March 9, 2025 • 61 mins
Is Béziers really the oldest city in France? In Episode 536: Exploring Béziers, A Hidden Gem in the South of France, host Annie Sargent and guest Elyse Rivin dive into the fascinating history and charm of this underrated destination.
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Béziers sits in the Occitanie region, close to the Mediterranean. It has deep historical roots, from Roman times to the Cathar massacre and the winegrowers' revolt of 1907. Its Cathédrale Saint-Nazaire dominates the skyline, offering breathtaking views. The city’s streets lead to lively markets, including the recently renovated Les Halles de Béziers, where locals gather to enjoy fresh seafood, cheeses, and wines.
Béziers is also famous for the Canal du Midi, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Nine Locks of Fonseranes showcase incredible 17th-century engineering, still in use today. The Old Bridge, the Church of the Madeleine, and the Jean Moulin Museum add layers of history to explore.
Annie and Elyse discuss the city's evolving identity, growing expat community, and efforts to restore its historic center. They also touch on Robert Ménard, Béziers' controversial mayor, and how his policies shape the city.
If you’re looking for a unique stop in the South of France, Béziers deserves a visit. Tune in to this episode for a deep dive into history, culture, and travel tips!
Table of Contents for this Episode
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Annie (00:16):
This is Join Us in France, episode 536, cinq cent trente-six.
Bonjour, I'm Annie Sargent and Join Usin France is the podcast where we take
a conversational journey through thebeauty, culture, and flavors of France.
Today, I bring you a conversationwith Elyse Rivin of Toulouse
Guided Walks about the beautifuland historic city of Béziers.
(00:39):
In this episode, we delve into theintriguing past of Béziers, explore its
cultural significance, and discuss howthis charming city is evolving today.
Whether you're planning a visit, orjust curious about French history and
culture, this episode is packed withfascinating stories and insights.
Join us for a journey through one ofFrance's oldest cities and discover
(01:02):
what makes Béziers a hidden gem.
This podcast is supported by donorsand listeners who buy my tours and
services, including my ItineraryConsult Service, my GPS self-guided
tours of Paris on the VoiceMap app,or take a day trip with me around the
Southwest of France in my electric car.
You can browse all of that at myboutique: joinusinfrance.com/boutique.
(01:25):
And remember, patreon supportersget the podcast ad-free,
and as soon as it's ready.
Click on the link in the shownotes to enjoy this Patreon reward
for as little as $3 per month.
For the magazine part of the podcast,after my chat with Elyse today, I'll
discuss a few of the most importantevents, both sports and cultural, going
(01:46):
on in France in the next few months, afew of them, not all of them, obviously.
That's because I hope you mightbe able to attend some of them.
Bonjour, Elyse.
Elyse (02:05):
Bonjour Annie.
Annie (02:07):
We are going to talk about the city of Béziers today, we were just
there a few days ago, and so we wanted torecord it while it's fresh in our minds.
It's not going to come out for a while,you know, but it was a very nice visit.
It was late in December, on a Monday.
It was cold and still, it was really good.
Elyse (02:31):
It was very nice.
And of course, it was indeed cold,but because Béziers is very close to
the Mediterranean, in the Southwestof France, once the morning fog blew
away, it was a beautiful blue sky.
Annie (02:45):
Right, so we left the house, picked you up at what, 8:30 or something?
And we drove off towards theMediterranean from Toulouse.
We had fog, fog, fog, fog, fog untiljust a little bit before Béziers.
And that's par for the coursein the Southwest of France.
We get a lot of fog in themorning, that's just how it is.
Elyse (03:05):
We do.
And then, of course, all of asudden, you have this blue sky.
It was so nice.
Annie (03:09):
Yes, lovely place.
All right, tell us about Béziersand I'll interject with things that
we did that I found really nice.
Elyse (03:16):
OK.
First of all, Béziers is, I was curiousto look up the numbers because one of
the things we were talking about while wewere there was just about how big it is.
It's hard to judge because it'sa city that's built on hills.
So it's very imposing, you can see itfrom the autoroute, you can see it pretty
much coming in from every direction.
It looks majestic, and it's very, verydramatic looking with a huge cathedral
(03:40):
that you could see from far away.
But it is in fact arelatively medium-sized city.
It has just about 80,000 people.
Annie (03:48):
Oh, that's a good number.
Elyse (03:49):
So, it's a little bit bigger than Albi, but much, much smaller,
for instance, than Nîmes, andMontpellier, which are the two bigger
cities that are really close by.
Annie (03:58):
Right.
And of late, I've heard of severalexpats settling in or near Béziers.
It's become a place that attracts a lotof people because real estate prices are
not super high, considering that it'svery close to the beach and has temperate,
pretty good weather most of the year.
Elyse (04:18):
Most of the year.
Annie (04:21):
So that's just something I wanted to throw in there.
I actually know a few expats who'vemoved there from other parts of France.
Elyse (04:27):
Yes.
One of the reasons being that it is stilla city that doesn't have as expensive
real estate as, for instance, Montpellieror Nîmes or some of the other places.
And that is a little bit part of itsrecent history, its 20th century history,
which we'll talk about in a minute.
But it's also true that it isvery, very close to the sea.
It's 20 kilometers from the water.
(04:48):
So, obviously, it's not that easyif you don't have a car, but there
are, I'm sure there are buses andother forms of transPaulation.
Just to give people an idea, ifyou've never been to Béziers, it's
seven and a half hours by car fromParis, or four hours and 10 minutes
by train on the bullet train, whichis the big line that goes right to
Montpellier and then down, you know,so it's relatively good transPaulation.
(05:12):
From Montpellier, it's very close, it's40 minutes by car, 25 minutes by train.
And from Toulouse, it's, what?
In the paper it says 2:15, Iguess that was about right.
Two hours, I would say it took usabout two hours to get there, you know.
Annie (05:26):
It was foggy, so I didn't drive, you know, as fast as you
would if it, well, wasn't foggy.
Yeah.
Elyse (05:34):
By train it's also really quite easy to get to, it's just an hour
and a half from Toulouse by train.
So it's not that far.
But it is indeed very,very close to the sea.
It's considered to beMediterranean climate.
The vegetation is mostly Mediterranean.
And, which it kind of amused me,because I hadn't realized that, and
I have to confess that having visitedalmost everything in the area around
(05:56):
there, this is the very first timethat I'd actually been to the center
of Béziers, when I was there with you.
I don't know why, butit just happened to be.
And I thought it was very amusing thatas we come in, there are these big, big,
big billboard panels that say, "Béziers,the oldest city in France." You know?
So this is now one oftheir selling points.
I'm not sure, it's interestingfrom a historical point of
(06:19):
view, I'm not sure how much of aselling point it is, to be honest.
You know?
Really, you know?
But I was like curious about itbecause, you know, though in my mind,
aside from all of the cities thatwere built basically under the Romans,
which of course includes Toulouse andLyon, and even eventually Paris, in my
(06:39):
mind, of course, the oldest, oldest,oldest, of course, was Marseille
because it was started by the Greeks.
So it turns out that in the last,what, I don't know exactly why,
I guess because archaeologistsalways have to find something to
do, you know, and a place to dig.
And I think because there has been alot of work done in the last 30, 35
(06:59):
years in the old city center of Béziersto build new things, like that huge,
very fancy mall that we saw that'scalled Antigone, that's very well known.
In the digging, as oftenhappens, they discover things.
That's of course how they discovereda lot of things here in Toulouse.
And it turns out that it became veryimportant as discovery, and they brought
(07:22):
in a lot of archaeologists becausethey found, and this is really in the
old part, so very close to where wewere walking around and had lunch,
there's a kind of a, an undergroundruin of what was basically a Greek city.
They were surprised, actually.
I think that the historians andthe archaeologists were surprised.
There probably wassomething written about it.
(07:43):
The Romans were good atwriting down everything.
But it turns out that it really datesfrom just about the same time as the
Greek establishments of colonies andthe trading centers, at the coast
along the Mediterranean in Marseille.
And they found enough evidencethat apparently Béziers was
a huge center of ceramics.
And, you know, one of thethings they do with things like
(08:05):
archaeology is to get an idea.
I don't know if you can carbondate ceramics, if there's nothing
organic on them, but they testby comparing styles, you know?
If the style here is the same as thestyle there, if they use the same kind
of stuff on it, then it means thatthere's obviously been contact and
it's more or less contemporaneous.
So it turns out that Béziers can goin and do a battle with Marseille,
(08:29):
claiming to be the oldest city in France.
Annie (08:32):
Hmm.
Yeah, I'm not certain, but theyare cleaning it up very nicely.
Elyse (08:36):
Yes.
Well, they actually have to.
And of course, one of the reasons why isbecause, starting with its most recent
history, instead of working from thevery, very back end going up, Béziers
is a city, and it's really typical ofa lot of the cities in the southwest
of France, not necessarily in Provence.
Provence is a little bit different,I'm not sure exactly why.
(08:58):
But a lot of things changed and a lotof these areas around Nîmes, around
Béziers, and around Montpellier,sociologically changed enormously
because of the war with Algeria.
And, what happened was, ofcourse, after the war was over
and Algeria got its independence.
(09:19):
I'm not sure whether touse a passive form or not.
Did it gain its independence or was given?
I'm not sure.
What happened was, of course, there wasa huge influx of people known as Pieds
Noir, which, of course, you know allabout because that's part of your family.
And those were the people
were basically European, but who had beenliving for several generations in Algeria.
(09:39):
But there was also a huge influx intothis particular area around Béziers and
Montpellier and Nîmes, of Algerians.
And that was because of the fact thatthis is the largest wine-growing area
of France, and a huge agricultural area.
And because a lot of people whowere originally from Algeria came
(10:01):
over, bought land, and developedeven more of the vineyards.
So it became an area that hada huge immigration population.
Annie (10:08):
Right.
Elyse (10:10):
And immigration population means lots of changes sociologically, lots of
changes in what the cities look like.
And eventually, going from the 1960sup into now, into the 2020s, the
poor population coming in lives inthe poorer neighborhoods, obviously.
And then what happens is, once thosestart getting gentrified, there's a
(10:31):
need to find other ways of housing them.
And so Béziers is a city that basicallyhas gone through a flux of up and
down, where it was basically not ingreat shape after World War II, and its
economic status was not that dynamic.
But the influx of the populationcreated a huge dynamism connected to
(10:51):
the wine industry, but then it createdproblems with having so many immigrants.
And so now what's happening is they aregentrifying the city center, and they're
trying to create a better environmentbecause a lot of the old, old buildings,
and that was one of the things I knowwe talked about as we walked around, you
can still see are not in great shape.
They're very old, they're verybeautiful, but I guess it takes a lot
(11:12):
of money to sort of gentrify and fixup the whole old city center, you know?
Annie (11:16):
Yeah, I think they'll get there.
What we saw that was pretty impressiveis that they've developed a walking
path between the Canal du Midi,because it ends... Well, you know,
it's... it comes through Béziers.
And there's nine locks in arow, which is one of the things
(11:36):
that we recommend you go see.
All the way from there to the oldbridge and going through the city.
And they've developed this voiedouce, so it's a walking path and
you can go obviously with bicyclesor whatever, but no motors.
And it's a lovely walk, andin the parts where it's steep,
(11:58):
they've put in elevators.
Unfortunately, one of them was not workingand I was not about to go down 200 steps
to... So, we got back in the car becauseI knew coming back up was going to
be... Well, it hurts my knees both ways.
Hopefully, this elevator problem willget sorted out and it's a very nice
(12:19):
voie douce, it's a very pleasant walk,and I think thats one of the reasons
why it's attracting more visitors andmore new residents as well, because it's
improving its quality of life today.
The city of Béziers has, of course, a bigchunk of the Canal du Midi and it also
(12:43):
has a very beautiful bridge called theOld Bridge, which is very original as a
title, but it is actually very beautiful,and that is down, and it's across a river
called the Orb, O-R-B, which that andthe Aude, A-U-D-E, which of course is the
name of the department, are the two riversthat basically run through and circulate
around Béziers, and that is where, thatall meets up with the Canal du Midi.
(13:06):
So there's a lot of waterway down below.
One of the things about Béziersis that it is indeed steep.
It's hills.
So when you go to visit, for instance, theoldest parts of it, they are up on top.
That is the cathedral and the walkway,which is the huge Allée Jean Jaurès,
and the market, the covered marketthat we went to that was great.
(13:29):
Yeah.
So, like every Frenchtown, it has a Les Halles.
You can always search for Les Hallesin any town where you are visiting.
We usually have one in the,you know, bigger towns.
And they've renovated them very, verynicely and it's reopened, I think it
was mid-November 2024 they reopened.
(13:50):
And what they did that I think isvery, very smart is that they left
space for tables and for people to sit.
And so people, even on a Monday atlate December, between Christmas
and New Year, you had peopleenjoying some food, oysters, some
wine, we had couscous and a tagine.
There's a couscous tagine kind oftype of place, which it was very good.
(14:13):
You can enjoy sandwiches,I mean, all sorts of food.
And there were people having lunchat Les Halles, which I think is
brilliant because most places inFrance, it's a place where you go
buy food and you get out to cook it.
This, you can do that, there's someplaces where you can buy, you know,
the cheese, the fish, the normal thingsthat you find at Les Halles, but they
(14:35):
also have food vendors and it's morelike a, kind of a food court of thing.
And the prices were not superexpensive, I think we paid 16 or 17
euros for our lunch, but it was great.
It was lovely.
Elyse (14:49):
Yes, it was very nice.
To our great surprise actually,because on the outside, on the
doorways, it says it's closed onMondays, but because it's the holiday
and because it was so, what was it?
The day before New Year's Eve,they kept the food court part open.
There were quite a few people inside andit was really quite lovely and very, very
varied in the foods that you could have.
(15:11):
So obviously, you could either eatin or take out, and it was very nice.
And it was also interesting becausewe did, you know, neither of us really
knew Béziers, so we were kind ofwandering a little bit in terms of
trying to figure out where the thingswere that we were trying to go see.
And it turns out that it was very closeto a church called the Church of the
Madeleine, which it is a special church,and we couldn't get in, unfortunately.
(15:34):
That was closed.
It was locked up.
A very, very, very old church.
Parts of the stone on the church goesback to the 1100s and it turns out that
this church, not the cathedral, much tomy surprise, is the church associated with
the terrible massacre that happened tothe Cathar, which is part of the, one of
(15:56):
the most important episodes in the verylong history of the city of Béziers, huh?
Annie (16:03):
Right.
So, we did two episodes about the Cathars.
Once was kind of the story of thecrusade against the Albiginien?
Albiginois,
but I don't know howto say that in English.
Elyse (16:17):
The Cathar from Albi.
Yeah, but you'd to reallysay, you know, I think.
Annie (16:21):
So, the crusade against the Cathars, I guess.
So we did one episode about that, and theother episode was about Cathar kind of
beliefs and why they stood out so much.
And I'll link them in theshow notes for this episode.
But really, there's a lot to understandabout the area, and this church is you
know, it's a very plain looking churchfrom the outside, but this is where a
(16:41):
lot of the population sought refuge.
Not just Cathars, because apparentlythey didn't have that many Cathars in
the town, maybe 500 people out of a,you know, few thousand inhabitants.
The king's army were not allthat particular about who they
slaughtered and so they killed alot of Catholics as well as Cathars.
(17:02):
And this is the church where there's thisfamous saying, go ahead and explain that.
Elyse (17:07):
Well, try to imagine we're back 800 years.
This is the year 1209, and the rulerof this area happens to be the same
man as who is the ruler of Carcassonneand Albi, and that is a viscount named
Trencavel, that's the family name.
This is the dynasty of the Trencavels.
And it turns out that he's one ofthese really good guys, you know?
(17:28):
There aren't that many inhistory that stand out.
This young, tolerant, allowedvarious different religions and
different groups of people all livedtogether in Béziers and Carcassonne.
And when the French armies came toattack to try and get rid of this group,
the Cathar, this dissident Christiangroup, they surrounded Béziers, and
you can see now what that meant, youknow, when you go there and you see how
(17:51):
everything's up on these steep hills.
And of course at the time, I'm sureit was a lot smaller, and so he had
everybody come inside the rampartsof the city, and then eventually a
lot of people hid inside this church.
And the story is, and I looked up the wordto make sure I was spelling it correctly
and pronouncing it correctly, apocryphal,a story that's apocryphal, which means
we don't know, it's no way of verifyingif it's absolutely true, but it certainly
(18:14):
has come down through the centuries, thatthis huge army is about to attack Béziers.
And one of the leaders of thearmy turns to the man who is the
papal representative, who is ofcourse the man in charge of trying
to get rid of all of these badnew Christians called the Cathar.
And the leader of the army says to him,you know, "How do we know who is Cathar?
(18:36):
Because basically everybody looks thesame." And his answer is: " Kill them all.
God will know."
And this has come down throughthe centuries as being associated
with the massacre of the people inthis church in Béziers that began
this very terrible long war, thefighting to get rid of the Cathar.
(18:57):
So, it is a major event actuallyin the history, and to my surprise,
it was interesting to see that we,I think, Annie, you took a picture
of it, I think you put it in thecollage, the video collage you did.
There's a plaque on the ground that talksabout that event in the year 1209 right
in front of the Church of the Madeleine.
So it's part of the, it's reallypart of the old history of the city.
(19:21):
It's a city that's had its moments.
Annie (19:24):
It's important to note as well that while this was a religious
upheaval in many ways, it was alsopolitical as are most religious fights.
The King of France wanted to takeover the Southwest, and it suited
him to come invade, essentially.
And the king wanted to get rid of thispesky minority religion that attracted
(19:51):
a lot of people, and so they joined upand they were pretty much unstoppable.
Elyse (19:57):
And of course, one of... Historically, one of the problems and
one of the reasons why they did manage toeventually win and take over this whole
region, which is a major enormous area,the whole Longue d'Crussion, is because
the Viscount de Trencavel, who triedto create a big army to fight against
them, he went to his cousin, the Countof Toulouse, and he went to his other
(20:20):
cousin who was the Count of Barcelona,who was also the King of Aragon.
These were all related, they were allrelated by marriage, and everything
anyway, and asked them to join him infighting against the French army, and the
French papal army, and they both said no.
And so he was left with whateversoldiers and we could imagine, these are
(20:40):
knights, 800 years ago, and people thathe had, and it was simply not enough
to fight against this enormous army.
So, you're absolutely right, it was verymuch a political thing, and it was also
a very much a divide and conquer thing.
And it is a very big partof the mythological and real
history of the city of Béziers.
But other than that, therewere lots of things to see, and
(21:02):
part of that was connected, ofcourse, to the Canal du Midi.
As you mentioned, we walked, wehad to kind of go back down by car
because we really couldn't deal withgoing down and coming up on these
zillions of steps, unfortunately.
But this old bridge, which is quitebeautiful, from which you have this
view of the city with the cathedral.
Now, the cathedral is all the way up ontop, and it really is quite spectacular.
(21:28):
And luckily for us, we were about to leavebecause we thought we couldn't get in.
Right.
Annie (21:33):
Right.
We had... We couldn't find the entrance.
Elyse (21:35):
We couldn't find the entrance.
This is very strange.
I mean, I think it's, for somereason, it was just this little side
door that was open and the big maindoors were closed, and we were kind
of like, "Oh, what a shame," becauseit's also a beautiful neighborhood.
It's one of the nicest parts up above,very beautiful, chic little restaurants
and shops and very nice apartments.
And it's right next to the Bishop'sPalace, which was turned into
(21:58):
a courthouse, and which has nowbeen abandoned by the courts
because it's going to be turnedinto the big museum of Béziers.
Annie (22:07):
Right.
So, that's not done yet, but I think it'sgoing to be very nice, once they do that.
And this big plaza on top aroundthe cathedral has a gorgeous statue
of Trencavel, that is of coursethe hero, a hero in this area.
And it also has a statue ofJoan of Arc, not with a sword
(22:28):
and a halo, but on the pyre.
Elyse (22:31):
I didn't even realize that.
That was when you wentover there to see it.
Okay.
Yes.
Yeah.
Annie (22:35):
Yes.
Yes.
And she's right outside of where you...The side door where you enter the church,
and it's interesting because usually, Imean, Joan of Arc is usually represented
on a horse with a sword and a halo.
And in this case I saw onelike that in a church in Nice
as well, where she is tied up.
(22:55):
She's wearing very simple robesand there's wood under her feet.
So, you know, they'regoing to light the pyre.
Yeah.
So, it's a very interesting, beautiful...And that one is outside the church....
so I recommend you check it out.
It's very nice.
Elyse (23:10):
The whole area, the Esplanade, the Place de la Révolution, which is right
next to the cathedral, that whole areaup on top is just absolutely gorgeous.
And there is a view that is fabulousthat it... You see in every single
direction, I could make out the blue ofthe water, but you could see the Corbières
mountains, you could see the Pyrenees,you could see the vineyards down below.
(23:32):
There's this gorgeous point ofview from up there before you
actually go inside the cathedral.
Annie (23:37):
Yeah, and as far as, kind of, practical matters, if you
are coming by car then you canpark at Les Halles, for instance.
They have two underground parkinglots, Les Halles Un, Les Halles Deux.
Neither one has electric chargers asfar as I can tell, which is silly,
because if I had been able to plug inwhile we were visiting, we wouldn't
(24:00):
have had to stop on the way home.
But such is life.
They will eventuallyget chargers everywhere.
I'm positive.
But so we parked up there and then wemoved the car to go down below to the
old bridge and to the... the locks.
Elyse (24:14):
And, one of the other things we went past and actually walked into is the
old mayor's office, which it turns out...Do you remember when I said to you there's
a plaque and it talks about the fire?
And I was wondering what that wasbecause it was relatively past?
Well... So the building that themayor's office is in is a Renaissance
building, which of course hasbeen somewhat modernized, but it's
(24:35):
basically a building from the 1500s.
And it's a very beautiful façade onthe outside, and right in the center
there, very close to Les Halles.
And we walked in and there's this verynice courtyard there with... And then,
there's this list which is, it rather...I found it very impressive or imposing.
I don't know how many people realizethat in France during World War I, you
(24:57):
know, a third of the men were killed.
And there isn't a village and a town inFrance that doesn't have a monument to
the dead, specifically about World War I.
And inside the entrance courtyardof the mayor's office in Béziers,
there wasn't one plaque, there wereseven major plaques on the wall.
The number of people who were listed, itwas really kind of overwhelming to see.
(25:20):
And then, as we were walking out, therewas another little plaque on the side
that talked about a fire, and therewere a list of about maybe 11 or 12
names that were all obviously peoplewho were firemen and things like that.
And it turns out that, that particularevent, which was at the very beginning
of the 20th century, was connected tothis other major event in the history
(25:44):
of Béziers, which was this incredibleinsurrection revolt of the winemakers of
the region, the whole southwest regionof Languedoc-Roussillon in the year 1907.
And one of the things that had happenedwas that at the very beginning of
this turbulent time, a couple ofthe buildings that were connected to
(26:05):
the winemakers had been set on fire.
Some of these people died intrying to save buildings in
the old city center of Béziers.
And so that was a plaque forthem on top of everything else.
Because it doesn't explain what it's for.
I mean, it just gives these people,you know... Béziers is still, aside
from what other economic activitiesit has, it's still one of the
(26:26):
major centers in the middle of thisvast wine-growing region, yeah?
And for many, many years, for maybe acouple of centuries, ever since the,
basically the end of the 1600s, themajority of the wine produced in France
was from the Languedoc-Roussillon area.
I mean, Bordeaux is a smaller area,and it was mostly wines that were
more expensive that were beingshipped to the English because they
(26:49):
controlled most of the Bordeaux area.
And we're not talking about Champagne,which is a little bit different anyway.
But the biggest part of normal tablewine production and the wine that
everybody used on as a regular basis wasaround, the whole region around Béziers.
And so it became known asthe capital of winemaking.
(27:09):
Yeah.
And this is part of what happened whenthere was this huge political problem
that developed into an insurrection,and then it culminated in these
events that took place in 1907.
Annie (27:20):
Right.
Right.
And I'll let you tell us about that ina second, but I have some hystory in the
area because I spent many many summersnear Valras-Plage with my parents.
Probably it started when I was sevenor something, and all the way to 15 or
14 or something, so several summers.
(27:40):
And we would spend the whole summer there.
What happened is my parents bought apiece of land that used to be a vineyard.
So, they were pulling out the grapeproduction stuff because they couldn't
make any money at it anymore.
So this was probably, if I was five,six, seven, it was the early '70s, okay?
(28:04):
They had sold this piece of land.
My mother was always on thelookout for things to buy.
She was a good investor.
And she had bought this piece of landalmost sight unseen, and then first thing
we did is we started pulling out all thegrapevines, which my dad just rented a
kind of a tool for a few days to do that.
Then we piled them up andsomebody came and got them.
(28:25):
There's a whole story to this.
And then he set up this area with a drytoilet, we had trailers, we had a little
place where we could store his tools,and camping beds and things like that.
It was like a little campsite,private campsite, I guess.
It didn't have electricity.
It didn't have water.
It was really rustic, but it was fantasticbecause we could go and as soon as
(28:49):
school was out, my mom would take us.
My dad worked a lot, but my mom wouldtake us and she felt safe there with her
three little kids, and we would go as soonas school was out, and then we'd go home
two days before school started up again.
So we spent two months there every summergoing to the beach every day, all day.
It was fantastic.
And so occasionally, we went to Béziersto get this or that, but not very much.
(29:14):
We mostly spent time at the beach.
And it's true that all the land around uswas agricultural land with grapevines, and
they were all getting pulled out becausethey couldn't make a living at this.
Elyse (29:26):
No.
They couldn't... In fact, it's interestingto know that the decline of the
region in terms of being, an importantwine-growing region, basically, it began
at the very end of the 19th century,and just basically continued until
almost the very end of the 20th century.
And it has now, of course, changed,because now the quality of the wine
is different, and it's gone backinto being a region that has wines
(29:49):
that are considered to be good wines,as opposed to just being you know,
your basic table stuff, you know?
Annie (29:54):
Yeah, they've come a long way.
Now, the Corbières wines, there aresome that are, they're very nice.
They've really put a lot ofeffort into it, but it used
to be like this cheaper wine.
But as French people drink less and lesswine, and foreigners don't want to buy
cheap, crappy French wine, so they'vehad to increase the quality, and by now
(30:16):
it's pretty good from the Languedoc.
Elyse (30:17):
It's very good.
I was so curious about what was the reasonfor this insurrection, because it's the
kind of thing, if you don't study thisarea, you're not going to know about it.
It's not part of general informationthat people talk about, things like that.
And it turns out that starting atthe very end of the 19th century,
in the very first decade of the 20thcentury, there was an overproduction.
(30:40):
At the same time, there was thedisease with the phylloxera and
there were all these other problems.
There was this constant desire,and apparently the government they
allowed a certain amount of trafficof putting chemicals into the wine and
of putting extra sugar into the wine.
And at the same time, they were importingenormous amounts of wine from Algeria.
(31:01):
And this is really interesting.
So, what happened was the quality ofthe wine was going down, and at the same
time, there was an importing of so muchwine that the prices were going down.
So, all of these thousands andthousands of producers could
not make a living anymore.
Annie (31:17):
Right, so probably they were importing very cheap wine from
Algeria and then trying to sell ita little bit more as a French wine.
Elyse (31:25):
And not only that, but the government was really, they were turning
a... I was going to say a deaf eye.
You can't turn a deaf eye.
They were turning a blind eye.
Like, we've had in the more recent times,you know, there have been scandals about
some Italian wines that apparently itwas common practice for those people
who were producing the worst and thecheapest of these wines to add sugar
to them, to add all these chemicalsto them, so that basically what was
(31:48):
happening was that all of a suddennobody wanted to buy these wines anymore.
Which meant that, we're talking hundredsof thousands of people whose lives
depend on the entire wine industry.
And it culminated in basically whatbecame first some demonstrations,
to the growers wanted them to forbidthe using of chemicals in wine.
(32:10):
They wanted to reduce the amountof imPaulation of the wine
coming... el cheapo wine comingfrom Algeria and other places.
They said, "we're dying, you know, wehave no way of making a living." And
this is... We're talking about a regionthat was relatively poor to begin with.
And so they started having demonstrations,and all the local politicians took
the side of the wine growers and thepeasants, and the shopkeepers took
(32:32):
the side of the wine growers and thepeasants, because the entire region's
economy basically was dependent on this.
And in the process of several monthsin the year 1907, it culminated in
what became massive demonstrations.
In May of 1907, there was a demonstrationin Béziers with over 300,000 people.
Now, we were just there, aside fromtheir Ramblas, the Avenue Jean-Jaures.
Annie (32:57):
Or Paul Riquet, perhaps.
Elyse (32:58):
Or is it Riquet?
Well, the statue of the Riquet.
Annie (33:00):
Yeah, I think it's Avenue Paul Riquet.
Elyse (33:02):
Trying to imagine 300,000, that's huge, huge, huge amount of people.
Little by little, all of the politiciansin the South, and Jean Jaurès among
them, of course, who was closer toToulouse, but all of these politicians
sided with all of these producers.
And they went from one cityto another demonstrating.
And eventually, the huge culminatingevent was in Montpellier, which of course
(33:26):
is the biggest city in the area, and itcertainly was at the time, where there
were 600,000 people out in the streets.
And the Clemenceau who was president atthe time ordered the army to come in And
when they didn't disperse, he actuallyallowed them to shoot into the crowd.
(33:46):
And a couple of innocent bystanders werekilled, including one 14 year old girl.
And so it turned into riots that reallywere about to become a major civil war
in the whole southern part of France.
And it was Jean Jaurès and a couple ofother politicians who basically convinced
(34:07):
Clemenceau, I'm not sure exactly howhe felt about all of this, but he was
trying to maintain order for the restof the country and then have a vision
of not giving into these demonstrators.
But they convinced him that he had tofind a way of reconciling with them by
creating a new law that would stop theadulteration of the wine, and at the same
(34:29):
time pardon anybody who'd taken placein this insurrection, because otherwise,
the country was about to go up in flames.
And it included even a regimentof army that were local boys who
were sent to basically stand therewith their rifles out, ready to
shoot, and who eventually went overto the side of the demonstrators.
(34:49):
I know I was just mentioning to you thatone of the things I was reading about
yesterday that I found so fascinatingabout it, this is that, because of this
major event which became... in Englishit's simply the Wine Revolt of 1907.
There's a much more folkloricname for it in French.
But because of that, they made rules,for instance, that army can never be
stationed where they're from so thatthey don't patronize, you know, and
(35:12):
fraternize with the local people.
That police, the Gendarmerie, forinstance, which is part of the national
police, can never stay in one placelonger than two, three years so that
they don't buddy up with people toomuch, and all of this comes out of this
major period of civil unrest in 1907.
Annie (35:29):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It just complicate it.
Because if you think about it, whenFrench people colonised Algeria,
Algeria was not a wine producing partof the world, but French people brought
in wine because they wanted wine.
Elyse (35:44):
That was a good place to grow it, I guess.
Annie (35:46):
They probably found favorable growing circumstances.
And then when the French left, sothe Algerians are left with all these
grape vines and they don't drink wine.
That's not their thing.
And so, they wanted to sell it abroad,you know, which complicated things.
And a lot of, like you mentioned atthe very beginning, they imported a lot
(36:09):
of workers from Algeria, and so thesepeople had ties to the wineries back
home and it created a massive problem.
Elyse (36:19):
The 20th century was a very complicated part of history for this part
of France, really, for economically...Now, some of the more beautiful things
that have to do with this area areconnected clearly to the old buildings,
the beautiful old city, and then theCanal du Midi, which is really just
one of the most remarkable things.
And I am so glad we did kindof turn around in circles for a
(36:43):
while, but I am so glad that weeventually did find the famous...
What do you mean?
What?
The nine locks of the Fontserin,which are so gorgeous.
I was so sorry that we couldn'tstay longer there, you know,
it was the end of the day.
It's a World UNESCO HeritageSite, it's very close to the
city, it's down below obviously.
(37:04):
What happened was that as theywere finishing the Canal du Midi,
and of course, unfortunately, allof this was really finished just
a few months after Riquet died.
It was his son who was responsiblefor overseeing the final work.
In this particular part of the land,there's too much of a difference in
height between one part and another.
(37:24):
It's over 21 meters of difference,which is a fair amount.
And so the engineers, I mean, we'retalking about the 1680s, okay?
We're talking about that long ago.
They managed to figure out how inthe space of less than what is it?
Maybe 100 meters, I can't...I don't... 200 meters.
Annie (37:44):
They probably spread out along 500 meters or perhaps a little more.
Yeah.
Elyse (37:49):
But we have nine locks, literally, and each one is just big
enough for the barge to get into.
You close both sides.
And this is how they created thisso that the boats coming both ways
basically could go from where it was sealevel to where it was 21 meters high.
And you couldn't do it in just one or twolocks, so they did nine of these locks.
Annie (38:10):
Yeah.
Elyse (38:11):
Six of them are still in operation.
It's beautiful.
... Annie (38:14):
It's beautiful.
Lots of people walking around withtheir dogs, their strollers, their...
And also, we should say that PierrePaul Riquet was born in Béziers.
That's the city of his birth, you know?
He was born in 1609.
The other illustrious person that wasborn in Béziers is Jean Moulin, the
resistant, that we did an episode about.
(38:35):
It's an important city.
Elyse (38:36):
It's an important city.
And there is a very small...unfortunately closed because it's
the holidays and it was a Monday, butthere is a very small museum for Jean
Moulin, which is in, apparently, thehouse that his father had in Béziers.
And it has a lot of his artwork,because in spite of everything else,
on top of being the major resistantand real hero, he was also an artist.
And so he liked to draw.
(38:58):
A lot of his work is keptby his father in the house.
The history of Béziers is rich, it'sold, it's varied, it's got all of
this beautiful nature with the locks,with the canal, with the walks along
the river, and then it has all ofthis, which always fascinates me,
the old, tiny, narrow little windystreets in the old upper bridge.
Annie (39:18):
Yes.
And it really has a lot of those inthe hyper center, and some of those I
wouldn't want to live there because thehouses are so close together that you
don't get a lot of sunlight, you know?
They're too close together.
Elyse (39:31):
They're real medieval.
Annie (39:32):
Yes, they are medieval, but the city is just really interesting.
And I can only see it gentrifying andimproving over the next few years because
they really love their mayor in Béziers.
And their mayor is a complicated guy.
Elyse (39:50):
Yeah.
He's a very complicated... Did youknow that he was one of the founders
of Reporters sans Frontières?
Oui, oui.
Yeah.
Okay, everybody out there,we need to mention this.
The mayor is a man namedMénard, Robert Ménard.
He is a very interesting man.
This is his third term.
He is right wing, rather right wing.
Annie (40:06):
Right, but he started as left wing.
Elyse (40:08):
But he started as left wing, and he was one of the founders of
what is an incredible thing calledthe Reporters without Borders, which
is an incredible organization thatdefends the freedom of press and
journalism everywhere in the world.
And somehow, over the courseof... Well, he's in his, what?
His early 60s.
(40:29):
Over the course of the last 35,I don't know how many years, his
political positions shifted frombeing really left wing to being
more, and more, and more right wing.
He is the mayor of Béziers, and he isuncontested as the mayor of Béziers.
Annie (40:47):
People love him.
Elyse (40:48):
People love him.
People love him.
And he has been responsible formost of the projects that help the
gentrification, for bringing inpeople, for doing all these things to
make Béziers a nicer place to live.
Because when he took it over, itwas really in bad condition and was
economically depressed, the wholecity center was falling apart.
Of course, it's much easier to dealwith creating new outer things like the
(41:12):
huge shopping center than to work onfixing up things because it takes a lot
more money to renovate an old buildingthan to build from scratch, in a way.
But he is, he's a verystrange and enigmatic person.
Everybody in France knowsabout Ménard because...
Annie (41:26):
Well, he's well-spoken.
If you hear him on theradio, he makes sense.
And also he's a... Okay,so he's a populist, okay?
There's no question that he's a populist,but he's the kind of populist who's
not trying to take advantage of thesituation to make a bloody fortune for
himself, which is what most populists do.
(41:47):
He actually is using the fundsthat he can raise up to help the
population, all of the population.
So I can forgive him for havingkind of narrow-minded ideas
politically because he's actuallydoing good things for the city.
Well... you know...
Elyse (42:08):
I mean, he's a bit of a paradox because he has some more and more
he has ideas that he used to attack.
In other words, he has ideas about, youknow, identity and things like that.
Well, and you see it because in a lotof places, but only French people would
notice this, like, he renamed part ofthe plaza where, big plaza in front of
(42:31):
the cathedral, he renamed a section ofit after a priest who was assassinated
in Brittany by wannabe jihadists.
The poor man had a horrible death.
Some young men entered hischurch and beheaded him.
And so he renamed the plaza after him.
(42:51):
And there's a plaque that says, you know,where they killed, you know, "Jihadists
killed a priest," blah, blah, blah.
He put a nativity inthe plaza of City Hall.
It's a beautiful little nativity.
He also put a menorah though.There'salso a menorah up because he's
very much in support of Israel.
(43:12):
There's a little kind of a wannabenewspaper-ish thingy that they
put on billboards in the city.
And if you read it, which I did, atthe very bottom, it says that 78% of
ecologists, so Green Party people buytheir Christmas decorations from China.
(43:34):
Which, in a sense is neither herenor there, because if you can
find them anywhere else, you know?
But it is true.
He's very enigmatic, I must say.
It's strange because at the same timehe is really helping Béziers improve and
it's bringing more people in who havemoney, which helps of course the city.
And at the same time, I am always curiousabout someone whose political ideas shift
(43:57):
so radically in their lifetime, you know.
Annie (43:59):
Well, yeah.
But he went from doing good in asocialist kind of way, to doing
good in a populist kind of way.
But at least he's not a kleptomaniac.
As far as we know, he has neverprofited personally from his position.
It's possible that in 50 yearswe'll figure out that we were
(44:21):
wrong about that, you know.
Populist often rob people blind.
Elyse (44:26):
I'm just hoping that since it doesn't look like he's about to leave
as mayor of the city, I did look upthe statistics because I was sort of
curious, so 26% of the population is Arab.
And a good part of that is young people,and of course part of the problem with
young people is they need work, you know?
Annie (44:42):
Well, of course anywhere.
Elyse (44:43):
France is a complicated place right now in relation to things like that.
And Béziers is typical of an areathat has depended on agricultural
work and immigrant workers for along time, and it has to enter into
the 21st century and change things.
So, he's probably the right person forthe moment in a place like that, you know?
Annie (45:01):
At any rate, politics aside, the place is very pleasant.
Elyse (45:06):
And very interesting.
Annie (45:07):
Interesting, pleasant.
I recommend if you go, it would be apretty good place to base yourself out
of if you want to visit the Languedoc.
You know, from there, you could doday trips to Narbonne, to Montpellier,
to Sete, going south to Collioure.
Mm-hmm.
Elyse (45:27):
It's a little far to Collioure, but...
But for the coast, there are a coupleof things nearby, I'd just like to
mention them because of course there'sthe Oppidum of Enserune, which is really
fabulous, which is right along the coast.
Now, these are things unfortunatelyyou really do need a car for, you know?
Exactly.
And it closed.
But it's absolutely gorgeous.
It has a museum.
This is in the middle of the vineyardsand the pine trees, which is, you
(45:47):
know, a landscape that I love.
And it's really an oppidum which is,you know, it was a Gallic fortification
before the Romans came, and it'sreally fascinating to see what
they've done there with the museum.
And also, there are two abbeys nearby.
One is Fopntcaude and the otherone is Valemagne, which are
beautiful, absolutely beautiful.
These are all very, verysimilar and Valemagne.
(46:11):
Right outside, betweenBéziers and Montpellier.
Annie (46:13):
Okay.
You put that in the show notes, right?
Elyse (46:16):
And the Château Laurens, which I visited with my husband in Agde.
Château Laurens.
Yeah, and which is this fantasy,built by this very rich man at the
end of the 19th, beginning of the20th century, that's just reopened.
It's one of these like gorgeousdel- delirious things, you know?
It's really worth visiting.
(46:37):
One thing we didn't mention, wementioned briefly the Rambla, the,
what, so they call it Rambla Biterroise.
A rambla is a concept that's veryimportant to the Spanish and Catalans
and of course, French Catalan countryis not very far from Béziers.
And they have this long avenue with thecenter of it is pedestrian you have trees.
(46:58):
Yeah.
And Béziers went through a periodwhere it wanted to be Paris.
And so they kind of widened that oneavenue, Avenue Paul Riquet, and they
have buildings that kind of lookHaussmannian, a few of them anyway.
They also built this park, Le Parc desPoetes, which it kind of looks like
a Paris park, you know, it's a hill.
(47:19):
It kind of looks like the Buttes-Chaumont.
And I've heard people from Paris saythat it's actually very much nicer
than the Buttes-Chaumont, which great.
We didn't have time.
We only had a day.
So, that's the thing.
If you are going to go visit Béziers,I would recommend you arrive in
the afternoon, spend the night,spend most of the day the next day,
(47:41):
at least, to just see Béziers.
And then if you are going tostay there to, I don't know, as
a place to center yourself out ofto go see the rest of the area.
You don't absolutely need a carto see many things, but to see
some of the things you need a car.
If you have children with you,you could go to Valras Plage,
which has totally changed.
(48:02):
We went, we spent an hour.
No, not even an hour.
I was hoping to charge andI, somebody beat me to it.
Dang it.
The waterfront is very nice.
It's beautiful sandy beach.
There's little restaurants along there.
It's a very nice beach.
So if you're with kids, it's a greatplace to spend a few days, just
enjoying the beach and doing daytrips, going to see... But I don't
(48:26):
think Valras Plage has a train.
So for that you need a car.
Yeah, you need a car.
Some places do, some places don't.
So just check them.
I know that to go to Sete, Montpelier,Narbonne, Collioure, train.
You could always take a train.
But Valras, mm-mm, no train.
One last thing.
I didn't really make it a list onthe show notes, but it's... There's
(48:46):
really great food there, and a lot ofit... of course comes from the sea.
Annie (48:50):
But of course, there's also a lot of, like the mayor
was born in Oran in Algeria.
So, there's couscous.
Elyse (48:57):
It's wonderful Mediterranean cooking and lots of oysters, and
lots of shellfish, and lots of thetielle, which I absolutely love.
Annie (49:06):
Yeah, Tielle de Sète.
I don't love, I find them too dry.
Elyse (49:10):
Add a little sauce to it.
But it's really a great area forfood and it's not that expensive
in... compared to some other parts.
Annie (49:16):
No, really.
If you compare the prices inBéziers compared to Nice, uh...
Elyse (49:21):
Right.
Annie (49:22):
It's night and day.
Night and day.
And in Béziers you don't havepeople on top of each other
like you're doing around Nice.
But I'm talking to somebody wholikes a bit of land or, you know,
a bit of a garden, whatever.
I think you can do that in Béziers.
In Nice, like good luck finding a place.
They're on top of each other.
They're crazy over there.
Elyse (49:44):
For the moment, I think that Béziers has not suffered from overtourism.
Annie (49:48):
No, it really hasn't.
But you know, if you're exploring theSouthwest and possibly a place to call
your own, I think the Béziers areais a good place to take a look at.
Elyse (49:59):
The oldest city in France!
Annie (50:01):
That's right.
We've decided.
Sold.
It's the oldest city in France.
Elyse (50:07):
It's the oldest city in France.
Annie (50:09):
Merci beaucoup, Elyse!
Elyse (50:12):
Au revoir.
Au revoir.
Annie (50:19):
Again, I want to thank my patrons for giving back and supporting the show.
Patrons get several exclusiverewards for doing so, you can
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(50:42):
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And about episode 535, Sherri said: 'I really enjoyed this episode. (51:13):
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And I love to hear that youtake me along on your drives.
And also thank you, JayHardcastle, for editing your
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(52:04):
This week I had my zoommeetings with patrons.
It's always a joy and a boostto talk to you face to face.
Lovely to see you.
If you listen to this episode, as soonas it comes out, I've just arrived
in Paris where I'll spend two weeksworking on a new VoiceMap tour.
Perhaps two, if I'm very efficient.
(52:25):
I love those tours.
They are my babies, just asmuch as these episodes are.
And you may think, oh, perhaps shemakes a killing on those tours, right?
Not at all.
They are actually pretty cheapto buy, which is my fault.
I could raise the prices.
And of all of the things I work on,this is probably the least profitable.
But I keep making them because I lovesharing the stories and places of Paris.
(52:50):
I don't think there's a better wayto tour a city than at your leisure,
with earbuds in your ears, withsomeone who loves the place, tell you
about it and guides you through it.
When I go somewhere I don't know,I look for a VoiceMap tour because
the technology makes it easy to getfully immersed and savor the moment.
(53:11):
It so beats bumming around, lookingfor information on Google Maps
or whatever you're used to doing.
At any rate, I'll be enjoyingParis imagining you also enjoying
Paris, and it's a joy to do that.
And because it's not as profitable asother work I do in my podcast journey, I
would have stopped doing these long agoif it weren't for Patricia Perry, who is
(53:34):
such a good friend and lets me stay ather apartment in the 15e Arrondissement,
a wonderful part of Paris as well.
So thank you, Patricia.
Podcast listeners get a bigdiscount for buying these tours
from my website, especially ifyou're going to get a bundle.
But if you buy directly fromme, it is a manual process.
I'm not a robot.
It might take a few hoursfor you to get the codes.
(53:57):
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(54:19):
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All right, let's talk about what'scoming up in Paris the next few months.
The Paris Marathon is comingto Paris on April 13th.
(54:42):
If you are going to be running itin 2025, I would love to record
an episode with you about it.
Reach out to me annie@joinusinfrance.Com.
And I don't think it's too lateto sign up if you're into that
sort of grueling sports event.
The European Museum Night is alsocoming up on May 17th and 18th.
(55:05):
There are going to be guided tours, liveshows, screenings, tastings, and more.
As night falls, more than a thousandmuseums across France wake up
to offer visitors original andfriendly artistic experiences as
part of the European Museum Night.
This is a free event for anyonewho shows up, but you will not have
(55:27):
access to the whole museum, onlyto the events going on that night.
The Bordeaux Wine Festival is a wonderfulevent on the banks of the Garonne River.
From June 19th until June 22.
If I'm around, I will definitely go.
I would love to see that.
They showcase Bordeaux wines,but also wines from the entire
(55:49):
region of the Nouvelle Aquitaine,and also local produce.
This provides visitors with anexceptional chance to encounter
wine growers and vendors who areeager to share their passion.
Also, it's an excellent opportunityto explore some of the most esteemed
names of Bordeaux wines, includingSaint-Emilion-Pomerol-Fronsac,
(56:10):
Medoc wines, Graves-Sauternes, andMouton-Cadet, Baron Philippe de
Rothschild, among others, you get atasting pass so you can enjoy trying
some of the wonderful wines as well.
For the gourmet food part of this event,you'll be able to enjoy local cheeses,
charcuterie, duck, artisanal ice cream,the delightful canneles from Bordeaux, and
(56:36):
fabulous oysters from the Arcachon Basin.
You'll also be able to visit threeamazing historic sailing ships.
Le Beleme, that's a French threemast ship, El Galeón, a replica of
Spanish galleons that you've heardabout in pirate stories, and the
Santa María Manuela, an amazingPortugues four mast fishing vessel.
(56:59):
But an old one.
And if you're coming to Franceanytime this summer, you have
a big event to look forward to.
They are calling it Cézanne 2025and it will take place between
June 28th and October 12th.
Here's what I found out about it.
In 2025, Provence is preparingto celebrate one of its greatest
(57:20):
artistic heroes, Paul Cézanne.
The Cézanne 2025 event invites visitorsto discover Aix-en-Provence and the
surrounding area through a journeyinto the world of post impressionist
master and precursor of modern art.
It's a unique experience combiningexhibitions, art trails in the heart
(57:44):
of nature, and the Provence vineyards.
Much of this will take place inand around Aix-en-Provence where
he spent 40 years of his life.
The exhibit is going to be calledCézanne au Jas de Bouffan and the
Orsay Museum will lend many of itsbest Cézanne paintings to various
(58:04):
museums around Aix-en-Provence.
It'll be nice for these paintingsto go home for a while, anyway.
I'll put a link in the show notes forthose of you who want more information.
And last but not least, the Tour deFrance, of course, is going to start
on July 5th and end on August 3rd.
(58:24):
This year it'll be exclusivelyin France, and they'll cover
3,320 kilometers in 21 stages.
And the Women's Tour de France isgoing to be starting on July 26th
in Vannes and end in Châtel inthe Alps on August 3rd as well.
So both tours end on the same day thisyear, which I think is a great idea.
(58:47):
And on a personal note, I'd like to sharethat I had a whirlwind trip to Utah last
week to attend my father in law's funeral.
He was a wonderful human being,a gifted musician and composer,
beloved by all in his community.
So many people attended, I was astounded.
And this was truly the bestfuneral I've ever attended.
(59:10):
There was family closeness, music,beautiful tributes given by the people
who knew him and loved him most.
It was wonderful.
He died peacefully at age 84, andI'm certain he will be remembered
fondly forever, and I will miss him.
My thanks to podcast editorsAnne and Christian Cotovan,
who produced the transcripts.
(59:32):
Next week on the podcast, anepisode with MasterChef's Andrew
Prior, who loves French food.
He got me salivating.
Thank you so much for listening,and I hope you join me next time, so
we can look around France together.
Au revoir.
The Join Us in France travelpodcast is written, hosted, and
produced by Annie Sargent, andCopyright 2025 by AddictedToFrance.
(59:57):
It is released under a CreativeCommons attribution, non-commercial,
no derivatives license.
This is Join Us in France, episode 536, cinq cent trente-six.
Bonjour, I'm Annie Sargent and Join Usin France is the podcast where we take
a conversational journey through thebeauty, culture, and flavors of France.
Today, I bring you a conversationwith Elyse Rivin of Toulouse
Guided Walks about the beautifuland historic city of Béziers.
(00:39):
In this episode, we delve into theintriguing past of Béziers, explore its
cultural significance, and discuss howthis charming city is evolving today.
Whether you're planning a visit, orjust curious about French history and
culture, this episode is packed withfascinating stories and insights.
Join us for a journey through one ofFrance's oldest cities and discover
(01:02):
what makes Béziers a hidden gem.
This podcast is supported by donorsand listeners who buy my tours and
services, including my ItineraryConsult Service, my GPS self-guided
tours of Paris on the VoiceMap app,or take a day trip with me around the
Southwest of France in my electric car.
You can browse all of that at myboutique: joinusinfrance.com/boutique.
(01:25):
And remember, patreon supportersget the podcast ad-free,
and as soon as it's ready.
Click on the link in the shownotes to enjoy this Patreon reward
for as little as $3 per month.
For the magazine part of the podcast,after my chat with Elyse today, I'll
discuss a few of the most importantevents, both sports and cultural, going
(01:46):
on in France in the next few months, afew of them, not all of them, obviously.
That's because I hope you mightbe able to attend some of them.
Bonjour, Elyse.
Elyse (02:05):
Bonjour Annie.
Annie (02:07):
We are going to talk about the city of Béziers today, we were just
there a few days ago, and so we wanted torecord it while it's fresh in our minds.
It's not going to come out for a while,you know, but it was a very nice visit.
It was late in December, on a Monday.
It was cold and still, it was really good.
Elyse (02:31):
It was very nice.
And of course, it was indeed cold,but because Béziers is very close to
the Mediterranean, in the Southwestof France, once the morning fog blew
away, it was a beautiful blue sky.
Annie (02:45):
Right, so we left the house, picked you up at what, 8:30 or something?
And we drove off towards theMediterranean from Toulouse.
We had fog, fog, fog, fog, fog untiljust a little bit before Béziers.
And that's par for the coursein the Southwest of France.
We get a lot of fog in themorning, that's just how it is.
Elyse (03:05):
We do.
And then, of course, all of asudden, you have this blue sky.
It was so nice.
Annie (03:09):
Yes, lovely place.
All right, tell us about Béziersand I'll interject with things that
we did that I found really nice.
Elyse (03:16):
OK.
First of all, Béziers is, I was curiousto look up the numbers because one of
the things we were talking about while wewere there was just about how big it is.
It's hard to judge because it'sa city that's built on hills.
So it's very imposing, you can see itfrom the autoroute, you can see it pretty
much coming in from every direction.
It looks majestic, and it's very, verydramatic looking with a huge cathedral
(03:40):
that you could see from far away.
But it is in fact arelatively medium-sized city.
It has just about 80,000 people.
Annie (03:48):
Oh, that's a good number.
Elyse (03:49):
So, it's a little bit bigger than Albi, but much, much smaller,
for instance, than Nîmes, andMontpellier, which are the two bigger
cities that are really close by.
Annie (03:58):
Right.
And of late, I've heard of severalexpats settling in or near Béziers.
It's become a place that attracts a lotof people because real estate prices are
not super high, considering that it'svery close to the beach and has temperate,
pretty good weather most of the year.
Elyse (04:18):
Most of the year.
Annie (04:21):
So that's just something I wanted to throw in there.
I actually know a few expats who'vemoved there from other parts of France.
Elyse (04:27):
Yes.
One of the reasons being that it is stilla city that doesn't have as expensive
real estate as, for instance, Montpellieror Nîmes or some of the other places.
And that is a little bit part of itsrecent history, its 20th century history,
which we'll talk about in a minute.
But it's also true that it isvery, very close to the sea.
It's 20 kilometers from the water.
(04:48):
So, obviously, it's not that easyif you don't have a car, but there
are, I'm sure there are buses andother forms of transPaulation.
Just to give people an idea, ifyou've never been to Béziers, it's
seven and a half hours by car fromParis, or four hours and 10 minutes
by train on the bullet train, whichis the big line that goes right to
Montpellier and then down, you know,so it's relatively good transPaulation.
(05:12):
From Montpellier, it's very close, it's40 minutes by car, 25 minutes by train.
And from Toulouse, it's, what?
In the paper it says 2:15, Iguess that was about right.
Two hours, I would say it took usabout two hours to get there, you know.
Annie (05:26):
It was foggy, so I didn't drive, you know, as fast as you
would if it, well, wasn't foggy.
Yeah.
Elyse (05:34):
By train it's also really quite easy to get to, it's just an hour
and a half from Toulouse by train.
So it's not that far.
But it is indeed very,very close to the sea.
It's considered to beMediterranean climate.
The vegetation is mostly Mediterranean.
And, which it kind of amused me,because I hadn't realized that, and
I have to confess that having visitedalmost everything in the area around
(05:56):
there, this is the very first timethat I'd actually been to the center
of Béziers, when I was there with you.
I don't know why, butit just happened to be.
And I thought it was very amusing thatas we come in, there are these big, big,
big billboard panels that say, "Béziers,the oldest city in France." You know?
So this is now one oftheir selling points.
I'm not sure, it's interestingfrom a historical point of
(06:19):
view, I'm not sure how much of aselling point it is, to be honest.
You know?
Really, you know?
But I was like curious about itbecause, you know, though in my mind,
aside from all of the cities thatwere built basically under the Romans,
which of course includes Toulouse andLyon, and even eventually Paris, in my
(06:39):
mind, of course, the oldest, oldest,oldest, of course, was Marseille
because it was started by the Greeks.
So it turns out that in the last,what, I don't know exactly why,
I guess because archaeologistsalways have to find something to
do, you know, and a place to dig.
And I think because there has been alot of work done in the last 30, 35
(06:59):
years in the old city center of Béziersto build new things, like that huge,
very fancy mall that we saw that'scalled Antigone, that's very well known.
In the digging, as oftenhappens, they discover things.
That's of course how they discovereda lot of things here in Toulouse.
And it turns out that it became veryimportant as discovery, and they brought
(07:22):
in a lot of archaeologists becausethey found, and this is really in the
old part, so very close to where wewere walking around and had lunch,
there's a kind of a, an undergroundruin of what was basically a Greek city.
They were surprised, actually.
I think that the historians andthe archaeologists were surprised.
There probably wassomething written about it.
(07:43):
The Romans were good atwriting down everything.
But it turns out that it really datesfrom just about the same time as the
Greek establishments of colonies andthe trading centers, at the coast
along the Mediterranean in Marseille.
And they found enough evidencethat apparently Béziers was
a huge center of ceramics.
And, you know, one of thethings they do with things like
(08:05):
archaeology is to get an idea.
I don't know if you can carbondate ceramics, if there's nothing
organic on them, but they testby comparing styles, you know?
If the style here is the same as thestyle there, if they use the same kind
of stuff on it, then it means thatthere's obviously been contact and
it's more or less contemporaneous.
So it turns out that Béziers can goin and do a battle with Marseille,
(08:29):
claiming to be the oldest city in France.
Annie (08:32):
Hmm.
Yeah, I'm not certain, but theyare cleaning it up very nicely.
Elyse (08:36):
Yes.
Well, they actually have to.
And of course, one of the reasons why isbecause, starting with its most recent
history, instead of working from thevery, very back end going up, Béziers
is a city, and it's really typical ofa lot of the cities in the southwest
of France, not necessarily in Provence.
Provence is a little bit different,I'm not sure exactly why.
(08:58):
But a lot of things changed and a lotof these areas around Nîmes, around
Béziers, and around Montpellier,sociologically changed enormously
because of the war with Algeria.
And, what happened was, ofcourse, after the war was over
and Algeria got its independence.
(09:19):
I'm not sure whether touse a passive form or not.
Did it gain its independence or was given?
I'm not sure.
What happened was, of course, there wasa huge influx of people known as Pieds
Noir, which, of course, you know allabout because that's part of your family.
And those were the people
were basically European, but who had beenliving for several generations in Algeria.
(09:39):
But there was also a huge influx intothis particular area around Béziers and
Montpellier and Nîmes, of Algerians.
And that was because of the fact thatthis is the largest wine-growing area
of France, and a huge agricultural area.
And because a lot of people whowere originally from Algeria came
(10:01):
over, bought land, and developedeven more of the vineyards.
So it became an area that hada huge immigration population.
Annie (10:08):
Right.
Elyse (10:10):
And immigration population means lots of changes sociologically, lots of
changes in what the cities look like.
And eventually, going from the 1960sup into now, into the 2020s, the
poor population coming in lives inthe poorer neighborhoods, obviously.
And then what happens is, once thosestart getting gentrified, there's a
(10:31):
need to find other ways of housing them.
And so Béziers is a city that basicallyhas gone through a flux of up and
down, where it was basically not ingreat shape after World War II, and its
economic status was not that dynamic.
But the influx of the populationcreated a huge dynamism connected to
(10:51):
the wine industry, but then it createdproblems with having so many immigrants.
And so now what's happening is they aregentrifying the city center, and they're
trying to create a better environmentbecause a lot of the old, old buildings,
and that was one of the things I knowwe talked about as we walked around, you
can still see are not in great shape.
They're very old, they're verybeautiful, but I guess it takes a lot
(11:12):
of money to sort of gentrify and fixup the whole old city center, you know?
Annie (11:16):
Yeah, I think they'll get there.
What we saw that was pretty impressiveis that they've developed a walking
path between the Canal du Midi,because it ends... Well, you know,
it's... it comes through Béziers.
And there's nine locks in arow, which is one of the things
(11:36):
that we recommend you go see.
All the way from there to the oldbridge and going through the city.
And they've developed this voiedouce, so it's a walking path and
you can go obviously with bicyclesor whatever, but no motors.
And it's a lovely walk, andin the parts where it's steep,
(11:58):
they've put in elevators.
Unfortunately, one of them was not workingand I was not about to go down 200 steps
to... So, we got back in the car becauseI knew coming back up was going to
be... Well, it hurts my knees both ways.
Hopefully, this elevator problem willget sorted out and it's a very nice
(12:19):
voie douce, it's a very pleasant walk,and I think thats one of the reasons
why it's attracting more visitors andmore new residents as well, because it's
improving its quality of life today.
The city of Béziers has, of course, a bigchunk of the Canal du Midi and it also
(12:43):
has a very beautiful bridge called theOld Bridge, which is very original as a
title, but it is actually very beautiful,and that is down, and it's across a river
called the Orb, O-R-B, which that andthe Aude, A-U-D-E, which of course is the
name of the department, are the two riversthat basically run through and circulate
around Béziers, and that is where, thatall meets up with the Canal du Midi.
(13:06):
So there's a lot of waterway down below.
One of the things about Béziersis that it is indeed steep.
It's hills.
So when you go to visit, for instance, theoldest parts of it, they are up on top.
That is the cathedral and the walkway,which is the huge Allée Jean Jaurès,
and the market, the covered marketthat we went to that was great.
(13:29):
Yeah.
So, like every Frenchtown, it has a Les Halles.
You can always search for Les Hallesin any town where you are visiting.
We usually have one in the,you know, bigger towns.
And they've renovated them very, verynicely and it's reopened, I think it
was mid-November 2024 they reopened.
(13:50):
And what they did that I think isvery, very smart is that they left
space for tables and for people to sit.
And so people, even on a Monday atlate December, between Christmas
and New Year, you had peopleenjoying some food, oysters, some
wine, we had couscous and a tagine.
There's a couscous tagine kind oftype of place, which it was very good.
(14:13):
You can enjoy sandwiches,I mean, all sorts of food.
And there were people having lunchat Les Halles, which I think is
brilliant because most places inFrance, it's a place where you go
buy food and you get out to cook it.
This, you can do that, there's someplaces where you can buy, you know,
the cheese, the fish, the normal thingsthat you find at Les Halles, but they
(14:35):
also have food vendors and it's morelike a, kind of a food court of thing.
And the prices were not superexpensive, I think we paid 16 or 17
euros for our lunch, but it was great.
It was lovely.
Elyse (14:49):
Yes, it was very nice.
To our great surprise actually,because on the outside, on the
doorways, it says it's closed onMondays, but because it's the holiday
and because it was so, what was it?
The day before New Year's Eve,they kept the food court part open.
There were quite a few people inside andit was really quite lovely and very, very
varied in the foods that you could have.
(15:11):
So obviously, you could either eatin or take out, and it was very nice.
And it was also interesting becausewe did, you know, neither of us really
knew Béziers, so we were kind ofwandering a little bit in terms of
trying to figure out where the thingswere that we were trying to go see.
And it turns out that it was very closeto a church called the Church of the
Madeleine, which it is a special church,and we couldn't get in, unfortunately.
(15:34):
That was closed.
It was locked up.
A very, very, very old church.
Parts of the stone on the church goesback to the 1100s and it turns out that
this church, not the cathedral, much tomy surprise, is the church associated with
the terrible massacre that happened tothe Cathar, which is part of the, one of
(15:56):
the most important episodes in the verylong history of the city of Béziers, huh?
Annie (16:03):
Right.
So, we did two episodes about the Cathars.
Once was kind of the story of thecrusade against the Albiginien?
Albiginois,
but I don't know howto say that in English.
Elyse (16:17):
The Cathar from Albi.
Yeah, but you'd to reallysay, you know, I think.
Annie (16:21):
So, the crusade against the Cathars, I guess.
So we did one episode about that, and theother episode was about Cathar kind of
beliefs and why they stood out so much.
And I'll link them in theshow notes for this episode.
But really, there's a lot to understandabout the area, and this church is you
know, it's a very plain looking churchfrom the outside, but this is where a
(16:41):
lot of the population sought refuge.
Not just Cathars, because apparentlythey didn't have that many Cathars in
the town, maybe 500 people out of a,you know, few thousand inhabitants.
The king's army were not allthat particular about who they
slaughtered and so they killed alot of Catholics as well as Cathars.
(17:02):
And this is the church where there's thisfamous saying, go ahead and explain that.
Elyse (17:07):
Well, try to imagine we're back 800 years.
This is the year 1209, and the rulerof this area happens to be the same
man as who is the ruler of Carcassonneand Albi, and that is a viscount named
Trencavel, that's the family name.
This is the dynasty of the Trencavels.
And it turns out that he's one ofthese really good guys, you know?
(17:28):
There aren't that many inhistory that stand out.
This young, tolerant, allowedvarious different religions and
different groups of people all livedtogether in Béziers and Carcassonne.
And when the French armies came toattack to try and get rid of this group,
the Cathar, this dissident Christiangroup, they surrounded Béziers, and
you can see now what that meant, youknow, when you go there and you see how
(17:51):
everything's up on these steep hills.
And of course at the time, I'm sureit was a lot smaller, and so he had
everybody come inside the rampartsof the city, and then eventually a
lot of people hid inside this church.
And the story is, and I looked up the wordto make sure I was spelling it correctly
and pronouncing it correctly, apocryphal,a story that's apocryphal, which means
we don't know, it's no way of verifyingif it's absolutely true, but it certainly
(18:14):
has come down through the centuries, thatthis huge army is about to attack Béziers.
And one of the leaders of thearmy turns to the man who is the
papal representative, who is ofcourse the man in charge of trying
to get rid of all of these badnew Christians called the Cathar.
And the leader of the army says to him,you know, "How do we know who is Cathar?
(18:36):
Because basically everybody looks thesame." And his answer is: " Kill them all.
God will know."
And this has come down throughthe centuries as being associated
with the massacre of the people inthis church in Béziers that began
this very terrible long war, thefighting to get rid of the Cathar.
(18:57):
So, it is a major event actuallyin the history, and to my surprise,
it was interesting to see that we,I think, Annie, you took a picture
of it, I think you put it in thecollage, the video collage you did.
There's a plaque on the ground that talksabout that event in the year 1209 right
in front of the Church of the Madeleine.
So it's part of the, it's reallypart of the old history of the city.
(19:21):
It's a city that's had its moments.
Annie (19:24):
It's important to note as well that while this was a religious
upheaval in many ways, it was alsopolitical as are most religious fights.
The King of France wanted to takeover the Southwest, and it suited
him to come invade, essentially.
And the king wanted to get rid of thispesky minority religion that attracted
(19:51):
a lot of people, and so they joined upand they were pretty much unstoppable.
Elyse (19:57):
And of course, one of... Historically, one of the problems and
one of the reasons why they did manage toeventually win and take over this whole
region, which is a major enormous area,the whole Longue d'Crussion, is because
the Viscount de Trencavel, who triedto create a big army to fight against
them, he went to his cousin, the Countof Toulouse, and he went to his other
(20:20):
cousin who was the Count of Barcelona,who was also the King of Aragon.
These were all related, they were allrelated by marriage, and everything
anyway, and asked them to join him infighting against the French army, and the
French papal army, and they both said no.
And so he was left with whateversoldiers and we could imagine, these are
(20:40):
knights, 800 years ago, and people thathe had, and it was simply not enough
to fight against this enormous army.
So, you're absolutely right, it was verymuch a political thing, and it was also
a very much a divide and conquer thing.
And it is a very big partof the mythological and real
history of the city of Béziers.
But other than that, therewere lots of things to see, and
(21:02):
part of that was connected, ofcourse, to the Canal du Midi.
As you mentioned, we walked, wehad to kind of go back down by car
because we really couldn't deal withgoing down and coming up on these
zillions of steps, unfortunately.
But this old bridge, which is quitebeautiful, from which you have this
view of the city with the cathedral.
Now, the cathedral is all the way up ontop, and it really is quite spectacular.
(21:28):
And luckily for us, we were about to leavebecause we thought we couldn't get in.
Right.
Annie (21:33):
Right.
We had... We couldn't find the entrance.
Elyse (21:35):
We couldn't find the entrance.
This is very strange.
I mean, I think it's, for somereason, it was just this little side
door that was open and the big maindoors were closed, and we were kind
of like, "Oh, what a shame," becauseit's also a beautiful neighborhood.
It's one of the nicest parts up above,very beautiful, chic little restaurants
and shops and very nice apartments.
And it's right next to the Bishop'sPalace, which was turned into
(21:58):
a courthouse, and which has nowbeen abandoned by the courts
because it's going to be turnedinto the big museum of Béziers.
Annie (22:07):
Right.
So, that's not done yet, but I think it'sgoing to be very nice, once they do that.
And this big plaza on top aroundthe cathedral has a gorgeous statue
of Trencavel, that is of coursethe hero, a hero in this area.
And it also has a statue ofJoan of Arc, not with a sword
(22:28):
and a halo, but on the pyre.
Elyse (22:31):
I didn't even realize that.
That was when you wentover there to see it.
Okay.
Yes.
Yeah.
Annie (22:35):
Yes.
Yes.
And she's right outside of where you...The side door where you enter the church,
and it's interesting because usually, Imean, Joan of Arc is usually represented
on a horse with a sword and a halo.
And in this case I saw onelike that in a church in Nice
as well, where she is tied up.
(22:55):
She's wearing very simple robesand there's wood under her feet.
So, you know, they'regoing to light the pyre.
Yeah.
So, it's a very interesting, beautiful...And that one is outside the church....
so I recommend you check it out.
It's very nice.
Elyse (23:10):
The whole area, the Esplanade, the Place de la Révolution, which is right
next to the cathedral, that whole areaup on top is just absolutely gorgeous.
And there is a view that is fabulousthat it... You see in every single
direction, I could make out the blue ofthe water, but you could see the Corbières
mountains, you could see the Pyrenees,you could see the vineyards down below.
(23:32):
There's this gorgeous point ofview from up there before you
actually go inside the cathedral.
Annie (23:37):
Yeah, and as far as, kind of, practical matters, if you
are coming by car then you canpark at Les Halles, for instance.
They have two underground parkinglots, Les Halles Un, Les Halles Deux.
Neither one has electric chargers asfar as I can tell, which is silly,
because if I had been able to plug inwhile we were visiting, we wouldn't
(24:00):
have had to stop on the way home.
But such is life.
They will eventuallyget chargers everywhere.
I'm positive.
But so we parked up there and then wemoved the car to go down below to the
old bridge and to the... the locks.
Elyse (24:14):
And, one of the other things we went past and actually walked into is the
old mayor's office, which it turns out...Do you remember when I said to you there's
a plaque and it talks about the fire?
And I was wondering what that wasbecause it was relatively past?
Well... So the building that themayor's office is in is a Renaissance
building, which of course hasbeen somewhat modernized, but it's
(24:35):
basically a building from the 1500s.
And it's a very beautiful façade onthe outside, and right in the center
there, very close to Les Halles.
And we walked in and there's this verynice courtyard there with... And then,
there's this list which is, it rather...I found it very impressive or imposing.
I don't know how many people realizethat in France during World War I, you
(24:57):
know, a third of the men were killed.
And there isn't a village and a town inFrance that doesn't have a monument to
the dead, specifically about World War I.
And inside the entrance courtyardof the mayor's office in Béziers,
there wasn't one plaque, there wereseven major plaques on the wall.
The number of people who were listed, itwas really kind of overwhelming to see.
(25:20):
And then, as we were walking out, therewas another little plaque on the side
that talked about a fire, and therewere a list of about maybe 11 or 12
names that were all obviously peoplewho were firemen and things like that.
And it turns out that, that particularevent, which was at the very beginning
of the 20th century, was connected tothis other major event in the history
(25:44):
of Béziers, which was this incredibleinsurrection revolt of the winemakers of
the region, the whole southwest regionof Languedoc-Roussillon in the year 1907.
And one of the things that had happenedwas that at the very beginning of
this turbulent time, a couple ofthe buildings that were connected to
(26:05):
the winemakers had been set on fire.
Some of these people died intrying to save buildings in
the old city center of Béziers.
And so that was a plaque forthem on top of everything else.
Because it doesn't explain what it's for.
I mean, it just gives these people,you know... Béziers is still, aside
from what other economic activitiesit has, it's still one of the
(26:26):
major centers in the middle of thisvast wine-growing region, yeah?
And for many, many years, for maybe acouple of centuries, ever since the,
basically the end of the 1600s, themajority of the wine produced in France
was from the Languedoc-Roussillon area.
I mean, Bordeaux is a smaller area,and it was mostly wines that were
more expensive that were beingshipped to the English because they
(26:49):
controlled most of the Bordeaux area.
And we're not talking about Champagne,which is a little bit different anyway.
But the biggest part of normal tablewine production and the wine that
everybody used on as a regular basis wasaround, the whole region around Béziers.
And so it became known asthe capital of winemaking.
(27:09):
Yeah.
And this is part of what happened whenthere was this huge political problem
that developed into an insurrection,and then it culminated in these
events that took place in 1907.
Annie (27:20):
Right.
Right.
And I'll let you tell us about that ina second, but I have some hystory in the
area because I spent many many summersnear Valras-Plage with my parents.
Probably it started when I was sevenor something, and all the way to 15 or
14 or something, so several summers.
(27:40):
And we would spend the whole summer there.
What happened is my parents bought apiece of land that used to be a vineyard.
So, they were pulling out the grapeproduction stuff because they couldn't
make any money at it anymore.
So this was probably, if I was five,six, seven, it was the early '70s, okay?
(28:04):
They had sold this piece of land.
My mother was always on thelookout for things to buy.
She was a good investor.
And she had bought this piece of landalmost sight unseen, and then first thing
we did is we started pulling out all thegrapevines, which my dad just rented a
kind of a tool for a few days to do that.
Then we piled them up andsomebody came and got them.
(28:25):
There's a whole story to this.
And then he set up this area with a drytoilet, we had trailers, we had a little
place where we could store his tools,and camping beds and things like that.
It was like a little campsite,private campsite, I guess.
It didn't have electricity.
It didn't have water.
It was really rustic, but it was fantasticbecause we could go and as soon as
(28:49):
school was out, my mom would take us.
My dad worked a lot, but my mom wouldtake us and she felt safe there with her
three little kids, and we would go as soonas school was out, and then we'd go home
two days before school started up again.
So we spent two months there every summergoing to the beach every day, all day.
It was fantastic.
And so occasionally, we went to Béziersto get this or that, but not very much.
(29:14):
We mostly spent time at the beach.
And it's true that all the land around uswas agricultural land with grapevines, and
they were all getting pulled out becausethey couldn't make a living at this.
Elyse (29:26):
No.
They couldn't... In fact, it's interestingto know that the decline of the
region in terms of being, an importantwine-growing region, basically, it began
at the very end of the 19th century,and just basically continued until
almost the very end of the 20th century.
And it has now, of course, changed,because now the quality of the wine
is different, and it's gone backinto being a region that has wines
(29:49):
that are considered to be good wines,as opposed to just being you know,
your basic table stuff, you know?
Annie (29:54):
Yeah, they've come a long way.
Now, the Corbières wines, there aresome that are, they're very nice.
They've really put a lot ofeffort into it, but it used
to be like this cheaper wine.
But as French people drink less and lesswine, and foreigners don't want to buy
cheap, crappy French wine, so they'vehad to increase the quality, and by now
(30:16):
it's pretty good from the Languedoc.
Elyse (30:17):
It's very good.
I was so curious about what was the reasonfor this insurrection, because it's the
kind of thing, if you don't study thisarea, you're not going to know about it.
It's not part of general informationthat people talk about, things like that.
And it turns out that starting atthe very end of the 19th century,
in the very first decade of the 20thcentury, there was an overproduction.
(30:40):
At the same time, there was thedisease with the phylloxera and
there were all these other problems.
There was this constant desire,and apparently the government they
allowed a certain amount of trafficof putting chemicals into the wine and
of putting extra sugar into the wine.
And at the same time, they were importingenormous amounts of wine from Algeria.
(31:01):
And this is really interesting.
So, what happened was the quality ofthe wine was going down, and at the same
time, there was an importing of so muchwine that the prices were going down.
So, all of these thousands andthousands of producers could
not make a living anymore.
Annie (31:17):
Right, so probably they were importing very cheap wine from
Algeria and then trying to sell ita little bit more as a French wine.
Elyse (31:25):
And not only that, but the government was really, they were turning
a... I was going to say a deaf eye.
You can't turn a deaf eye.
They were turning a blind eye.
Like, we've had in the more recent times,you know, there have been scandals about
some Italian wines that apparently itwas common practice for those people
who were producing the worst and thecheapest of these wines to add sugar
to them, to add all these chemicalsto them, so that basically what was
(31:48):
happening was that all of a suddennobody wanted to buy these wines anymore.
Which meant that, we're talking hundredsof thousands of people whose lives
depend on the entire wine industry.
And it culminated in basically whatbecame first some demonstrations,
to the growers wanted them to forbidthe using of chemicals in wine.
(32:10):
They wanted to reduce the amountof imPaulation of the wine
coming... el cheapo wine comingfrom Algeria and other places.
They said, "we're dying, you know, wehave no way of making a living." And
this is... We're talking about a regionthat was relatively poor to begin with.
And so they started having demonstrations,and all the local politicians took
the side of the wine growers and thepeasants, and the shopkeepers took
(32:32):
the side of the wine growers and thepeasants, because the entire region's
economy basically was dependent on this.
And in the process of several monthsin the year 1907, it culminated in
what became massive demonstrations.
In May of 1907, there was a demonstrationin Béziers with over 300,000 people.
Now, we were just there, aside fromtheir Ramblas, the Avenue Jean-Jaures.
Annie (32:57):
Or Paul Riquet, perhaps.
Elyse (32:58):
Or is it Riquet?
Well, the statue of the Riquet.
Annie (33:00):
Yeah, I think it's Avenue Paul Riquet.
Elyse (33:02):
Trying to imagine 300,000, that's huge, huge, huge amount of people.
Little by little, all of the politiciansin the South, and Jean Jaurès among
them, of course, who was closer toToulouse, but all of these politicians
sided with all of these producers.
And they went from one cityto another demonstrating.
And eventually, the huge culminatingevent was in Montpellier, which of course
(33:26):
is the biggest city in the area, and itcertainly was at the time, where there
were 600,000 people out in the streets.
And the Clemenceau who was president atthe time ordered the army to come in And
when they didn't disperse, he actuallyallowed them to shoot into the crowd.
(33:46):
And a couple of innocent bystanders werekilled, including one 14 year old girl.
And so it turned into riots that reallywere about to become a major civil war
in the whole southern part of France.
And it was Jean Jaurès and a couple ofother politicians who basically convinced
(34:07):
Clemenceau, I'm not sure exactly howhe felt about all of this, but he was
trying to maintain order for the restof the country and then have a vision
of not giving into these demonstrators.
But they convinced him that he had tofind a way of reconciling with them by
creating a new law that would stop theadulteration of the wine, and at the same
(34:29):
time pardon anybody who'd taken placein this insurrection, because otherwise,
the country was about to go up in flames.
And it included even a regimentof army that were local boys who
were sent to basically stand therewith their rifles out, ready to
shoot, and who eventually went overto the side of the demonstrators.
(34:49):
I know I was just mentioning to you thatone of the things I was reading about
yesterday that I found so fascinatingabout it, this is that, because of this
major event which became... in Englishit's simply the Wine Revolt of 1907.
There's a much more folkloricname for it in French.
But because of that, they made rules,for instance, that army can never be
stationed where they're from so thatthey don't patronize, you know, and
(35:12):
fraternize with the local people.
That police, the Gendarmerie, forinstance, which is part of the national
police, can never stay in one placelonger than two, three years so that
they don't buddy up with people toomuch, and all of this comes out of this
major period of civil unrest in 1907.
Annie (35:29):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It just complicate it.
Because if you think about it, whenFrench people colonised Algeria,
Algeria was not a wine producing partof the world, but French people brought
in wine because they wanted wine.
Elyse (35:44):
That was a good place to grow it, I guess.
Annie (35:46):
They probably found favorable growing circumstances.
And then when the French left, sothe Algerians are left with all these
grape vines and they don't drink wine.
That's not their thing.
And so, they wanted to sell it abroad,you know, which complicated things.
And a lot of, like you mentioned atthe very beginning, they imported a lot
(36:09):
of workers from Algeria, and so thesepeople had ties to the wineries back
home and it created a massive problem.
Elyse (36:19):
The 20th century was a very complicated part of history for this part
of France, really, for economically...Now, some of the more beautiful things
that have to do with this area areconnected clearly to the old buildings,
the beautiful old city, and then theCanal du Midi, which is really just
one of the most remarkable things.
And I am so glad we did kindof turn around in circles for a
(36:43):
while, but I am so glad that weeventually did find the famous...
What do you mean?
What?
The nine locks of the Fontserin,which are so gorgeous.
I was so sorry that we couldn'tstay longer there, you know,
it was the end of the day.
It's a World UNESCO HeritageSite, it's very close to the
city, it's down below obviously.
(37:04):
What happened was that as theywere finishing the Canal du Midi,
and of course, unfortunately, allof this was really finished just
a few months after Riquet died.
It was his son who was responsiblefor overseeing the final work.
In this particular part of the land,there's too much of a difference in
height between one part and another.
(37:24):
It's over 21 meters of difference,which is a fair amount.
And so the engineers, I mean, we'retalking about the 1680s, okay?
We're talking about that long ago.
They managed to figure out how inthe space of less than what is it?
Maybe 100 meters, I can't...I don't... 200 meters.
Annie (37:44):
They probably spread out along 500 meters or perhaps a little more.
Yeah.
Elyse (37:49):
But we have nine locks, literally, and each one is just big
enough for the barge to get into.
You close both sides.
And this is how they created thisso that the boats coming both ways
basically could go from where it was sealevel to where it was 21 meters high.
And you couldn't do it in just one or twolocks, so they did nine of these locks.
Annie (38:10):
Yeah.
Elyse (38:11):
Six of them are still in operation.
It's beautiful.
... Annie (38:14):
It's beautiful.
Lots of people walking around withtheir dogs, their strollers, their...
And also, we should say that PierrePaul Riquet was born in Béziers.
That's the city of his birth, you know?
He was born in 1609.
The other illustrious person that wasborn in Béziers is Jean Moulin, the
resistant, that we did an episode about.
(38:35):
It's an important city.
Elyse (38:36):
It's an important city.
And there is a very small...unfortunately closed because it's
the holidays and it was a Monday, butthere is a very small museum for Jean
Moulin, which is in, apparently, thehouse that his father had in Béziers.
And it has a lot of his artwork,because in spite of everything else,
on top of being the major resistantand real hero, he was also an artist.
And so he liked to draw.
(38:58):
A lot of his work is keptby his father in the house.
The history of Béziers is rich, it'sold, it's varied, it's got all of
this beautiful nature with the locks,with the canal, with the walks along
the river, and then it has all ofthis, which always fascinates me,
the old, tiny, narrow little windystreets in the old upper bridge.
Annie (39:18):
Yes.
And it really has a lot of those inthe hyper center, and some of those I
wouldn't want to live there because thehouses are so close together that you
don't get a lot of sunlight, you know?
They're too close together.
Elyse (39:31):
They're real medieval.
Annie (39:32):
Yes, they are medieval, but the city is just really interesting.
And I can only see it gentrifying andimproving over the next few years because
they really love their mayor in Béziers.
And their mayor is a complicated guy.
Elyse (39:50):
Yeah.
He's a very complicated... Did youknow that he was one of the founders
of Reporters sans Frontières?
Oui, oui.
Yeah.
Okay, everybody out there,we need to mention this.
The mayor is a man namedMénard, Robert Ménard.
He is a very interesting man.
This is his third term.
He is right wing, rather right wing.
Annie (40:06):
Right, but he started as left wing.
Elyse (40:08):
But he started as left wing, and he was one of the founders of
what is an incredible thing calledthe Reporters without Borders, which
is an incredible organization thatdefends the freedom of press and
journalism everywhere in the world.
And somehow, over the courseof... Well, he's in his, what?
His early 60s.
(40:29):
Over the course of the last 35,I don't know how many years, his
political positions shifted frombeing really left wing to being
more, and more, and more right wing.
He is the mayor of Béziers, and he isuncontested as the mayor of Béziers.
Annie (40:47):
People love him.
Elyse (40:48):
People love him.
People love him.
And he has been responsible formost of the projects that help the
gentrification, for bringing inpeople, for doing all these things to
make Béziers a nicer place to live.
Because when he took it over, itwas really in bad condition and was
economically depressed, the wholecity center was falling apart.
Of course, it's much easier to dealwith creating new outer things like the
(41:12):
huge shopping center than to work onfixing up things because it takes a lot
more money to renovate an old buildingthan to build from scratch, in a way.
But he is, he's a verystrange and enigmatic person.
Everybody in France knowsabout Ménard because...
Annie (41:26):
Well, he's well-spoken.
If you hear him on theradio, he makes sense.
And also he's a... Okay,so he's a populist, okay?
There's no question that he's a populist,but he's the kind of populist who's
not trying to take advantage of thesituation to make a bloody fortune for
himself, which is what most populists do.
(41:47):
He actually is using the fundsthat he can raise up to help the
population, all of the population.
So I can forgive him for havingkind of narrow-minded ideas
politically because he's actuallydoing good things for the city.
Well... you know...
Elyse (42:08):
I mean, he's a bit of a paradox because he has some more and more
he has ideas that he used to attack.
In other words, he has ideas about, youknow, identity and things like that.
Well, and you see it because in a lotof places, but only French people would
notice this, like, he renamed part ofthe plaza where, big plaza in front of
(42:31):
the cathedral, he renamed a section ofit after a priest who was assassinated
in Brittany by wannabe jihadists.
The poor man had a horrible death.
Some young men entered hischurch and beheaded him.
And so he renamed the plaza after him.
(42:51):
And there's a plaque that says, you know,where they killed, you know, "Jihadists
killed a priest," blah, blah, blah.
He put a nativity inthe plaza of City Hall.
It's a beautiful little nativity.
He also put a menorah though.There'salso a menorah up because he's
very much in support of Israel.
(43:12):
There's a little kind of a wannabenewspaper-ish thingy that they
put on billboards in the city.
And if you read it, which I did, atthe very bottom, it says that 78% of
ecologists, so Green Party people buytheir Christmas decorations from China.
(43:34):
Which, in a sense is neither herenor there, because if you can
find them anywhere else, you know?
But it is true.
He's very enigmatic, I must say.
It's strange because at the same timehe is really helping Béziers improve and
it's bringing more people in who havemoney, which helps of course the city.
And at the same time, I am always curiousabout someone whose political ideas shift
(43:57):
so radically in their lifetime, you know.
Annie (43:59):
Well, yeah.
But he went from doing good in asocialist kind of way, to doing
good in a populist kind of way.
But at least he's not a kleptomaniac.
As far as we know, he has neverprofited personally from his position.
It's possible that in 50 yearswe'll figure out that we were
(44:21):
wrong about that, you know.
Populist often rob people blind.
Elyse (44:26):
I'm just hoping that since it doesn't look like he's about to leave
as mayor of the city, I did look upthe statistics because I was sort of
curious, so 26% of the population is Arab.
And a good part of that is young people,and of course part of the problem with
young people is they need work, you know?
Annie (44:42):
Well, of course anywhere.
Elyse (44:43):
France is a complicated place right now in relation to things like that.
And Béziers is typical of an areathat has depended on agricultural
work and immigrant workers for along time, and it has to enter into
the 21st century and change things.
So, he's probably the right person forthe moment in a place like that, you know?
Annie (45:01):
At any rate, politics aside, the place is very pleasant.
Elyse (45:06):
And very interesting.
Annie (45:07):
Interesting, pleasant.
I recommend if you go, it would be apretty good place to base yourself out
of if you want to visit the Languedoc.
You know, from there, you could doday trips to Narbonne, to Montpellier,
to Sete, going south to Collioure.
Mm-hmm.
Elyse (45:27):
It's a little far to Collioure, but...
But for the coast, there are a coupleof things nearby, I'd just like to
mention them because of course there'sthe Oppidum of Enserune, which is really
fabulous, which is right along the coast.
Now, these are things unfortunatelyyou really do need a car for, you know?
Exactly.
And it closed.
But it's absolutely gorgeous.
It has a museum.
This is in the middle of the vineyardsand the pine trees, which is, you
(45:47):
know, a landscape that I love.
And it's really an oppidum which is,you know, it was a Gallic fortification
before the Romans came, and it'sreally fascinating to see what
they've done there with the museum.
And also, there are two abbeys nearby.
One is Fopntcaude and the otherone is Valemagne, which are
beautiful, absolutely beautiful.
These are all very, verysimilar and Valemagne.
(46:11):
Right outside, betweenBéziers and Montpellier.
Annie (46:13):
Okay.
You put that in the show notes, right?
Elyse (46:16):
And the Château Laurens, which I visited with my husband in Agde.
Château Laurens.
Yeah, and which is this fantasy,built by this very rich man at the
end of the 19th, beginning of the20th century, that's just reopened.
It's one of these like gorgeousdel- delirious things, you know?
It's really worth visiting.
(46:37):
One thing we didn't mention, wementioned briefly the Rambla, the,
what, so they call it Rambla Biterroise.
A rambla is a concept that's veryimportant to the Spanish and Catalans
and of course, French Catalan countryis not very far from Béziers.
And they have this long avenue with thecenter of it is pedestrian you have trees.
(46:58):
Yeah.
And Béziers went through a periodwhere it wanted to be Paris.
And so they kind of widened that oneavenue, Avenue Paul Riquet, and they
have buildings that kind of lookHaussmannian, a few of them anyway.
They also built this park, Le Parc desPoetes, which it kind of looks like
a Paris park, you know, it's a hill.
(47:19):
It kind of looks like the Buttes-Chaumont.
And I've heard people from Paris saythat it's actually very much nicer
than the Buttes-Chaumont, which great.
We didn't have time.
We only had a day.
So, that's the thing.
If you are going to go visit Béziers,I would recommend you arrive in
the afternoon, spend the night,spend most of the day the next day,
(47:41):
at least, to just see Béziers.
And then if you are going tostay there to, I don't know, as
a place to center yourself out ofto go see the rest of the area.
You don't absolutely need a carto see many things, but to see
some of the things you need a car.
If you have children with you,you could go to Valras Plage,
which has totally changed.
(48:02):
We went, we spent an hour.
No, not even an hour.
I was hoping to charge andI, somebody beat me to it.
Dang it.
The waterfront is very nice.
It's beautiful sandy beach.
There's little restaurants along there.
It's a very nice beach.
So if you're with kids, it's a greatplace to spend a few days, just
enjoying the beach and doing daytrips, going to see... But I don't
(48:26):
think Valras Plage has a train.
So for that you need a car.
Yeah, you need a car.
Some places do, some places don't.
So just check them.
I know that to go to Sete, Montpelier,Narbonne, Collioure, train.
You could always take a train.
But Valras, mm-mm, no train.
One last thing.
I didn't really make it a list onthe show notes, but it's... There's
(48:46):
really great food there, and a lot ofit... of course comes from the sea.
Annie (48:50):
But of course, there's also a lot of, like the mayor
was born in Oran in Algeria.
So, there's couscous.
Elyse (48:57):
It's wonderful Mediterranean cooking and lots of oysters, and
lots of shellfish, and lots of thetielle, which I absolutely love.
Annie (49:06):
Yeah, Tielle de Sète.
I don't love, I find them too dry.
Elyse (49:10):
Add a little sauce to it.
But it's really a great area forfood and it's not that expensive
in... compared to some other parts.
Annie (49:16):
No, really.
If you compare the prices inBéziers compared to Nice, uh...
Elyse (49:21):
Right.
Annie (49:22):
It's night and day.
Night and day.
And in Béziers you don't havepeople on top of each other
like you're doing around Nice.
But I'm talking to somebody wholikes a bit of land or, you know,
a bit of a garden, whatever.
I think you can do that in Béziers.
In Nice, like good luck finding a place.
They're on top of each other.
They're crazy over there.
Elyse (49:44):
For the moment, I think that Béziers has not suffered from overtourism.
Annie (49:48):
No, it really hasn't.
But you know, if you're exploring theSouthwest and possibly a place to call
your own, I think the Béziers areais a good place to take a look at.
Elyse (49:59):
The oldest city in France!
Annie (50:01):
That's right.
We've decided.
Sold.
It's the oldest city in France.
Elyse (50:07):
It's the oldest city in France.
Annie (50:09):
Merci beaucoup, Elyse!
Elyse (50:12):
Au revoir.
Au revoir.
Annie (50:19):
Again, I want to thank my patrons for giving back and supporting the show.
Patrons get several exclusiverewards for doing so, you can
see them at patreon.com/JoinUs.
And a special shout out this week to mynew Join Us in France champions: Patti,
(50:42):
Darlene, Kathy G., Chubba, Colleen Butera,
Kelly Dannar, Joy, TrishaChaffrey, and Mary Jane Jacques.
And thank you, Steven Struck, forupgrading your pledge to Groupie
du Podcast, and for having beena suporter for a very long time.
(51:06):
Also, thank you, Sherri DuskeyRinker, for upgrading your
support to Fou de France yearly.
And about episode 535, Sherri said: 'I really enjoyed this episode. (51:13):
undefined
It made my long drivetoday much more enjoyable'.
And I love to hear that youtake me along on your drives.
And also thank you, JayHardcastle, for editing your
pledge up to Groupie du Podcast.
Jay has been a patron since2020, which is wonderful.
(51:34):
And lastly for today, my thanksalso to Tamara Clahan for upgrading
her pledge to Groupie du Podcast,merci, merci to all of you.
Would you join them too?
You can do it for as little as $3 amonth, but if you can afford it, I
would love to have you pledge more soyou have access to even more rewards.
Go to patreon.com/joinus, and tosupport Elyse go to patreon.com/ElysArt.
(52:04):
This week I had my zoommeetings with patrons.
It's always a joy and a boostto talk to you face to face.
Lovely to see you.
If you listen to this episode, as soonas it comes out, I've just arrived
in Paris where I'll spend two weeksworking on a new VoiceMap tour.
Perhaps two, if I'm very efficient.
(52:25):
I love those tours.
They are my babies, just asmuch as these episodes are.
And you may think, oh, perhaps shemakes a killing on those tours, right?
Not at all.
They are actually pretty cheapto buy, which is my fault.
I could raise the prices.
And of all of the things I work on,this is probably the least profitable.
But I keep making them because I lovesharing the stories and places of Paris.
(52:50):
I don't think there's a better wayto tour a city than at your leisure,
with earbuds in your ears, withsomeone who loves the place, tell you
about it and guides you through it.
When I go somewhere I don't know,I look for a VoiceMap tour because
the technology makes it easy to getfully immersed and savor the moment.
(53:11):
It so beats bumming around, lookingfor information on Google Maps
or whatever you're used to doing.
At any rate, I'll be enjoyingParis imagining you also enjoying
Paris, and it's a joy to do that.
And because it's not as profitable asother work I do in my podcast journey, I
would have stopped doing these long agoif it weren't for Patricia Perry, who is
(53:34):
such a good friend and lets me stay ather apartment in the 15e Arrondissement,
a wonderful part of Paris as well.
So thank you, Patricia.
Podcast listeners get a bigdiscount for buying these tours
from my website, especially ifyou're going to get a bundle.
But if you buy directly fromme, it is a manual process.
I'm not a robot.
It might take a few hoursfor you to get the codes.
(53:57):
So if you're in big hurry, just getthem from the VoiceMap app directly.
And if you want to read more reviews ofthese tours, go to joinusinfrance.com/VMR.
That stands for VoiceMap Reviews.
If you're planning a trip to Franceand you need personalized advice,
hire me as your itinerary consultant,choose the Bonjour service or the
(54:19):
VIP service if you need a detailedfollow up guide after our Zoom call.
Ready to start?
Visit joinusinfrance.com/boutique andfollow the simple email instructions.
All right, let's talk about what'scoming up in Paris the next few months.
The Paris Marathon is comingto Paris on April 13th.
(54:42):
If you are going to be running itin 2025, I would love to record
an episode with you about it.
Reach out to me annie@joinusinfrance.Com.
And I don't think it's too lateto sign up if you're into that
sort of grueling sports event.
The European Museum Night is alsocoming up on May 17th and 18th.
(55:05):
There are going to be guided tours, liveshows, screenings, tastings, and more.
As night falls, more than a thousandmuseums across France wake up
to offer visitors original andfriendly artistic experiences as
part of the European Museum Night.
This is a free event for anyonewho shows up, but you will not have
(55:27):
access to the whole museum, onlyto the events going on that night.
The Bordeaux Wine Festival is a wonderfulevent on the banks of the Garonne River.
From June 19th until June 22.
If I'm around, I will definitely go.
I would love to see that.
They showcase Bordeaux wines,but also wines from the entire
(55:49):
region of the Nouvelle Aquitaine,and also local produce.
This provides visitors with anexceptional chance to encounter
wine growers and vendors who areeager to share their passion.
Also, it's an excellent opportunityto explore some of the most esteemed
names of Bordeaux wines, includingSaint-Emilion-Pomerol-Fronsac,
(56:10):
Medoc wines, Graves-Sauternes, andMouton-Cadet, Baron Philippe de
Rothschild, among others, you get atasting pass so you can enjoy trying
some of the wonderful wines as well.
For the gourmet food part of this event,you'll be able to enjoy local cheeses,
charcuterie, duck, artisanal ice cream,the delightful canneles from Bordeaux, and
(56:36):
fabulous oysters from the Arcachon Basin.
You'll also be able to visit threeamazing historic sailing ships.
Le Beleme, that's a French threemast ship, El Galeón, a replica of
Spanish galleons that you've heardabout in pirate stories, and the
Santa María Manuela, an amazingPortugues four mast fishing vessel.
(56:59):
But an old one.
And if you're coming to Franceanytime this summer, you have
a big event to look forward to.
They are calling it Cézanne 2025and it will take place between
June 28th and October 12th.
Here's what I found out about it.
In 2025, Provence is preparingto celebrate one of its greatest
(57:20):
artistic heroes, Paul Cézanne.
The Cézanne 2025 event invites visitorsto discover Aix-en-Provence and the
surrounding area through a journeyinto the world of post impressionist
master and precursor of modern art.
It's a unique experience combiningexhibitions, art trails in the heart
(57:44):
of nature, and the Provence vineyards.
Much of this will take place inand around Aix-en-Provence where
he spent 40 years of his life.
The exhibit is going to be calledCézanne au Jas de Bouffan and the
Orsay Museum will lend many of itsbest Cézanne paintings to various
(58:04):
museums around Aix-en-Provence.
It'll be nice for these paintingsto go home for a while, anyway.
I'll put a link in the show notes forthose of you who want more information.
And last but not least, the Tour deFrance, of course, is going to start
on July 5th and end on August 3rd.
(58:24):
This year it'll be exclusivelyin France, and they'll cover
3,320 kilometers in 21 stages.
And the Women's Tour de France isgoing to be starting on July 26th
in Vannes and end in Châtel inthe Alps on August 3rd as well.
So both tours end on the same day thisyear, which I think is a great idea.
(58:47):
And on a personal note, I'd like to sharethat I had a whirlwind trip to Utah last
week to attend my father in law's funeral.
He was a wonderful human being,a gifted musician and composer,
beloved by all in his community.
So many people attended, I was astounded.
And this was truly the bestfuneral I've ever attended.
(59:10):
There was family closeness, music,beautiful tributes given by the people
who knew him and loved him most.
It was wonderful.
He died peacefully at age 84, andI'm certain he will be remembered
fondly forever, and I will miss him.
My thanks to podcast editorsAnne and Christian Cotovan,
who produced the transcripts.
(59:32):
Next week on the podcast, anepisode with MasterChef's Andrew
Prior, who loves French food.
He got me salivating.
Thank you so much for listening,and I hope you join me next time, so
we can look around France together.
Au revoir.
The Join Us in France travelpodcast is written, hosted, and
produced by Annie Sargent, andCopyright 2025 by AddictedToFrance.
(59:57):
It is released under a CreativeCommons attribution, non-commercial,
no derivatives license.
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