They recommend checking out the sailors' bars and strolling down to the Vieux Port to watch the rusty freighters and tankers laden with Languedocean wine, sardines, Algerian natural gas, sunflower and rape-seed oil and other products heading out to points all over the planet. Nonetheless, in several visits I have seen precious few tourists I took to be Americans. But one I did meet was Jennifer Doyle, an attractive, thirtysomething assistant professor of English at the University of California at Riverside and food writer for Angeleno, a regional magazine. She visits almost every summer. It has more Old World charm than, say, Montpellier.
Some parts are really beautiful.
It's also urban and gritty, which I like. It's a wonderful place to go after a day on the beach for a drink, or for coffee. In his 10 years here, Ed Fosh has encountered few Americans, though he occasionally bumps into tourists from Italy, England, Germany, or the Netherlands. There has been the occasional yacht come in, but just en route to somewhere else. That suits a lot of local folks here just fine.