Ideas for Languedoc-Roussillon please.
We are starting to think about next spring and France. We've toured the west coast and the Dordogne and Alsace on previous trips so we thought 5/6 weeks in the south would help to make up the set.
We're looking for ideas for an itinerary for the area and recommendations for several sites both coastal and inland (in the Parc Natural?). We've seen Carcassonne on a previous trip so that's not an essential part of this one.
Is there possibly an area in the middle of France that we would enjoy spending a day or two on the way down.
Any info will be gratefully received. Thanks
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Yes, and then go on down the big hill after Millau, turn right at the bottom of the A75 and just hop around and explore to see whether you like Languedoc Roussillon. Many people do like it there, although we don't - we much prefer to turn left instead at the bottom of France and cross the Rhone into Provence. But if you don't go and try it you won't know, will you. Good luck.
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I've replied on another forum, but would add that Eurotraveller is right. The Languedoc is not a pretty 'manufactured for tourists' part of France. It's still a very poor area for the most part, it's dusty in summer, often windy, and the villages are not usually pretty stone with window boxes, but three or four floors, with very narrow lanes between and a somewhat umkempt look about them as if they haven't been painted for thirty years (they probably haven't).. That said, it's generally cheaper, friendlier, and less crowded than Provence.
We have a house in the Languedoc now (but I must admit if we'd had ten times as much to spend we might have bought a similar house elsewhere) so we love it, as do my sons, and many of our friends. But other friends who met us there in 2016 to house hunt, after seeing pictures of our house, and the village, and the area, wanted to look for themselves. I think they were expecting a sort of 'Spanish-feel Dordogne' and it's not like that at all, so they were mightily disappointed.
Having said that, some of the villages in our area are having a big tidy up with new street paving, new gutters, new painted flower troughs and benches, new channels for the streams that run alongside the houses, and as a result the residents have started painting their doors and shutters......... and in just a few months it's amazing how much better it's all starting to look.
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Languedoc, great wines, lovely people, not overly crowded, great Roman history, good walking in the hills, lazy 2 hour lunch breaks. Reminds me we must return some time soon.
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The region actually covers five departments in France but I guess most people tend to think of the coastal area around Montpelier etc. Actually the old part of Occitan stretches quite a way North and when we were in the Lot valley this year at Entraygues I was told that some villagers still pronounce the town in the Oc dialect (the Oc language - Lange d'Oc - hence Languedoc).
Anyway, the traditional area is much as described above and has no appeal to us as we, like others, would favour Provence but you may want to go "off-piste" a bit by going West from Millau towards Rodez and North, exploring the Lot valley and surroundings. Attractive with some lovely medieval villages and not as popular as the Dordogne. We will probably be back next year.
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