Cessenon-sur-Orb: a working French town and its river — Get your flow on
If ever a French town and its river were synonymous, it’s Cessenon-sur-Orb in L’Herault, Occitanie.
Wide, and just the right flow for swimming, snorkelling or just sitting on the pebble beach watching the world go by, the river Orb epitomises that particular French way of cool self-indulgence without seeming indolent.
So much happens in and around a French river; there are no restrictions. Children jumping off impossibly high walls, my own children spending hours underwater trying to catch the athletic fish and all the while the adults are sitting, looking and eating their languorous lunches and dinners (it’s summer so dining by the river is an option). It’s amazing what gets produced and laid out on a cheap folding picnic table from a French family’s cool box.
Having a break from camping for a couple of years during COVID, in 2021, we stayed in a small French town called Canet. We rented a top-floor apartment (Airbnb) with a great balcony for hanging washing and barbecuing, with a view of a field next door. Now, a field itself is not very interesting, but at about 4pm every day, a long line of people started walking across the field, obviously going somewhere.
It was the swimming costumes that gave it away.
That somewhere was the river Orb and our first experience of town-centre river swimming in France. We swam and relaxed, and swam and relaxed a little more. We vowed to come back to the region and have a more immersive (no pun intended) experience soon, which we did in 2022, visiting Cessenon sur Orb, the subject of this week’s post.
We arrived at our Airbnb in the late afternoon, settled in and went to have some refreshments and find the supermarket. On the way we found one of the largest cafes we’d ever seen. We’ve travelled a lot in France and know that the town centre cafe is one of the main social hubs, but this one, ‘L’Helda’ takes the prize. Situated right in the centre of the town and shaded by Plane trees, it’s the perfect place to relax after a long drive.
We found the supermarket, Carrefour Express on Avenue de la Gare, got our supplies and headed home.
Setting off to explore the next morning, we planned to find the river and stay there for most of the day swimming and sunbathing. A short walk past the cafe and the town square brought us to our first sight of the river Orb. Running along the southern edge of Cessenon the river is bounded on the northern bank by a small road and the old town walls, and overseen like an elderly matron by “Lo cloquièr”, the 15th century bell tower that is the highest point of Cessenon.
The far bank is more mysterious. Shaded by trees, there’s some car parking (get there early), a campsite and a cafe that looks temporary but probably isn’t, and then the beach, only it’s not a beach in the accepted sense because it’s entirety is very large stones that start at the tree-line continue into the water to form the river bed. The stones are no barrier to sitting on the riverbank relaxing for hours though, we did, as did many other families on the day we were there.
Canoes drifting past from nearby Reals, kids making death-defying leaps off impossibly high walls, families arriving and laying out enormous rugs and blankets for a whole day of conviviality, and my daughter building mini towers of Babel underwater (she’s got the snorkelling bug), what a day under the Occitanie sun. An older couple who were impossibly brown arrived at lunchtime and laid out a restaurant-quality spread on a picnic table complete with ice bucket and crystal glasses and then swam and sunbathed for the remainder of the afternoon.
On our way home we passed what’s called the ‘Fontaine Sucrée’. It’s not really a fountain, more like a trough with a couple of spigots to access the water, like the communal clothes washing structures you see in most French towns, but smaller. There was a queue of cars and lines of people were filling all kinds of containers and then getting back in their cars and departing; we didn’t get a chance to taste the water but judging by the popularity it must have been very sweet indeed.
Cessenon and beyond
We continued exploring the next day and visited Reals, a well-known centre for kayaking. It’s about 5 km from Cessenon along the D36 ‘Route de Reals’. Park at the kayaking centre on the left where you can check out the river and book a river trip. The river is a bit of a boiling cauldron at this location but the starting points are calmer. Just like Brantome, which we’re going to write about in another post, you get dropped off at the start point by minibus, and kayak back. If you like a day exploring it looks like a lot of fun, but we’d bring a picnic and stop off along the way for a bit of lunch. Unlike in the UK, the time limits are very elastic so you don’t have to rush back.
And then we found what turned out to be the highlight of our day.
Continue along the D46 and cross the ‘Iron Bridge’ over the Orb. After about 500 metres, you’ll see a right-hand turn going into a small ‘lotissement’ (small French housing estate), take the turning, it’s the first turning after the bridge, and you’ll see a car park on your left. Leave your car, walk a little further, and you’ll see a path on the left. The path goes down quite a steep incline and is quite windy. At the bottom is the river Orb with sand, swimming pools, giant rocks to either lounge on or dive off, mini beaches and some very gentle rapids to wash away any cares you may have left.
We stayed for a few hours then went home to barbecue at the end of another amazing day in France.
One thing I haven’t mentioned, and this applies to both Canet, mentioned earlier, and Cessenon, they are both working French towns in the sense that there’s no obvious effort to attract tourists, it’s just local people going to work everyday and generally going about their business; as if they’re saying “come and enjoy it with us if you want to”.
If you lived there you would wake up to this everyday; the French go to work early, come home early and go to the river in the afternoon and evening.
Yes please.
Travel information:
Cessenon sur Orb sits between the Cevennes mountains and the Mediterranean and is in the department of L’Herault, Occitanie region.
The nearest Mediterranean beach is at Valras, approximately 30 km away.
The nearest large town is Beziers and is approximately 18 km away.
The nearest airport is called Béziers Cap d’Agde Airport,
with direct flights from the UK and other European cities with Ryanair. International connections are via Paris Beauvais airport.
We always put a list of the amenities we visited at the bottom of the newsletter so please read on:
The ‘Lo cloquièr’ bell tower is open to the public all year round. It’s called the bell tower as the church, whilst having a clock, has no bell. It features three large cast-iron bells named Marie-Rose, Radegonde and Pierre.
Kayaking at Reals and beyond can be accessed at this web address: https://www.base-reals.com/en/
The best local wines derive from the great vineyards of St Chinian: https://vignobles-occitanie.fr/en/vignobles-du-sud-est/saint-chinian/
The local tourist office is accessible here: https://www.tourismecanaldumidi.fr/en/discover/village-side/stop-on-orb/ but like a lot of French websites, it’s not the best source of information, although it gives information on a number of other local places to visit including a Eucalyptus forest.
Have you ever experienced similar feelings? Please share in the comments section below
Introducing Contributor, Nick Garnett:
Visit her Contributor Page — Explore more of Nick’s work