My husband and I plus our daughter who'll be almost 2 when we're going are thinking of spending 2 weeks on the beach in Narbonne.We're flying into Paris and out of Barcelona so we want to stick to south west France and we would like to stay near a kid friendly beach and an area with good day trip options since we'll have a car. My french is passable and my husband's is fluent so the language isn't an issue. I'd love any info on Narbonne or alternate suggestions about a place to stay as no rentals have been booked yet. Thanks!

Not sure what info I could give you, I just spent a day there but liked it very much. It has a good outdoor market as it happened to be occurring the day I went. I went for sightseeing, some interesting things to see, and it's an attractive town. I think Charles Trenet is from there. Norbonne isn't on the beach, though, it's inland off the A9 highway. Now there is a resort or vacation area called Narbonne Plage so if you are staying there, I don't know what it would be like. I think that's about 20 km from Narbonne itself. A lot of those built-up beach areas on the coast are ugly and tacky, full of concrete apartments, etc.

Here's some info on the beach areas. SOunds like you should definitely avoid St Pierre.
http://www.creme-de-languedoc.com/La...ches/index.php

Narbonne is a good base for visiting the area, especially the Cathar Castles but as indicated above it is not on the beach and Narbonne-Plage (15 km from the town) is nothing special.
La Franqui is off the beaten track and safe for children. Gruissan is a very pretty village. So are Peyriac-de-Mer, the old part of Leucate and Bages. The beaches are sandy all the way down to Collioure.
I would look for a place near the sea when it is cooler at night than in town.

The vacation rentals I was looking at were in the Narbonne Plage area, I've looked in Collioure and haven't found a rental that had what I wanted for the right price, I'll have a look at the other towns you mentioned. Thanks

I don't now what websites you've been searching but the two that always work for me when I choose weekly rentals are www.homelidays.com and www.abritel.fr. Both Gruissan and Peyriac-de-Mer are nice but Gruissan is closer to the ocean (just a few kilometers), as both towns are on the Etang (saltwater lake) just behind the ocean.

Thanks, I've rented in Italy through homelidays but I haven't tried abritel.