We began the day in northern Europe. We ended it on the Mediterranean. And we never crossed a border.

That’s what happens when you climb on the TGV (fast train) at Gare de Lyon in Paris and climb off at Beziers, a few hundred yards from what the Romans once called Mare Nostrum.

Hard to imagine any European country could have two regions so vastly different within its borders as France does, with its north and south. Perhaps Russia can pull it off, but Russia as much a continent as a country. France isn’t small, but neither is it enormous: It’s about 20 percent larger than California, but about 20 percent smaller than Texas.

Still trying to figure out what the Languedoc — the region of France that includes Beziers and the bettern-known Montpellier — reminds me of. A bit like southern California, in terms of climate and flora. But that’s not quite it. Not when the place is all rolling hills and few mountains … and square miles of vineyards among hundreds of little villages.

A former colleague of mine recently described France’s climate fairly succinctly: An imaginary line runs through the country, from east to west, and above it is the cool/cold rainy Europe that is Germany and England and Poland. Below that line, and I think it may cross the country about at Dijon, and you are in country far more like Spain or the south of Italy.

My first clue? When the dark and leaky clouds gave way to blue skies and sun, which began to beat down on me in my TGV seat.  The second was when the perpetual green and scattered forests of the north turned into bare rock and summer brown and scrub brush of the south.

The south is where Paris goes to spend its summers, and we can see why. Inexpensive housing, miles of shores and bays and inlets, with all the water sports the French love.

But it is not a bustling economic zone. Most commerce is in the north, as is most of the money and nearly all the power.

Beziers, for example, is not a charming ville. It is a bit run down, beaten down, and certainly no destination city.

But it serves as a jumping off point for touring the villages slightly inland. Some of which retain considerable charm and affordability.

After checking in at Hotel des Poetes — which is next to a sprawling, hilly park also known as Poetes — because of all the statues of famous poets inside — we drove inlaand to a little town named Cruzy to see a place that both Leah and a friend of hers thought might be their “dream house.” (In the category of “dinky little places in out-of-the-way villages in southern France.”)

We found the place, about 45 minutes out of town, but Cruzy turns out to be one of those town so intimately small that we could feel the locals staring at us. And the dream house is right on the busiest corner of the city. So, yes, one could sit on its balcony and watch whatever part of the world might happen to pass by on the two-lane main street … but you also would be studied closely by the geriatric homeboys, who may not be eager to accept some foreigners into their midst.

If it didn’t feel so claustrophobc, it might have worked. The town is just big enough to have the basics — a baker, a butcher, a pharmacy, a post office. As we were leaving, the charcuterie man had pulled up in a big truck and turned it into a temporary stall, and was announcing via loudspeaker that he was in town and ready to supply all of Cruzy’s charcuterie needs.

We came back to town before dark, not wanting to get lost on the little country roads, and had dinner at a wine bar named Le Chameau Ivre — which translates as “the drunken camel.” They have a nice if limited selections of tapas plates (we’re barely 30 miles from the Spanish border) and an enormous selections of wines, most of them from the area and one of which Leah is quite intrigued by and will attempt to find — in larger quantities — sometimes in the next few days.

So, tomorrow morning the actual search for an affordable pied a terre begins, at 9:30 a.m. outside the little town of Bedarieux. And we will look for a particular Minervois producer, when time avails.

Still can’t get over that I’m still in France. Feels like it should be another country. And I know some of the people down here think so, too.