The British have been heading south to holiday in Mediterranean Europe for so long and in such numbers that it seems every destination has become a cliché. In Tuscany, you can't move for members of the Cabinet; the Spanish Costas are a summer camp for football fans and a rest home for retired gangsters; and St Tropez is fast becoming a theme park for subscribers to OK! magazine.
No less of a cliché, of course, is the "undiscovered" corner of Europe. But visit the Languedoc, a hot, rocky corner of south-west France, and you cannot help but feel you have uncovered a well-kept secret. The Languedoc is, to use travel industry jargon, seriously underdeveloped as a destination.
The area has always had a distinct identity defined by its own language (Occitan), a cultural heritage steeped in Catharism (a heretical strand of Christianity), and a degree of Spanish influence. Bordered by the Pyrenees to the south and the Black Mountains to the north, at its heart lies the lower Aude alley - a 100-mile-long triangle with Toulouse, Narbonne and Perpignan at the corners - which stretches in a widening plain to the Mediterranean.
With staggering scenery, sandy beaches, ancient castles, abbeys and churches, affordable accommodation, great food, some of the most drinkable vintages in France and a local population not yet sick of the sight of tourists, it has all the elements of a classic Mediterranean holiday minus the crowds. Indeed, if you were in marketing, you would call it the new Provence. It even has its own Peter Mayle in Christopher Hope, whose book Signs of the Heart: Love and Death in Languedoc was published in paperback last month.
Hope, however, recently bemoaned the ever-increasing Brit presence. And he's right, of course - the peace and quiet can't last. Ryanair has been operating budget services from Stansted to Carcassonne for more than two years and this summer introduced daily flights to Perpignan. Return flights start at £70 a head plus tax, and nearly 70,000 people flew in between June and August.
However, wine, not tourism, is the dominant, industry, with vines growing on every spare scrap of land; one of the great pleasures of the Languedoc is to sit in a restaurant overlooking the vineyards from which the wine in your glass was produced. The peace and quiet may not last long - the Brits are coming - but there's still time to visit without noticing. Fly cheap, hire a car and tour the castles, villages and beaches while you can.
The beaches
Do not expect the celebrity-filled golden sands of St Tropez - the Languedoc coast is a more egalitarian place than that. Typical is Gruisson, 15 miles from Narbonne. An ancient seaside town supplemented a decade ago with a marina development, the long, shallow bay is backed by rows of beach huts on stilts, which famously featured in the film Betty Blue.
There's all the usual beach stuff to do, but a local favourite is bat and ball. The French appear obsessive about the game and it is played with gusto by men and women, young and old alike.
The marina at Gruisson has affordable hotel accommodation and enough nightlife to keep one going. At Le Corail, a personable small hotel on the waterfront, a twin room costs £40 a night.
The marina is lined with restaurants offering menus ranging from an absurdly cheap 60F (£6) for three courses to 180F for foie gras, langoustine and lobster. The seafood is of the highest quality and as long as you try and eat when the restaurateur wants you to, you can't go wrong (at one restaurant, we were told that it was too hot for the chef to cook lunch).
Further south, Argeles sur Mer and Banyuls, the most southerly resorts in France, are a little cosier, more Salcombe than Blackpool.
Castles and churches
Central to the local heritage is Catharism, the great heresy stamped out by the Catholic church early in the second millennium. The Cathar's differences with Rome seem somewhat petty viewed from the 21st century. Essentially, they believed that evil existed independently of God, while Rome held that Lucifer was initially a good being who revolted against the creator. But in the 13th century, the Cathars belief in this dualism was serious enough for successive pontiffs to launch murderous campaigns against them. By 1244, they had succeeded in crushing the Cathars, but not before the heretics had built hundreds of spectacular mountain-top fortifications, many of which remain.
Perhaps the most spectacular is at Querebas, 90 minutes south of Narbonne and high in the Corbières mountains. The remaining castle walls cling to the top of a peak only accessible from one side and commanding views of all approaches. To the south, the Mediterranean twinkles, while to the east the snow-capped Pyrenees peek through the haze.
Across the valley from Querebas is the chateau at Puilaurens built on a jagged ridge 900 years ago. They used to fling non-believers to the rocks from here and peering down you gain a truer understanding of what it meant to be dashed. Now the only people hurling themselves off are paragliders drifting with the eagles to the valley floor.
Another church in the Corbières has attracted almost as much attention as the Cathar castles but, unlike the ruins on the peaks, it still attracts 25,000 pilgrims a year. The church of St Mary Magadalene in Rennes-le-Chateau is the focus of a complex mythology that puts it in the grassy knoll class of conspiracy theories. It has been variously described as the true resting place of Jesus Christ, home to the Holy Grail and a UFO landing pad.
In the late 1800s, Abbé Saunière, a man of no great means, spent a fortune restoring the church and presbytery. The source of his fortune is still unclear, but one theory is that he was paid off by the Vatican after uncovering the uncomfortable truth that Christ was smuggled to France before the Romans had a chance to nail him to anything. Whatever the source of Saunière's loot, the tale has inspired a stream of visitors armed with eccentric theories and it lends the tiny church an air of mystery that sets it apart. But it helps to have read a theory or two before you arrive.
The villages
One of the gentler pleasures of the Languedoc is touring the towns and villages slowly being occupied by speculating Brits. The classic settlement has a bar, a baker, a post office, a church and a square, usually shaded by the plane trees that Napolean planted to protect his troops from the noonday heat. There are few more splendid places to do nothing.
Bages overlooks the salt marshes south of Narbonne and is famous for its antique shops and its seafood.
Lagrasse, a beautiful medieval settlement on the Aude upstream from Narbonne, is wonderfully bourgeois compared with many of the villages of the Languedoc, which remain pleasantly paisant . It's a sort of French Hay-on-Wye, whose cobbled lanes are full of holidaying Parisiennes and ateliers des art .
Unlike many of the ancient monuments in the Languedoc, there is no son et lumiere at Lagrasse, nor a guided tour for the plebs. Instead, on the day we visited, the 14th-century abbey was full of earnest folk in smocks and frameless spectacles gathering to hear playwright Armand Gatti - 1960s radical and dramatiser of Antonio Gramsci's prison diaries - lecture on the nature of revolution. It couldn't have been more clichéd if he'd hung a string of onions around his neck.
The practicals
Ryanair flies twice daily from London Stansted to Carcassonne throughout the summer. From October 29, there will be one flight a day. They operate one flight a day from Stansted to Perpignan all year round, with a second flight on Saturdays between July 22 and September 2. Fares start at around £35 each way plus tax but rise according to availability. Ryanair has a deal with Hertz car rental, and a diesel Renault Megane costs around £170 a week with a £500 deposit. Accomodation is cheap and varied. Every town and village has at least a basic chambres d'htes , essentially a room in a family home for around £10 a night including breakfast. For gîtes, check www.gites-de-france.fr. A room in a basic two-star hotelstarts at around £30, but for a slice of luxury try the Hotel de la Cité in Carcassonne, which costs £120 a night for a double.
