Booked flights to Beziers but where then?

[ILOVEALLCAKES]

Because of having to collect teen DD from a non family holiday, we have booked flights to Beziers in the south of France. When we travel, we enjoy a mix of sight seeing, relaxing at the beach, outdoor adventure and really good food. Undecided whether to head towards southern Spain or stay in France. No return flights booked yet! Would love to hear about your holidays in that region.

I've stayed with a friend in holiday home in Carcasonne- we flew into Beziers and hired a car. Beautiful region I remember hiring bikes and doing a gorgeous bike ride with vineyards on either side. Went to St Marie La Mer for the day which is a seaside resort very wealthy with a harbour with yachts etc. we also had a night out in Montpellier. Visited some nice castles, it's very rural and you would need a car to get around. You do ideally need to speak French in this region though as I noticed locals mainly do not speak English.

There was a guardian piece on Sète a few weeks ago, it sounded lovely.

What time of year and will you hire a car?

Canal du Midi... its lovely...and Carcassone

Mid August 🥵 and we are very open to the idea of hiring a car.

Thank you for the great advice

We spent a lot of time in the area but a few years ago, so with that caveat... If you drive east (towards Montpellier, Nimes and Avignon) you are in the Camargue. You should visit all of those Roman cities, Arles and St Remy en Provence for their van Gogh/Impressionist connections and more Roman stuff. There's some limestone caverns (Les Carrieres) which stage son et lumieres shows, for a day when it's too hot outside, and a huge fortress nearby in the Alpilles, plus Uzes for the Haribo factory (and the Pont du Gard). Aigues-Mortes is a walled Crusader city with extensive ramparts and utterly charming but busy. The Canal du Rhone a Sete runs parallel with the coast, which has some lovely beaches, resorts, and lots of campsites. Again it's all busy in August, and it can be extremely hot: 45C is not uncommon.

Due south of Beziers, you have the Etang de Thau and Marseillan, which is a delightful small port and harbour, and lots of pretty villages, plus the City of Sete which has canals running through it and is a must-do if you like fish. Frontignon is a centre for the local wine shippers.

Going west, sticking close-ish to the Canal du Midi route, there's Agde and Cap d'Agde (massive funfair), Narbonne and (I am told) a very pleasant resort that begins with C. You probably won't manage all of this in a week, and food wise, I'd suggest you consult a more up to date source than me. HTH and enjoy it: it's one of my favourite areas of the world. We planned to retire there once...

Apologies for the crossing out; I tried to edit to remove it.

Lots of great suggestions upthread, including the Canal du Midi.

In particular, I can recommend the 9 locks at Fonseranes. Fun to watch the boats going up and down, amazing bits of historic canal architecture, etc. https://www.canal-du-midi.com/en/explore/along-the-waters/beziers-thau-lagoon/fonseranes-beziers/

Les Carrieres des Baux is the quarries, and the fortress nearby is Les Baux en Provence.

Narbonne, Fontfroide Abbey, La Franqui plage ...

Thank you everyone for your fantastic suggestions. I’m off to do my homework.

It's also Cathar country ...

Carcassonne..a cacophony of braying middle class Brits wearing pastel cords.

That was my impression but I'd just had 2 weeks in Portugal barely hearing another British accent so it was a sensory overload.

Carcassonne is a bit of a bunfight inside the old city, but the newer city is quite civilised. My lasting regret is the poster I did NOT buy in Carcassonne.

We hired a penichette boat and explored the Camargue region on the rivers. Beautiful scenery and lovely old towns. We had bikes on board.

Carcassonne, Sete, cap d'ag are all lovely. Béziers itself is very nice too. Serignan Plage is a nice beach resort not too far away. Lovely part of France.

I use to go to vias plage camping as a child.

From bezier you could hop about. Look at vias plage and canal du midi.

Also look further north at the Ardeche as well as further south into northern Spain at Pyrenees and Lestartit

where would be a good base if we wanted to travel round by train?

Beziers really, if you want to go in every direction. It's not a city I liked much but I saw it a long time ago. Even in 1977 it had huge social issues and I believe it still has them. To be fair, most of Provence and the Languedoc has attracted too many North African migrants.