Day 56: Les Saintes Maries to Salin de Giraud

April 14, 2025

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Our first decision this morning was whether to make the run along the sea dike (Digue a la Mer), or to detour way back inland, in our trip to the Salin de Giraud, which is located on the Rhone, very near to where it enters the sea.

By virtue of being a narrow bit of land between the sea on one side and extensive wetlands on the other, the Digue is not exactly the most secure route. But the morning came with no rain at the moment, and that gave us courage to go for it. So that set the nearby town of Saintes Maries on our route, as opposed to going the opposite direction, where Albaron - about 25 km distant, would have been the first civilisation.

We began by saying goodbye to some of our horse friends.

In a ditch by the way, some early ducklings.

It's a bit hard to make them out, but these cabins have a rounded back to help repel the wind. They are typical cowboy (Guardian) shelters.

Nearby, a small herd of horses. Horses were everywhere at the beginning of today's ride.

It turned out to be just 4 km from our lodge to the edge of Les Saintes Maries. And close to that edge was the bakery that the lodge uses, so it's the source of the baguettes that I really liked.

Thinking that we might find ourselves far from any supplies, Dodie had packed away some of what we got for breakfast. But now we were at the wellspring of all baguettes. This allowed us to add a baguette sandwich and also some of those great looking tartelettes to our stocks.

I was impressed by this large crusty loaf. They would have sold it by 1/2, but that would still be far too much for us.

Just down the street from the bakery we encountered a market. It was small, but it had the essentials, such as a Rotisserie. One of the things was a stand with olives. We know that daughter Laurie really likes olives, so we shot this one especially for her.

I next had the clever idea of talking to the olive man on video, so Laurie could get a further "flavour" of the situation. Unfortunately the man was camera shy, but at least I got some video of him saying don't do a video.

The weather forecast continued to call for rain, but it was not raining just then. Still it made us nervous on behalf of the vendor to see local salt, and spices, out in the open. I asked that vendor if he were not concerned, as we were, but he seemed cool with it. Maybe he had a giant tarp ready to go, in his truck.

Various type and flavours of salt. I think one label says Himalayan, which would be strange for here.

Of course Provence, which we are so near to, is famous for spicing.

We continued into town, passing by the bullfighting area. Outside are statues of famous fighting bulls of the past.

We think they do not kill the bulls anymore.

This bull is the famous "Vovo". He does not look like he is going to get over that barrier!

This is a main pedestrian street of town. I think it leads by the church, but this time we are intent on hitting that "Digue".

Things started out wet and sandy, and they continued that way for the whole 20 km!

Because we walked a lot to avoid a fall, the walker in the photo kept up with us for quite a distance.

This is the type of thing we were worried about.

But it is pleasant to be right by the sea.

For most of the way the waters on our inland side were filled with Flamingos.

You can see that the Digue is in a fairly precarious position.

Because of rain, only the waterproof cell phone dared take photos, but the quality is variable (often crappy, like this). The sand was hard to push through, but at least the route was not totally flooded.

We were glad to reach the lighthouse about 2/3 of the way along.

We did see these Dunlins, however dully.

Finally we left the salt marsh and returned to the tall reeds.

This allowed us to quickly reach Salin de Giraud.

This area was developed in the late 1800's, with a factory to process salt. Two companies were involved with this, one being Solvay. Solvay was a chemical company and needed the sodium.

A lot of the housing was original buildings put up for the salt workers. Under Solvay, this was a complete company town. Solvay was also famous for its physics conferences: "The Solvay Conferences have been devoted to preeminent unsolved problems in both physics and chemistry. They began with the historic invitation-only 1911 Solvay Conference on Physics, considered a turning point in the world of physics, and are ongoing"

This says that the closer to the factory the better the housing. Workers could get promotion and move to better housing.

Salin de Giraud is on the Rhone, near where it enters the sea. This is the last crossing, a ferry.

By the time we reached the Salin, our bikes were coated with sand. We prevailed on this bike rental/adventure place to let us use their pressure washer.

Finally we came to the salt making area:

Mountains of salt. A sign said it is mostly used on roads.

We had been bucking headwind, as well as rain and bad ground conditions, all day. But nearer the mouth of the Rhone the wind was just howling. We wanted to walk to an observation point above the salin, and had to chain down our bikes.

The bikes are tied, as to hitching posts.

Overview of the salt flats. There is a pink tinge to the one at the upper right.

You had to buy a ticket online or at some obscure address in town, to enter the salt flats. The price was high, too.

The company other than Solvay was Pechiney.

We have some Baleine salt in the kitchen at home. Quite possibly we bought it in the Camargue at some time.

Our spot in Salin de Giroud is a BnB called Nid en Camargue - nest in the Camargue. It's in an elegant 1920's house on a large property. With a BnB we usually find something to be slightly annoyed by. The most common is not finding the keys, followed by having the host (when there is one) hang about at breakfast talking at us. This time the host was there, and he had a series of requests/rules, each of which was fairly reasonable, but in total I found it annoying. What were these? No eating in the room, no bike battery charging in the room, fill out lengthy intrusive form for the police, don't have one of us carry luggage to the room until sit down check in procedure attended by both, use only provided charger for phone charging, and more. But hey, the room is large and the internet is fast. I hope I am not just a grumpy old man!

Today's ride: 45 km (28 miles)
Total: 1,652 km (1,026 miles)

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Mark BinghamWhat were the "intrusive form for the police" for? You have to do that even if nothing has been stolen??
The rules seem reasonable but, yes, annoying in their totality.
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4 days ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Mark BinghamOften in France and Spain there is a "law" that requires people registering at a hotel to fill in name, address, phone number, email, and dates of stay. You also have to sign the form. No idea why they want this, but they do. In Spain they even took a photocopy of our passports. I just fill it in and let it go. Steve usually stays with the bikes while I do the check in, but this time the host insisted we both had to come in to fill in our own forms. Steve seems to have found all the formalities a nuisance and wrote about them. Maybe he IS becoming a grumpy old man!
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4 days ago