Col de Naurouse

Pleasant overnight stop parked right on the banks of the Canal du Midi in the small village of La Segala. Nicola went for a long late afternoon bike ride along the canal while Robin sat at the canal side with a beer resting up from the driving!

We are now deep in the ancient territory of Pays d’Oc which has an interesting history prior to conquest by the French crown in the 13th century. Languedoc (Langue d’Oc) is a mix of French/Spanish and covers the whole of southern France and small parts of Spain and Italy. One of its five main dialects is Catalan.

There has been a resurgence of interest in Oc / Occitanie and its identity in recent decades, although speakers of the language have fallen from about a million in the 1950s to around 200k today apparently.Read more