Languedoc Beaches: Reviews and photos of the beaches of Languedoc Roussillon, South France |
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The sea beaches of Languedoc Roussillon, south France, (click here to read about the RIVER & LAKE BEACHES of Languedoc) tend to be larger and sandier than Provence's pebbly equivalents, and some stretch for miles along a coastline that is predominantly flat and straight. (Espiguette, in the Camargue, is said to be Europe's longest.)
Many of Languedoc's 'town' beaches, such as Carnon, St Pierre and Canet are truly awful - ruined by legions of cheap concrete beach apartments in garish pink. But get off the beaten track, and some of Languedoc's beaches are amongst the most beautiful in the south of France.
Cap D'Agde's beach is excellent - but don't forget it forms part of Europe's largest nudist colony - and you'll pay €5 per person just to get in. Portiragnes and Serignan are Beziers' best beaches, also quite secluded and free from ugly buildings. |
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La Franqui and Leucate are the next of Languedoc's beaches that we've marked as 'excellent'. Part of La Franqui's beach is double-sided - with the sea on one side and the etang (inland lake) on the other. Leucate has two beaches - one larger one that feels like a southern Californian or Australian beach town, and a more remote, thin strip of beach bordered by rocks.
The last beach we've scored as 'Excellent' is Argeles - Languedoc's most famous beach - which at its northern end is truly beautiful, with its stunning views of the Pyrenees and lush park of grass and pine trees just behind the beach itself.
Languedoc's beaches tend to be straight and long until just south of Perpignan. Here, where the Pyrénées meet the sea, Languedoc's beaches along the 'Cote de Vermeille' coastline suddenly break into craggy inlets - with smaller, more secluded beaches. You're guaranteed to find beaches here, even in summer, with very few people on them - if you're prepared to climb a little. |
| About our review of Languedoc's beaches
It took many a hot day with clipboard and camera, but we finally got there - a comprehensive (and as far as we know, the world's only) review of all of Languedoc's beaches.
We've scored them from Bad to Excellent - but please take these scores with a good pinch of salt. Beach-beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and we tend to prefer our beaches wild and remote. If you have kids or just like to be near civilisation, you may well prefer the more built-up beaches - so just ignore our scores and focus instead on the information provided.
Remember also that we've scored beaches purely on how well each performs as a beach. So for example, Collioure's town is exquisite, but its beach rates rather poorly as it is pebbly and small. Simply click on any beach shown on the map, and you'll be taken down to that beach's review below. Should you find a Languedoc beach that we've missed, we'd love to hear about it - simply click here to e-mail us.
Click here to read an article on how our Languedoc Beach Report was compiled. Click here to read about the Best Beach Bars. |
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| Montpellier's Beaches |
Espiguette:  Excellent |
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| The King of Languedoc's beaches, Espiguette stretches for kilometre after kilometre of fine sandy dunes. This beach is big enough to find your own space, no matter how many people are there. The walk from the car park can be as long as you want - but the further you go, the more nude and then more gay it becomes. There are no buildings near by, but in summer the odd drinks seller will pass by. Finish your day here with a drink at nearby Aigues Mortes. |
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La Grande Motte:  OK |
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| La Grande Motte is a huge and very famous seaside resort that, in summer, is absolutely crammed with hundreds of thousands of eager holiday makers. It's not a particularly up-market sort of place, with rather ugly concrete high-rise apartment blocks looming wherever you go. The beach here is not very big either, and so gets absolutely packed in summer - but it's well served with restaurants and amenities and activities for children. |
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Le Grand Travers: OK |
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| Between the big urban beaches at La Grande Motte and Carnon (Montpellier) is a long, very flat strip of beach named 'La Grand Travers'. It's quite close to the road, and you'll be spoilt to a charming view of 1960's high-rises and cranes building yet more concrete apartments in the distance. It does, however, offer on-beach restaurants and night clubs between May and September. The end closest to Carnon is called Le Petit Travers, and is the closest beach to Montpellier - it's quite a popular beach in winter for joggers and people with kids and dogs. |
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Carnon:  Bad |
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| There's just something cheap and nasty about Montpellier's two big beaches, Carnon and Palavas. Carnon is lined with truly hideous concrete holiday apartments that seem to have lost out in popularity over the years to La Grande Motte. The beach itself is made up of smaller beaches created by large wave barriers. Strangely, there isn't much in the way of restaurants or bars along the beach, for that you'll have to venture into the delights of Carnon town. |
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Palavas: Bad |
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| Similar to Carnon, Palavas is lined with concrete apartment blocks, only these are higher and even more ugly. The town itself is relatively lively, with attractions for children and plenty of cheap restaurants and bars. |
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Maguelone:  Good |
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| Further down the coast and away from the built-up mass beaches of Palavas and Carnon we find Maguelone. The beach is relatively slim but quite long, and is very popular with nude bathers and gay men. It's quieter than the big Montpellier beaches. Parking is free if you're prepared to walk - whereas paid parking is quite close to the beach itself. A beach bar/restaurant offers sun loungers and umbrellas for a price. |
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Des Aresquiers : OK |
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| This must be Languedoc's thinnest beach - being only perhaps 10m wide in places. It's quite pebbly and a little claustrophobic, but is away from any of the coast's ugly buildings and feels quite wild and remote. It's quite popular with anglers, who line up their rods along the shore. |
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Frontignan: OK |
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| Another urban beach, but this time with slightly less ugly buildings. The sand is gritty and pebbly, however, and suddenly falls down in a steep bank just before hitting the water's edge. It's quite a long beach, but not very wide - so you're never far from those buildings. |
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La Corniche (North) : Good |
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| Just below the smelly hubbub of Sète is La Corniche, a large, deep beach with nice views of the promontory on which Sète sits. There's a huge, free parking lot and in summer there are at least 3 large restaurant/night clubs on the beach itself. Though it lacks the atmosphere of La Corniche South's beach, it is better set up for food and drink, and its size guarantees you can get away from the noise of the road. |
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La Corniche (South): OK |
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| The wide beach at La Corniche North thins out, running along the road between Sète and Cap D'Agde for many kilometres. It's a thin beach, so the road and its noise are never far away. But the sand is fine, and being further away from Sète, the beach has a slightly wilder atmosphere, with no buildings within sight. |
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| Beziers' Beaches |
Marseillan Plage: Good |
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| The beach at Marseillan Plage looks and feels very much like Cap D'Agde's - except that its bathers aren't nude. It's long and wide, with beautifully fine sand and not an ugly building in sight. There are no restaurants nearby - but you can pop into the town which isn't far for a bite to eat. |
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Cap D'Agde nudist beach: Excellent |
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| There are 5 beaches in all at Cap D'Agde - and this is probably the most famous. The beach forms part of Europe's largest nudist colony, and is actually one of the nicest beaches in Languedoc. Long and wide, it offers fine sand and, if you walk far enough down it, freedom from buildings. Official entrance to the complex and beach is €5 per person, but it's said you can get to the beach at the other end without paying. The beach really is 100% nude, and the further reaches have been known to offer evening sex shows - replete with gawking spectators. |
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Cap D'Agde's 6 beaches: - Good to Excellent |
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| There are six beaches in this area, ranging from small coves (Plage de la Conque and La Plagette) through to long stretches of sand 14 kms (Plage de Richelieu and Plage de Rochelongue). Plage de Roquille is covered with sea shells while Plage du Mole is very safe for small children, having a wide flat area of shallow water. Each of the beaches has a parking area nearby but the beaches are only backed by footpaths, so are not plagued by traffic noise. Unusually for this area, there is a rocky headland with magnificent views to Sete in one direction and the Pyrenees in the other. - Jackie Wakeley |
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Vias: Good |
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| Like Serignan, Vias has a line of tall, grassy sand banks running along behind it that give it a more secluded feel. The beach is quite long but not very wide, with tidal barriers creating lots of mini-beaches. A few snack bars sit behind the sand bank, but from the beach itself you can't see any buildings at all. |
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Portiragnes: Excellent |
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| Remote and relatively wild, Portiragnes is a lovely beach, with fine sand and practically no views of ugly commerce. It's smaller than the huge Narbonne beaches - and so feels more intimate. |
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Serignan: Excellent |
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| Like Portiragnes and Vendres, Serignan feels more remote and wild, with a grassy sand bank hiding the few buildings that sit behind the beach. You can just see Cap D'Agde in the distance (see photo) and the etang (inland lake) borders the north end of the beach. The restaurant behind the sand bank offers simple meals. You can also rent miniature ponies for kids to ride on. |
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Valras: OK |
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| Valras beach is one of Languedoc's big 'town beaches' like Narbonne, Canet and Palavas. It's certainly bustling, with plenty of tacky postcard shops and ice cream stalls. The beach itself is nice, with large wave-breakers having been built to stop erosion. This has created a number of 'beachlets' - smaller beaches separated by thin rock promontories. A good choice if you have kids, as ice cream and kiddie areas are never far, but not particularly beautiful or atmospheric. |
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Vendres: Good |
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| Vendres is one of the more hidden beaches, despite being just below busy Valras. It has quite a wild feel, and is very straight and long. Unfortunately, you can see the concrete of Valras in the distance and the sand is a little gritty, but its large and remote enough for you to feel you've escaped. |
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| Narbonne's Beaches |
St Pierre: Bad |
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| We think St Pierre is one of the the ugliest beaches in Languedoc, with all the concrete of Narbonne plage without as many restaurants and things for kids to play on. Whereas on Narbonne, you see only the buildings directly behind you, on St Pierre, the hills behind treat you to a view of row upon row of bright pink holiday flats rising above you. Nasty. |
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Narbonne (North): OK |
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| Like Languedoc's other big 'town beaches', Narbonne plage comes with a tacky mess of cheap restaurants and tourist shops. But Narbonne's beach is larger and more spacious than Beziers' Valras, and somehow seems more lively than Montpellier's Carnon. There's also quite a lot for kids - with trampolines and swings and merry-go-rounds. |
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Narbonne (South): OK |
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| Walk down Narbonne beach, and the buildings die out giving way to nothing but a flat, enormous stretch of sand. It's not particularly charming - but it has a certain atmosphere, and especially in winter, is a great place to walk with dogs. In summer, it's large enough that you can escape the crowds and have your own space. |
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Mateille: OK |
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| Very long, very wide, very flat - Mateille would probably be perfect for sand sailing. But as a beach to sit on, it just feels a little too big and flat and open, without much atmosphere and any interesting views. That said, it's large enough to promise a certain degree of privacy. |
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Gruissan: Good |
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| Gruissan is a popular seaside resort village with a ruin on top of a hill above the village itself. Its beach is really a continuation of the massive, wide stretches of sand that start at St Pierre. Like Narbonne and Mateille, it is extremely flat and wide, and feels very open. It does benefit from being further from the ugly buildings of Narbonne Plage, and is right next to a popular sailing port, where you can rent wind surfers. |
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La Franqui: Excellent |
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| Very popular with wind surfers, La Franqui's beach is large and wide, with fine sand. There are two beaches, one just in front of a sweet village, and one further up the coast that is bordered by the sea on one side, and the etang (inland lake) on the other. The result is a long strip of 2-sided beach. It's windy here (thus the wind surfers) with pretty surroundings and relaxed, friendly restaurants. |
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Leucate: Excellent |
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| Sandwiched between the ugly ports of Nouvelle and Barcarès, Leucate plage comes as a very pleasant surprise. It feels more like an Australian beach town just outside Sydney - with relatively attractive houses climbing up pretty fir-covered hills. There are two beaches here, a main, large beach just in front of the town, and, further along (accessible only by climbing round the rocks), a much slimmer beach bordered by rocks that is popular with nude bathers and, at the very end, gay men. Leucate is also popular with wind surfers, and boards can be hired in the town. |
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Port Leucate: Good |
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| Port Leucate is basically an enormous holiday development, with not-too-unattractive orange and beige holiday blocks laid out amongst neatly manicured gardens. The beach is long and very deep, separated from the developments behind by a well-tended boardwalk, popular with roller skaters. The sand is gritty (like most of the Perpignan beaches) and suddenly slopes just before the water's edge. There's plenty of parking, and lots of restaurants, bars and a few shops. Even mini-golf is not far away. |
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