Under an hour away
You think you are coming for two days
The sea is half an hour away. The gorges the same. A cave at twenty minutes, a circle of dolomite rock at nine, a red lake at ten. In between, villages you enter through a carriage gate, and vines that climb all the way to the ridges.
Nobody has ever left here having seen it all.
At the foot of the lodges
In Cabrières
- The copper mines in the village
- The oldest in France: copper was being extracted here around 2900 BC. The Pioch Farrus mine still holds 1.2 km of galleries, where the Romans left their oil lamps behind. A CNRS research programme has been devoted to it, and the digs continue. The mine itself is closed, but the finds are on show at the Estabel cellar, and a trail has led there since 2025.
- The Estabel cellar 3 minutes
- Cabrières is the smallest appellation in the Languedoc: three hundred and eighty hectares, every one of them classified. Layered schist gives the wines their freshness, and this is where the first classified rosés of the Coteaux du Languedoc were born.
- The priory and mills of Tiberet on foot
- A 12th-century Templar priory attached to Sainte-Eulalie-de-Cernon. A church, a mill house, three ruined mills, at the foot of a spring. Do not go inside the ruins.
- Pic de Vissou on foot
- You can see it from the village. Two hours up through the vines, and from the top you can see the vineyard, Salagou and the sea.
Journey times are indicative, by car from Souki.
Dolomite and limestone
Stone
- The cirque de Mourèze 9 minutes
- A chaos of standing dolomite rock, carved by time. The closest, and the most striking. A climb leads up to Mont Liausson, from where you see the whole of Salagou.
- The Clamouse cave 20 minutes
- The widest range of crystalline formations in France. Stalactites, discs, aragonite in flakes. There is a caving route as well, for anyone who wants to crawl.
- The Pont du Diable 20 minutes
- Built in the 11th century at the mouth of the Hérault gorges. People swim underneath it, in bottle-green water.
- Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert 25 minutes
- A medieval village deep in the gorges, its Gellone abbey listed by UNESCO, a hundred-year-old plane tree in the middle of the square. Go early.
The lake, the gorges, the sea
Water
- Lac du Salagou 10 minutes
- Red earth, dark water, and nothing around it. You can swim, and walk or cycle the whole way round. The red comes from the ruffes, iron-rich clays laid down two hundred and seventy million years ago.
- The gorges d’Héric 30 minutes
- A schist canyon in the Caroux, with clear pools between the rocks. You climb as far as you like, and come back down when the water calls.
- The Étang de Thau, at Bouzigues 30 minutes
- Nineteen kilometres of lagoon, oyster tables all the way to the horizon. You eat the oysters where they come out of the water.
- The beaches 30 minutes
- Vias is the closest, then la Tamarissière and Marseillan. Further along, the black sand of la Grande Conque, at the foot of an old volcano.
Five mornings, five villages
The markets
- Tuesday evening — Villeneuvette 5 to 8 pm, June to September
- Organic growers inside the old manufactory. The closest one, and nobody knows it.
- Wednesday morning — Clermont-l’Hérault from 8 am
- Up to two hundred stalls. The one where you do your shopping.
- Thursday evening — Octon 6 to 8.30 pm, July and August
- The market of scents and flavours, on the shore of the Salagou.
- Saturday morning — Pézenas 8 am to 1 pm, all year
- The finest of them. The main market runs from place Frédéric Mistral to place du Marché des Trois Six; the organic growers’ market is held at square du Poilu.
- Sunday morning — Salasc early July to late August
- On the place des Comédiens.
Opening times checked for the 2026 season.
15 minutes
Pézenas
Molière’s town. He came three times, in 1650, 1653 and 1655, with Dufresne’s company, under the protection of the Prince de Conti, who was Count of Pézenas. He stayed at the Grange des Prés.
L’Illustre Théâtre performs Molière every evening at 9.30 pm, from July to September, on an open-air stage set up in an old wine store. Scapin, The Miser, The Imaginary Invalid. There is a 17th-century restaurant next door. It is our favourite address for an evening out.
The Théâtre de Verdure hosts concerts, theatre and cinema through the summer. The Comédie-Française has played Dom Juan there.
The Chapelle des Pénitents Gris became a contemporary art gallery in 2025 — four to six exhibitions a year. Wednesday to Friday 2 pm-7 pm, Saturday 10 am-4 pm.
And the town lives on craft. Listed as a Ville et Métiers d’Art, it has the highest concentration of makers in the department: the Maison des Métiers d’Art in a 17th-century building, some forty antique dealers open all year, and the Atelier du Bât d’Argent — the very place where Molière played his first farces.
The petit pâté dates from 1766: the cooks of Lord Clive, convalescing here, made a sweet mutton pie in the Scottish manner. The recipe is still passed down at Maison Alary, rue des Chevaliers de Saint-Jean — the fifth family to hold it, and lodged with a notary.
One factory, two ports
Villages and towns
- Villeneuvette 5 minutes
- A royal cloth manufactory founded in 1662, which became a village. Up to eight hundred workers, a closed town within a wall. It shut down in the nineteen-fifties; seventy people live there now, many of them artists.
- Sète 40 minutes
- The canals, the fishing port, and Mont Saint-Clair, from where you see the sea on one side and the lagoon on the other. The Musée Paul Valéry faces the seaside cemetery.
- Béziers 30 minutes
- Its fortress cathedral above the Orb, the nine locks of Fonseranes on the Canal du Midi, and the allées Paul-Riquet in the shade of the plane trees.
Romanesque, gothic, contemporary
Monuments
- The Château-Abbaye de Cassan 10 minutes
- A 12th-century Romanesque church, an 18th-century abbot’s palace. Open from 18 April to 1 November. In July and August, every day, 10 am-1 pm and 3 pm-7 pm.
- The abbey of Valmagne 20 minutes
- A gothic church twenty-three metres to the vault, turned into a wine store in the 18th century. The oak casks are still there, between the columns. They used to call it the cathedral of the vines.
- The MRAC in Sérignan 30 minutes
- The regional contemporary art museum: a real collection, and demanding exhibitions.
Seven trails
Hiking
Five trails start from Cabrières.
- Œnorando des Crêtes de Vissou 4 h, 12 km, 555 m
- From the summit: the vineyard, Salagou, and all the way to the sea. There is an 8 km variant.
- Le Vissou se raconte 3 h, 9 km, 385 m
- The same mountain, the shorter way up.
- La Balade médiévale 2 h 30, 7 km
- Up towards the castle and what is left of the rampart.
- Œnorando des Drailles des Crozes 5 h, 17 km, 680 m — hard
- The vineyard, the hamlet of Les Crozes, the Tiberet priory. This one is not a stroll.
- Le sentier des mines new in 2025
- It leads to the oldest copper mines in France.
And two more, ten minutes away:
- Le cirque de Mourèze 3 h, 7.5 km, 422 m
- The rock chaos, then Mont Liausson. In July a festival takes over the village.
- Le sentier des Courtinals 1 h, 2.5 km
- The viewpoint. Short, but you need sure footing.
We keep the route sheets and the GPX tracks here. Ask us when you arrive.
We know these places, the hours when they are at their best, and the tables where you eat well nearby.
Tell us what draws you, and we will tell you where to begin.
Gilles & Fabien
How many nights?
Only two lodges, open all year round. Book direct: that is where the rate is best.
Check availability