Day 65: Arles to Saintes Maries de la Mer

November 10, 2022

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We said a fond goodbye to Jean Pierre, the owner of the Mireille. He had been most helpful and welcoming, and the hotel location and facilities had worked out great.

Arles is already basically in the Camargue, but the Camargue has various parts. There are spots where chances are best to see the white Camargue horses, the black bulls, the flamingoes, the rice, the salt flats, the grapes growing in sand, and so forth. Of course we planned to see it all.

We began by heading south on the west side of the Rhone. This area does not have any of those zippy Camargue things to see, but it does have beautiful flat fields, warmth, and an abundance of reeds.

Our first road out of Arles was somewhat busy, but offered a nice shoulder.

Workers were just starting to pick these apples. It looked like a huge job, because the trees went on into the distance.

Our first hint about the Camargue horses to come.

Reeds like these were all along the roads.

This water way, we surmise, is to support rice production.

We had the option of cutting out early, and heading west across the top of the Etang de Vaccares. But that would have made our day really short, and Dodie was entertaining thoughts of making a run to see the Salin de Giraud, further south. We settled on making our move to the west at Le Sambuc, but you can see from the track above that when we got there we lost our heads and turned east, and from there engineered a long loop toward the south, before coming back to where we could have headed west, abut two hours earlier.

Partly what was going on was that a heavy wind (but not the Mistral!) was blowing from the north. Consequently we were just flying, and it felt like all distances were possible. Sure, we knew if we kept going south we would have to fight our way back north, but when you are flying, details like that seem insignificant!

As it happens, the extended loop was a good move, because it was on this that we met some of our first horses.

This horse was standing so still in the field, we thought it might be a statue. But eventually it came over to say hello. It was very sweet and friendly.

Our route led us by quite a few more Camargue horses. They are noble creatures, but also friendly. Most would come and meet us by the fence. Dodie also found some carrots in our bag, which made us a hit in some quarters.

As we cycled in this area by the river we kept hearing flamingoes, and eventually did see some fly overhead, but we didn't see any at close range here.

The road was really nice as we began to make our way back up against the wind. We arrived at a crossroads where we could have avoided the run north by heading straight for Saintes Maries along the seashore along a sandy dike. We knew from past experience that that is a tough route, so we carried on North.

This sign at the crossroads really confused me. It seemed to encourage drivers to swerve to the side and take out the cyclists! Dodie of course is smart and points out that the sign shows there is only one car lane, so to avoid car collision they need to use the cycle lane, assuming no cyclists there. The sign text urges everyone to be reasonable. Yeah sure.

The Etang is a large body of water, but no more than six feet deep. It annually hosts hundreds of thousands of water fowl, and is protected by a national park. We could see lots of flamingoes out there, but none really close.

The flamingoes way out in the etang and standing very funny?

The Etang was off to our side for a long time on the ride.

Some more excitement was added, as the black bulls put in an appearance!

Dodie says they look more stern than mean.

Ever since a chance encounter with a herd on a remote trail in 2017, we have a special place in our mythology for semi-wild Camargue horses. Maybe like these we spotted today by the Etang-side at a distance.

Finally we did come up with at least one flamingo quite close by.

We felt we were doing really well in terms of seeing the Camargue special plants. landscape, and animals. We were also doing well in peeling off the kms. But that was about to change. We took the advice of Google Maps, and got on a road that made a bee line for the town. It seems to be called the Route de Cacharel, and looks way more direct than the lazy yellow road in the map above, that goes through Albaron.

It was more direct, yes, but Google did not mention that it was full of pot holes, except where these were filled with what someone in the Comments called "French Gravel". This is actually crushed drain tile, and would be quite elegant if it were not useless.

The last 10-15 km on the rough road quite took it out of us, but did not ruin what had been a wonderful day. We still arrived at Les Saintes Maries in good time. Tomorrow we will head for Nimes and Provence proper. We are now having so much fun every single day!

Today's ride: 83 km (52 miles)
Total: 2,969 km (1,844 miles)

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Rachael AndersonI’m glad you are enjoying yourselves so much!
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2 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesWe really love the Camargue, especially the horses and the reed beds.
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2 years ago