute and you have to drive across a small mountain range called le Clape to get there,  it’s still only about 25K and in any case the road is good and there are spectacular views en route right over to the sea in the distance. 

 

The naturist  beach at St Pierre lies just in front of what in wintertime is a large shallow inland lake.   All along this unique coastline, separating the sea from the land are a number of these inland lakes called Etangs.  Some are small and shallow, others are huge and up to three or four metres deep, but they all serve the same purpose. 

 

They are an essential part of a vast ecosystem which formed itself naturally millions of years ago, in which filtered sea water turns into fresh water and has been carefully maintained and looked after by the local inhabitants  for many thousands of years.

 Although some of these lakes are quite small, others are big enough to support a proper port and other commercial interests, like the cultivation of shellfish, inland fishing and water based leisure facilities. Irrespective of size, they are all an important part of a natural biological system and are a haven for rare plant and bird life, small amphibians and other freshwater and sea creatures. 

 

Some of these lakes remain full all year round, but others like the one at St Pierre, holds water only during the winter and in summertime reverts back to hard flat sand which vehicles can safely drive over .

 

Two major rivers, the Aude and the Herault flow into the sea here ,with only about 40 kilometres between them and after an exceptionally wet winter one or another of them ( or sometimes both) will flood, sending a massive amount of river debris including huge logs and sometimes even whole trees out into the ocean. Eventually most of it is washed up by the tide on some beach or another then mostly washed back out again with the next one, but not always.

 

 At St Pierre the beach is so deep that a really high tide will wash big chunks of tree trunk high up on the sands, too far to be taken back by any ordinary tide where they may remain for many years to be bleached and twisted by the wind and sun into strange shapes and colours like mysterious creatures from another world. At the back of this long deep beach are soft sand dunes covered in wild grass and behind them a small stream runs from the main river some distanceaway.  Apart from the odd few naturist visitors it remains pretty much undisturbed , rather like a kind of nature reserve with a sweet aroma of flowers and herbs mixing in with the fresh sea air.  Pretty butterflies flit from flower to flower, the insects buzz in unison and gulls and terns screech out loud as they dive into the water to catch the small fish swimming in the stream.

 

This wild beach is a really wonderful place, providing  a very natural environment that is perfect for naturism. The incredible animalistic like debris would make ideal props for a science fiction film perhaps, or in our case for the unusual photo shoot which I have used to illustrate this article. 

 

 

m.g.  (c)