Gruissan

Our second day in Narbonne was mostly administrative, but included two extended visits to the giant Carrefour across the street. Among the marvels there was the automatic crepe-making machine, which, I know, Vicki posted earlier on Facebook. It was a marvel, and warrants posting here too. As we wandered up and down the aisles, gawking at all the food and drink and other stuff we have missed since summer of 2016, we kept asking ourselves "So why is it we are planning to leave France?!" We did not answer the question but did decide to move on, 8 whole kilometers down the road, back toward the sea, to Gruissan, with its Medieval tower and radial old town. And possibly free aire.

In all its glory

The tower and fortress ruins at Gruissan, our goal

We parked in the old town and began threading
our way through the alleys to the foot of the
hill

Thus

There was more signage and explanation about
the "castle" and keep at Gruissan than
practically anything we have seen, ever, but I'll
spare you, and myself, from more than this

Chapel just below the tower

Flying model boat, as is common in port towns

Usual religious mannequins

Price list, although the explanation at the bottom
is convincing; I left a small offering

Back to the tower

And there it is; total wowsers

View back to Narbonne and the canal that links it to the sea
(through the lagoon, which is what you're looking at)

The tower

View over the town to the salt pans, which is the major
industry here

Mountains of recently harvested salt

Boats on the lagoon

Part of what attracted us to Gruissan, apart from the tower, is
that it is a radial town; this is hard to appreciate from the tower
itself, so we rented the Michelin blimp to get this better view;
note the canal

We spent some talking walking and shopping through the pretty
old town

The elementary school

Other tourists up on the tower

To our astonishment, flamingos in the lagoon, doing their
usual contortions; so we have see flamingos on three continents
recently...

We watched this guy chain-sawing these huge timbers, still not
understanding exactly how they are going into the small house
he is building

Little lending libraries very big in Gruissan

We ended up at the plage at Gruissan, at an aire that had closed
for the season but whose gate someone had kindly left open

We were not alone

Sunset