Beziers



Beziers is a town in Languedoc-Roussillon in the southwest of France. It is a commune and a sub-prefecture of the Hérault department.[1] Béziers hosts the famous Feria de Béziers, centred around bullfighting, every August. A million visitors are attracted to the five-day event. The town is located on a small bluff above the river Orb, about 10 km (6.2 mi) from the Mediterranean Sea. At Béziers the Canal du Midi spans the river Orb as an aqueduct called the Pont-canal de l'Orb. claimed to be the first of its kind.

HISTORY OF BEZIERS
The site has been occupied since Neolithic times, before the influx of Celts. Roman Betarra was on the road that linked Provence with Iberia. The Romans refounded the city as a new colonia for veterans in 36/35 BC and called it Colonia Julia Baeterrae Septimanorum. Stones from the Roman amphitheatre were used to construct the city wall during the 3rd century. White wine was exported to Rome; two dolia discovered in an excavation near Rome are marked, one "I am a wine from Baeterrae and I am five years old," the other simply "white wine of Baeterrae". She was occupied by Moors between 720 and 752.

During the 10th through 12th centuries Béziers was the centre of a Viscountship of Béziers. The viscounts ruled most of the coastal plain around the city, including also the city of Agde. They also controlled the major east-west route through Languedoc, roughly following the old Roman Via Domitia, with the two key bridges over the Orb at Béziers and over the Hérault at Saint-Thibéry. After the death of viscount William around 990, the viscounty passed to his daughter Garsendis and her husband, count Raimond-Roger of Carcassonne (d. ~1012). It was then ruled by their son Peter-Raimond (d. ~1060) and his son Roger (d. 1067), both of whom were also counts of Carcassonne. Roger died without children and Béziers passed to his sister Ermengard and her husband Raimond-Bertrand Trencavel. The Trencavels were to rule for the next 142 years, until the Albigensian Crusade - a formal 'Crusade' (holy war) authorised by Pope Innocent III.

Béziers was a Languedoc stronghold of Catharism, which the Catholic Church condemned as heretical and which Catholic forces extirpated in the Albigensian Crusade. Béziers was the first city to be sacked, on July 22, 1209. Béziers' Catholics were given the opportunity to leave before the Crusaders besieged the city. However, they refused and fought with the Cathars. In a sortie outside the walls, their combined force was defeated, and pursued back into town. In the bloody massacre which followed, no one was spared, not even those who took refuge in the churches. The commander of the crusade was the Papal Legate Arnaud-Amaury (or Arnald Amalaricus, Abbot of Citeaux). When asked by a Crusader how to tell Catholics from Cathars once they had taken the city, the abbot supposedly replied, "Kill them all, God will know His own" - "Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet". (This phrase can only be found in one source, Caesarius of Heisterbach along with a story of some Cathars who desecrated a copy of the Old Testament and threw it from the town's walls.)

The invaders fired the cathedral of Saint Nazaire, which collapsed on those who had taken refuge inside. The town was pillaged and burnt. None were left alive. (A plaque opposite the cathedral records the 'Day of Butchery' perpetrated by the 'northern barons'.) A few parts of the Romanesque cathedral St-Nazaire survived, and repairs started in 1215. The restoration, along with that of the rest of the city, continued until the 15th century. In the repression following Louis Napoléon's coup d'état in 1851, troops fired on and killed Republican protestors in Béziers. Others were condemned to death or transported to Guiana, including a former mayor who died at sea attempting to escape from there. In the Place de la Révolution a plaque and a monument by Jean Antoine Injalbert commemorates these events. (Injalbert also designed the Fontaine du Titan in Béziers' Plâteau des Poètes park and the Molière monument in nearby Pézenas.)

More informations about the History of Beziers on the Beziers !

WHAT TO VISIT ?
More informations about the places to visit in Beziers on the Beziers and even the Official Website of the Office of Tourism] !

Free Internet/Wifi Access
Here are some places where you can get some Internet/Wifi access:


 * MJC Raimon Trencavel - ECM - Adress - 13 A boulevard Du Guesclin - Tel: 04 67 31 27 34

COUCHSURFERS
There are about 60 Couchsurfers in Beziers and its area. You can check the CS Group of Beziers or simply a couchsearch to find and contact them.

Meetings
There are sometimes some meetings organised in Beziers, just check the CS Group of Beziers to see what happen in the city and/or the Regional CS Group of Languedoc-Roussillon to see if there is any event in the area.

Coffee or a Drink
Here is a list of persons who are ready to have a drink with you and/or show you the city:

How to get to Beziers

 * By Car:
 * By train:
 * By Plane

IN CASE OF EMERGENCY


Tel: 17 Tel: 15 or 112 Tel: 18 or 112 SOS MÉDECIN Nîmes: 04.66.23.69.23 SOS MÉDECIN Montpellier: 04.67.45.62.45 or 04.67.03.30.30 SOS MÉDECIN Perpignan: 04.68.08.16.16
 * Police Station:
 * Health Urgency:
 * Hospital:
 * Fireman Station:
 * Embassy:
 * Emergency Doctor:

INTERESTED LINKS</FONT>
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
 * Regional CS Group: Languedoc-Roussillon
 * City CS Group: Beziers


 * Beziers on Wikivoyage
 * Beziers on Hitchwiki
 * Beziers on Wikipedia