We picked Palavas-les-Flots, a little charming gem by the Mediterranean Sea, to be our long-awaited holiday destination.
A beach holiday in France is possible even in September, so-so. At least there is always seafood on the Southern-French dinner tables (some people have their own ones!), and if you can’t get lobster, you can turn into one.
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A beach holiday in France fits perfectly between our work trips to Italy and Spain.
After a month and a half of work in Italy, we take a week off — our first holiday in a year and a half.
We chose a destination we visited a few years ago: the small seaside town of Palavas-les-Flots in Southern France.
Few foreigners have likely heard of Palavas, even though it’s a charming and picturesque holiday town with narrow streets, boutique shops, seafood restaurants, the river running through the center, and a fishing harbor.
Foreign tourists are scarce, so you can truly experience an authentic French beach holiday here.
We already felt a longing for something new, but it wasn’t time for that yet.
Moments later the train pulled into the Montpellier station.
Montpellier did play a part in changing our lives—but this isn’t the place we didn’t fall in love with.
Quite the opposite: we could have stayed here forever.
Mediterranean town Palavas-les-Flots
With around 6,000 inhabitants, Palavas-les-Flots is also a genuine, lively Mediterranean coastal town located only a short ride away from Montpellier.
Its gentle sandy beaches stretch for kilometers. As is typical in France, people bask in the sun on their towels, shading themselves with small umbrellas jabbed into the sand to protect from the heat.
And there’s plenty of sand, since Palavas and its neighboring towns are built on a narrow, approximately forty-kilometer-long sandbar.
The area forms a unique ecosystem, where the sandbar separates the sea from a chain of small lakes. Short rivers connect the lakes to the sea and to each other in a twisting network.
This natural system is a paradise for wildlife, with the most visible residents being the pink flamingos.
Arriving in Palavas for breakfast
We arrive at the outskirts of Montpellier early in the morning via FlixBus from Torino, where we had departed at 10 p.m.
Earlier in the day, we had taken a train from the truffle town of Alba.
From the bus stop, we catch a tram to the city center, and transfer with the same ticket to a fast tram that takes us to Pérolas, near the coast.
A local bus from the same stop goes to Palavas-les-Flots, requiring a new ticket.
The trip from Montpellier city center to Palavas takes approximately 50 minutes.
The bus would have dropped us near our hotel, but as we don’t know that yet, we hop off in the city center. Besides, we’re hungry.
A café terrace near the harbor looks inviting. We sit down and order a 5€ breakfast that includes juice, coffee, a croissant, and a bun with cheese and ham.
We enjoy the sea view and the hum of conversation around us. It’s been two and a half years since our last visit to France.
After breakfast, it’s time to stretch our legs.
Our hotel is on the outskirts of the city, near the beach, about a kilometer away.
September mornings are still warm, so long sleeves come off already at breakfast.
Morning walk to the hotel
We walk through the small town center and cross the Lez River on the familiar bridge.
Down below, on the docks, fishermen unload and sell their catch. The riverbank restaurants are busiest at dinner, when finding a free table can be tricky despite their abundance.
For €5, you can cross the river on a zipline with views over the city — we did this on our first Palavas trip, fearing our sandals might fall into the water as we swung across.
We finally arrive at our hotel, *L’Albatros, a large complex between the sea and a lake.
We ask at the hotel restaurant where the reception stands; they gesture toward the back, by the lake. No reception there.
Back to the front, still only the restaurant with its terrace by the sea. After some searching, we finally find the reception somewhere halfway inside the complex.
Our room isn’t ready yet, despite promises, so we sit in the restaurant and have a glass of wine while waiting. Are these breakfast wines or early lunch wines without lunch?
At the appointed time, we return to reception — and voilà, the room is ready!
The elevator speaks to us, much to our amusement.
The room is small but features a separate WC and bathroom, a kitchenette, a dining table, and a balcony overlooking the lake. And the parking lot.
A sea-view room would have been beyond our budget; this one is reasonably priced (€61 per night including taxes).
A tree beside the balcony is filled with loudly chattering birds, making it hard to get a word in.
The sofa converts to a bed, and since we spent the night on the bus, testing its sleeping comfort is our first task.
Sleeping on the packed FlixBus hadn’t worked well, so after catching up on sleep, it’s already dinner time — one of our favorite moments.
Pastis, entrecôte and simple pleasures
We head to the riverside restaurants, hoping for a table at a decent restaurant. Early September sees the end of the holiday season, but the town is still lively.
We aren’t in a rush to eat, so we enjoy aperitifs before surveying menus on chalkboards across the street.
The offerings aren’t particularly imaginative, but right now we’re not looking for anything fancy — just simple, basic food. We ate a quite peculiar tartar stake in Alba the other night, and its memory is still haunting us.
Back to basics means also a need to find a free table, outside if possible. The luck follows the brave, and we are successful.
Tanja orders an entrecôte, and I take a pork chop.
Neither is gourmet; the sides are boring, cheap French fries, but perfectly fine for this moment.
After the dinner, we stop by the nearby bar for a nightcap. The waitress asks where we’re from and remembers our order the next night.
As told, foreigners are rare here, so we’re easy to remember. Not that a professional restaurant staff needs IDs to remember regulars — and by the second night, that’s exactly what we are.
On our walk from the city center to the hotel, we discover a small kiosk selling grilled chicken and pizzas. We plan to buy dinner here to our hotel room one day.
A bit closer to our hotel is a small square, actually a roundabout, surrounded by grocery shops: a greengrocer, butcher, bakery, and convenience store.
We buy breakfast supplies from the grocery store and baguettes from the bakery. During our stay, we’ll become regulars at these shops.
Red color sun alert in September
We came here for a beach holiday, even though it’s already September.
Southern France remains comfortably warm, but a long-sleeved sweater is needed after the sun sets, especially on our north-facing balcony.
On the beach, short sleeves and sunscreen suffice. Plenty of sunbathers are around.
The sea is already cool, but Tanja braves the waves. Our previous dip into to Mediterranean was as long as… well, a month ago. Then we were in Rome, but before that, over two years ago!
Reading books on the beach and sea-gazing feel wonderfully relaxing after a long work stretch. Eventually, we grow bored and retreat to the hotel restaurant terrace for a late lunch: a cheese platter.
Lobster man Ismo
Sitting on the terrace instead of the beach, I forget sunscreen. The bright sun fully hits one side of me — half turns bright red, the other side lighter.
Tanja tolerates the sun much better, only drinking slightly more water than usual.
We retreat to our cool room, avoiding a full “lobster experience,” and start planning dinner.
The idea is to buy the aforementioned grilled chicken, some vegetables, and wine from the roundabout shops.
Alas, no chicken remains — only pizza, which we politely skip.
Plan B: Mussels French style
No lobster, no chicken. Plan B is straightforward: a decent bistro serving mussels, our favorite delicacy.
Mussels are available in nearly every restaurant on the French Riviera. We only need to find a nice spot focusing on seafood.
We chose the restaurant Va Bene, slightly off the main restaurant strip, about fifty meters away.
We hesitate because the name is Italian, and it calls itself a restaurant-pizzeria (we love Italian food, but now we are in France).
However, the staff is friendly, the menu looks delicious, the prices are very reasonable, and the mussels come in a variety of broths.
We are usually conservative with mussels and take them either in white wine-herb broth (sailor’s wife style) or with garlic sauce.
This time, we follow the owner’s recommendation, “Palavas style.” What that entails precisely remains a secret — but it’s delicious.
For a drink, we choose the house red in a carafe, which proves excellent too.
During a previous Palavas visit, we also nibbled on oysters.
Earlier that evening, a rowing competition had taken place. During our dinner, the winning team marches past in a celebratory procession to samba music. The host shakes hands with winners and seems to know half of them — a small town indeed.
As closing time approaches, we watch how the entire terrace is packed up into a truck parked by the street.
Having spent summers in Serbia, this seems a bit surprising — in Belgrade, tables and chairs aren’t secured overnight, yet they’re still in place in the morning.
Get everything in French, but not grilled chicken
Our plan for grilled chicken never materialized.
We try a couple of times to buy the coveted dish, but it’s so popular that we are always told “sold out.”
Still, the grill owner greets us every time we pass by — that’s France!
Knowing English is not guaranteed in Palavas, so it’s wise to know a few French phrases.
Even with our limited French, we never go without service — not even at the hotel, whose receptionist doesn’t speak English.
Except, of course, for the chicken — but that’s not a language issue.
Though the chicken dinner remains a dream, we make dinner the next evening in our kitchenette.
We buy steaks and potatoes from the roundabout shops (we think that potatoes are best in Finland and France).
Boiled potatoes with butter evoke Finnish summers, especially since the evening temperature feels like a summer day back there.
While the steaks marinate in garlic, we nibble on a fresh baguette and cheese for sustenance.
There is a fort in Palavas, and people have dining tables
In the evenings, we explore the town.
The center has an observation tower, amusement park, and, of course, the church, whose square with surrounding restaurants is very atmospheric.
We don’t eat there, but revisit Va Bene.
On the outskirts and along the long beach boulevard, there is newer construction, while the center has older buildings, including the 18th-century fortress.
The beach town offers water sports and many sporting goods stores, souvenir shops, and clothing stores.
For water sports enthusiasts, in front of the town lies a large nature reserve accessible only by swimming.
During our French beach holiday, we had been living a nomadic lifestyle for two years.
We still had a furnished home in Helsinki, but it was rented out.
One evening, walking home along the beach boulevard, we glanced through a lit apartment window and see a family dining.
“Look,” says Tanja, “they have a proper dining table!”
“Those bourgeois!” I exclaim.
As if we don’t have that in Helsinki.
You can leave, but don’t leave your trash
We tidy the room and prepare a trash bag for disposal as per hotel rules. Two empty glass bottles are still standing on our dish counter.
We don’t stuff the bottles into the trash bag; we take them to the glass recycling bin. Behind the hotel, there are containers for mixed waste and glass, as usual in Europe.
The brisk receptionist marches into the room five minutes before check-out.
“Good morning! Your room should be vacated in five minutes.”
“We know, we’re just about to leave…”
“That trash bag must go, and the bottles — don’t leave them here!”
We try to explain in our limited French that we’ll do that on our departure.
The matron doesn’t listen but marches back to the reception to await our check-out.
And that happens exactly on time: ten o’clock.
“See you again, welcome back!” the receptionist cheerfully says.
Well, we’ll see. The hotel didn’t completely impress, but we would happily return to Palavas-les-Flots again.
We say goodbye to the town by sitting in a beachside bar before hopping on the bus and ceremoniously ordering a bottle of champagne.
After all, when on a beach holiday in France…
