Day Twenty: Arles to St. Gilles: Yes, the horses are here.

April 16, 2017

On these trips Dodie does the grocery shopping and then tries hard to shovel enough food at me to keep the whining down. She will also try to keep things as nutritious as possible. One problem comes when we stop at a bakery in the morning. That's when I can peek in the window and see the possibilities. One favourite possibility is the chocolate eclair.For breakfast? Well, yes.

So this morning I was looking at my eclair and trying to find some link between it and more accepted breakfast foods. I had to admit it had no relation to any breakfast food. I reported my negative finding to Dodie and she replied "Well, that's some progress anyway".

Chocolate eclair is not that well recognized as a breakfast food.

Given that our ultimate goal was only St Gilles, which is 20 km from Arles, our plan for the day was to descend a bit into the Camargue, planning to see just salt marsh. We needed to go deeper to see flamingos and horses.

So we headed down toward Etang de Vaccares, which is the most northeerly of the brackish bays and spits that make up the Camargue national park. We quickly found ourselves in a flat land with tall reed like grassesby the roadside. Beyond this was either bare farmland or as we drew near the etang, marsh land.

The colours were no longer the vibrant ones of Provence, but now something much more subdued and restful. Throughout, the Mistral blew strongly from the north. To this point we have always had the Mistral behind us, as our direction has been south. But now we have reached the literal end of the line, and depending how we wiggle around, the Mistral will not always be our friend.

Muted tones of the etang (brackish lake0

Beyond Vaccares, while we did not find flamingos, we came to large flooded fields that we hosting large flocks of mostly black headed tern like birds. The way they took off in clouds, wheeled, and cried brought to mind many a documentary about birds on marshes. The birds' cries, the wind, the colours, all added up to quite a meditative ride.

But to this we add that the horses were there too. We saw our first ones quite early, though a little distant. Then we saw others, and finally some quite close. Until we get onto a bike only path we of course can not encounter the horses face to face, but our hopes are up.

For anyone who has seen the animated film "The Last Unicorn", it will be clear that this place is the refuge of the unicorns, disguised so that ordinary mortal will not see their horns. They are here as guardians of the natural environment. Anyway, if like us you have actually watched that film 100 times, with Violet, then it is all the easier to see things in Unicorn terms.

As we saw yesterday, while some (estimated 3000) white horses are wild, others are working on farms. So we also saw a line of riders coming on a farm based tour. Even plodding along with the tourists, the horses looked noble. I would gladly have joined those tourists, but the farm was too much off route for us.

We encountered one pair of other long distance tourers today. Seemingly older than us, they were from Denmark. They had flown to Marseille and were heading home by way of Geneva, Basel, Bonn, and Hamburg. That would not be a long trip for this pair, who we learned had also crossed Canada, and the US, and done the Pacific Coast, plus other routes. They are ACA (Adventure Cycling Association) members and have their photo enshrined at Missoula. Wow. We were glad they were going the other way, so we would not have to watch them pull ahead of us and disappear over the horizon.

At Albaron we stopped in to the little church. It had a unique decoration - dozens of images of madonnas, from all countries and in all artistic styles, pasted up along both long walls of the church.

In the yard outside was a fine example of the Cross of Camargue. This unique design has the cowherd's trident in a cross on topo, an anchor, and a heart, together to symbolize faith, hope, and charity. One we became aware of this local feature, we began to see them by the roadside. Finally in a gift shop, there were stacks of cast iron ones for sale.

We rolled into Saint Gilles quite early and easily, despite the wind. We set out to find the Maison des Pelerins, which is the shelter located beside the Abbey church. This is the first stage stop for pilgrims who have set out from Arles. That is, for most, it is their first night out. For hundreds of years the Abbey Church has been a pilgrimage stop. In fact a plaque in the street claims that in the 12th century this was the fourth largest pilgrimage site in Christendom.

The Maison des Pellerins had mutd signage, so I was amazed that in 2013 an otherwise disinterested version of myself rode by here and snapped a great shot of it. We located the lady who is managing the hostel by phoning a number on the door. She took us in hand and stashed our bikes in a safe place around back. And later she came to tell us that to be sure she had moved our bikes to inside her own house.

The lady, Yolande Garcia, sat us down, poured some cold drinks, and welcomed us to to the gite. We had a longish chat, no problem since we had arrived early and were not even too tired. Yolande was a very ernest woman. She expressed her joy at it's being Easter, and in beng able to welcome pilgrims.Her joyfulness was quite infectious. She then brought out some Easter bells shaped cards that she had made, inscribing a prayer on each. We each got one.

Taking care to not be bugging us, Yolande continued to talk about her faith. Finally she asked about ours. Dodie rather inaccurately stated "Jewish". Yolande was delighted, feeling that here were representatives of the religion that was the parent of hers. Later she sang to us the Schma Yisrael, which is the centrepiece of Jewish prayer services. It was quite touching.

The gite today had welcomed one other pilgrim, Kristina, born in Linz now living in Berlin. She had started today at Arles and was headed for Toulouse. Naturlly we enjoyed trading our life stories, something we understand will happen a lot if we stay at shelters along the way. We also shared back and forth the food we both had, prepared in the kitchen that is part of the gite.

Tomorrow we will be able to visit the bakery around the corner and then prepare breakfast here in the same kitchen. There are supplies like butter, jam, and coffee that will turn our bakery visit into a "petit dejeuner". Now will I add to it that famous breakfast staple: Chocolate eclair?

Over a doorway in St Gilles. These are the three most potent symbols of the Camargue.

Roman ruin behind the abby church. We could find no way into the 12th century church, which houses the remains of St Giles, who died in 721. What did the remains do for 500 years while awaiting the tomb to be built? The tomb was a major pilgrimage destination in the middle ages.

Today's ride: 45 km (28 miles)
Total: 935 km (581 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	1
Comment on this entry	Comment	0