Our abandoned lot sleep was good as far as stealth camping sleep sessions are concerned - so good that we slept in until 0730, when the light beaming down into the tent finally woke us from our peaceful countryside slumber. Long ride into Montpellier through Narbonne, Béziers, Agde, and Sète - along highway and canal paths, over paved and unpaved ground, by mountains and marsh and beaches and flat coastline and industrial portland, in morning sun and afternoon general overcastness - roughly 120 km, most of it against a steadily blowing wind that, while not exactly on the scale of our days into Lelysted or Algeciras, nevertheless made the going noticeably harder...
...we reached Narbonne quickly, taking tea in a café while we sorted out the usual duties: dishes, toilets, dental hygiene, email. This is our life: grabbing snatches of wifi and running water when we can, going without when there is no choice. Several days without showers now; last one was Barcelona, I think, and then our ceremonial ordainment in the Mediterranean just outside the city the following morning. This is less bothersome than it used to be - perhaps we are cleaner now that it is cooler and we need not sweat buckets in 40-degree weather; perhaps we are merely getting used to our gourmand vagrant existence...
...and then on to Béziers, where we cross into town the wrong way down an old-looking one-lane-wide bridge as bemused drivers shout at us from their cars and vans - and find ourselves along a beautiful canal path! The path turns out to roughly follow our route into Agde, so we opt to follow it rather than battle the consistently rude drivers on the highway. It is also, much to our surprise, better paved than the average French road...at least until it turns into bumpy dirt track some 10 km out. I have to stop after a while to tighten the bolts around my front wheel at the axle, which have been jostled loose by the incessant flatlessness of the path.
Just past Agde the morning sun hides behind a thick veil of cloud that has accumulated over the marsh stretch to Sète. It is pleasantly cool, although it removes all visual interest from an already uneventful road. To make matters worse, a previously existing Voie Verte (pedestrian and cyclist path) has been decommissioned and fenced off for whatever reason, so that we are forced to take the road and weather the constant honking from motorists. Attention French drivers: cyclists are allowed to use the road.
...and then we reach Sète, passing through it under the increasingly ominous grey overhead to reach the industrial portlands just before the muscat-producing regions out of Montpellier. This road is arguably even worse to bike than the uneventful stretch from Agde to Sète, for it is busier and less scenic still. Nevertheless, we persevere and reach Montpellier by 1800, leaving ourselves more than enough time to score a bottle of local Muscat from a specialty wine shop - which we wash down with some delicious (and enormous!) savoury pastries purchased at a Middle Eastern food market just up the street up by the Centre Historique.
Fortunately, our early arrival gives us ample time to find a site; we are able to rest for a bit in town before biking out towards Prafrance (for tomorrow's visit!), and we find a spot down a small out-of-the-way road by a vineyard...