Sète: the seaside town with year-round sunshine in the south of France Surrounded by canals, a lagoon and the Mediterranean, the port town has fabulous seafood and some quirky cultural traditions.
This major Sète event is explained in all its elements at the town’s Musée de la Mer and shop windows are full of striped sailor tops and straw boaters as well as brass compasses and fishing equipment.
One of France’s most celebrated singers, Brassens spent his childhood in Sète in the 1920s before moving to Paris and a life of cabarets and composing a particular type of jaunty chanson, turning a life of near destitution into the gold discs, manouche guitars and recording contracts that line the walls of the centre.
The town’s energy and maritime charm attracted Jean-Jacques Ferron, who fell in love with the place in 2018 and decided to rebuild a ruined house overlooking the main square.
Valéry was born in Sète in 1871 and a museum dedicated to him sits high above the town in a huge modernist-style gallery.
