July, 2024 - Travels with Verne and Roy

Marseillan Port Highlights, 2-29 June, Part 2 – Oysters & Noilly Prat

Marseillan port highlights: oysters and Noilly Prat; flashback to 2017… and 2023; aerial views of the Camargue; les huitres… shucking marvellous; meaning of concylicole; Le port concylicole des Mazet; les coquillages, especially Coqui Thau; cruise on L’Étang de Thau; Oyster Farming #101; Maison Noilly Prat; three more Marseillan restaurants; Father’s Day at home with Wendy

Oysters are synonymous with the Étang de Thau – a 22km-long lagoon fed by the Mediterranean Sea. You can enter it by boat from Le Canal du Rhône à Séte, which is how Roy and I got to Marseillan in July/August 2017 on our boat Karanja, while en route to the start of Le Canal du Midi. (For that story, plus scads of Boaty-McBoatface photos, click here.)

Flashback to August 2017…

Crossing LÉtang de Thau from Séte to Marseillan on Karanja, on a hazy day.

… and to mid-2023

Marseillan Port, 2-29 June 2024, Part 1

A month in Marseillan port, a gorgeous spot in the South of France; avoiding confusion; cassoulet at Marseillan Plage; Here Come the Campbells… the Baragwanaths and Wendy; out and about in Marseillan; running around L’Étang de Thau; two fêtes worse than death (not really); Marseillan Cheat Sheet; our favourite restaurants; best day-trips from Marseillan

A full year ago, Roy booked us a two-bedroom apartment in Résidence Farenc in the port town of Marseillan, right on the water, for almost the entire month of June. Four weeks might sound like a long time to be in the same place. But when the time came to leave, I felt I could have stayed another month. Roy said he felt the same way.