The wind howled all last night and is still at it this morning. The forecast tells us it will end abruptly this evening sometime when the winds abate and shift direction 180 degrees; but until then it’s supposed to hold steady at 25-30 mph. It makes me wonder what a mistral must feel like, which as I understand it blows in from the north and sounds even stronger.
It’s strong enough that we don’t really want to bike to our next destination as planned so we decide to hole up here for another day and wait it out. We decided on this yesterday, confirmed our room here was available for another day, and sent a request to our next hotel to move our reservation out a day that they fortunately granted.
The view from our window this morning. Wildly beautiful, but maybe not the best biking day.
If you’ve studied the map at all you know that Saintes-Maries is at the western edge of the huge wetland that extends east for fifteen or twenty miles to the mouth of the Rhone. If you zoom in close enough you’ll see that there’s a track that crosses it, following the arc of the sea: the road along the top of the Digue a la Mer, the Sea Wall - essentially a fifteen mile long dike built in the mid-19th century to control flow of water between the Camargue and the sea. It’s closed to motor vehicles, but you can walk or bike completely across it (as the Grampies did just a few days ago) and even make a complete loop around the wetlands if time and conditions permit. If you include that unpaved road I biked out yesterday afternoon it makes about a 40 mile loop. If we ever come back here it’s a ride I’d like to take someday, but this is hardly the right time for it with gale force winds and the threat of thunderstorms in the afternoon.
We don’t want to cower in our room all day listening to the wind howl though, so we both head out east along the sea wall in the morning while it’s still dry, agreeing that we’ll be back in time for lunch at one and before the thunderstorms are expected to arrive. Rachael is on foot and leaves with an open mind about how far she’ll get before she decides she’s had enough of walking into a 30 mph wind and getting blasted by sand blowing up from the dunes. It doesn’t take her that long to have her fill, and she turns back after about two miles. It’s hard to take photos in the wind but she comes back with a few photos to share anyway, and a short video of her favorite part of the walk from the outskirts of town when she’s entertained by watching kids on bikes circling back and forth in a large, empty parking lot.
There are so many flamingos, but it turns out we’re almost too late for the show. Most of them will head south to Africa soon, and the best time is already past. Surprisingly to me anyway, summer is one of the best times to see them here, during breeding season. You could see baby flamingos!
My plan is to bike as far as the lighthouse unless I get sick of fighting the wind before then. It’s a ride Rachael and I took together 7 years ago on a day that surprises me now to think back on, remembering how ambitious we used to be not so long ago. We came out to Saintes-Maries on a day ride from Aigues-Mortes, biked to the lighthouse and back in time to have lunch at a restaurant in town, stopped off at the Ornithological Park to ogle at the flamingos, and then hightailed it back to Aigues-Mortes and arrived after sundown. And then walked into town for pizza.
Spoiler alert, just to save some time here: I make it to the lighthouse, and I make it back to the hotel in time with fifteen minutes to spare. It goes considerably faster on the way back with the strong wind pushing me home, but it’s still not particularly fast even then because the surface is unpaved and in spots sandy enough that walking is required.
Along the sea dike trail. It looks windy, but you already knew that.
Most of the surface is really quite good though, a fairly smooth hardpacked one that is nearly as comfortable as pavement, until you come to the next sandy patch.
The dike controls water movement between the sea and the lagoon it protects. In spots like this the water passes back and forth beneath the dike through sluice gates.
Like yesterday, there aren’t many birds around smaller than a gull or avocet. The good thing is that it makes it easier to stay on task so I’ll make it back in time for lunch.
Here’s another of those sandy patches. Today they’re doubly irritating. They slow you down because you have to get off and push the bike through the drift. They also subject you to sand blasting that the offshore wind assaults you with.
It’s really beautiful country though, even on a day like this. I feel completely alone in the wild and see no one else but a pair of hikers once I’m a half mile from town.
Tody’s lunch isn’t one of our gourmet success stories. We decide to go back to the place we ate the day we arrived, vaguely remembering it as a meal we both enjoyed. When we sit down and peruse the menu though we’re reminded of a detail we’d forgotten - it has a very limited menu, consisting mainly of meats - steaks, burgers, and various Camargue bull selections. Really, the only thing that attracts either of us is the dorade, which is what we both ordered the first time.
Which is fine. We’ll both have the dorade again. But when the server comes to take our order she sings a French version of Yes, we have no dorade, we have no dorade today. So we thank her anyway and walk out.
Next we check out the restaurant with the server who lovingly described every item on the menu to every customer on the house; but it’s closed today. So we end up in a nearby steak house because it’s the only thing we see open other than bars and snack shops. We both take a pass on the bull sausage, Rachael going with a salad and I linguini and clams again.
Afterwards we walk a few blocks to an ice cream shop, dispense with two large cones, and then stop for a look through the church before heading back to the room to watch the thunderstorms roll in. The rather austere church is well worth a look. Built in the early ninth century, it’s been the dominant feature of the skyline hereon the southern coast for over twelve hundred years, visible from miles away. It’s a severe, almost brooding fortified structure, offering protection to the town during the period of transitions between the Carolingian Empire, the Vikings and Saracens. Its architectural style is early Romanesque - I think it must be the oldest Romanesque church I can recall seeing.
Also interesting is the fact that it is a pilgrimage destination for the Roma people, who come here from across Europe a few times a year to parade Sarah, the black Madonna, down to the sea and immerse her. We’re here almost at the right time to witness it - she’s due for he next immersion only two days after we leave town.
We only give the church a too-brief look, but there’s much more to be said about it, the three Mary’s, Sarah, the boat, and the complicated history of the place. If you want to know more, Wikipedia fills in many blanks with this detailed article.
The Church of the Saintes Maries de la Mer has risen above the sea here for over twelve hundred years.
We spend the rest of the afternoon in our spacious room with a view of the waterfront and sea, listening to the wind howl and watching for the thunderclouds to roll in. They never come though, and it’s another clean miss for the weatherman. It stays dry all day, so if I’d known I really could have taken that 40 mile loop of the lagoon. Around 6:30 I’m startled to look up from what I’m doing and see the sky is a clear blue so I grab the camera and head off toward the jetty hoping for a sunset shot. I’m too late though - the blue sky is transient, and by the time I’m rounding the marina the sun has already dropped behind a bank of clouds to the west. There’s no sunset, but it’s still atmospheric to be out feeling the wind and watching two windsurfers scudding back and forth across the bay getting their last runs.
A few hours later, back in the room as we’re preparing for bed, I tell Rachael to listen. It’s silent, for the first time in 48 hours. The winds have moved on.
Not much of a sunset shot to the west this evening.
The view back toward town. Our hotel is the illuminated one at the front, and our three windows are the open ones right below the Brasserie sign. Wave, Rocky!
