April 28, 2018
Day 33: Arles to Les Saintes Maries de la Mer
We were a little surprised at how quickly we came to the Roman arena which is a major feature of the Arles old town, after leaving our place at the northern gate. Medieval towns just were not that big, by our standards.
The arena looked sufficiently iconic, with its double row of arches, and we know it is still in use. But with the buildings of the town crowding around it, it seemed more like something people put up with - an obstacle to walk around. That was our approach, anyway, because we were on a mission.
The market on Boulevard des Lices is over 1/2 km long, and totally dominates this major street of town on Saturday morning. It has to be the premier market of Provence so we would be drawn there just to look at it. But we also had the practical chore of finding food for breakfast and lunch.
Since our first visit to southern France I have been intrigued by the spicy aroma of paella, even though it is usually made with seafood, that I usually don't eat. But there is a chicken version too, and we found that at the market. Unfortunately we were a little early and it was not ready. So I went to a very strong fallback position, the great chicken that is made on rotisseries all over France. We got some little breast fillets, filled with provencal herbs. The flavour was unique, though we could not quite identify all that went into it.
Not because of any great plan, our other choices also had flavours that were a little unusual for us. There were some little boat shaped sweet rolls that were heavily flavoured with orange water, there were some almond based soft cookies in colours of rose and saffron, also flavoured by some kind of waters. And there were little jars of a milk product, not yogurt, not cheese, made from sheep's milk (brebis) and flavoured with caramel sauce. And that was not all, as we overdid it with a flavourful quiche, a potato galette, a "sacristan" (it's a long pastry , not sure how it gets this name), etc.
Of course we have lots more great market images, but time is limited now after a long day's ride so I'll skip along to the rest of the story.
Arles is firmly a part of the Provence that we associate with Avignon, the Luberon, and the towns on either side of the Rhone at about that latitude. But go 5 km south of Arles and you are into a whole different ecology and experience. That is the Camargue - the delta of the Rhone at the Mediterranean. Here we are talking about semi-wild white horses, black bulls, bull fights, salt flats, and flamingos. One km from Arles, we saw these posters:
We had decided to head down to the salt flats at Salin de Giraud for a look, and from there to go to Saintes Maries de la Mer, threading a route by the sea that, as explained yesterday, was considered risky by me, but with Dodie willing to give it a go. After we mentioned that yesterday, Scott wrote to say he had found the by the sea route ok, so our confidence was much increased by that.
Coming down from Arles on D36, the road unnamed on the above map, just west of the Rhone, was fairly boring. Also the level of traffic was high, uncomfortably high. Still, we did manage to see some white horses. They are not at all like other horses. Unlike many other types, they will tend to notice you are near, and fix you with a noble, knowing gaze that can be chilling. We often say they are the closest thing to unicorns you can find. Too bad their horns do not tend to show up in photos.
The salt flats are large areas where sea water is evaporated by the sun and by the mistral wind (something we felt strongly in our faces all day). They have the characteristic pink colour too, from algae rich in beta-carotene - Dunaliella salina.
Salin de Giraud is not just the salt flats but it is also a fairly extensive town. This helped conceal where the route along the coast, including the "Digue a la Mer" trail might be. Certainly the town was not helping with any signs at all. At this stage we really needed to find the trail, because the road distance would be 60 km, really not possible given the lateness of the hour and the 60+ km we had already done.
We used the GPS to the extent possible, and eventually arrived at, this:
But no matter, we went around it, and eventually did get to the start of the real trail. We knew this from the comforting sign:
We had some added bonuses before trying the dike - more horses, and some bulls. The intelligent horses and the low to the ground, tough bulls have been an age old pairing here and are usually shown together in graphics.
We had now found the horses, the salt, and the bulls. Only the flamingos remained to make the day complete. To see them we would need to be out on the trail. And despite earlier fears and difficulties, that turned out to be no problem. There was nothing blocking the way, in fact bikes were welcomed, and the trail surface was fine. Well, in the bit where cars could go it was deeply potholed, and at some points we did have to push through sand, but really it was no problem. So yes, flamingos!
As we rolled along the trail what I had imagined as a lonely struggle in a salt lagoon wilderness quickly took on an entirely different aspect. We were joined by more and more cyclists going both ways. And these were not teams of hardened adventurers but rather families of tourists. Families with six year olds charging on ahead, and babies in bikes seats behind!
We began to have a shortage of space on the path, and we realized that most of the families were not not French, but Italian. What in heaven's name? Things became clear as we got closer to Saintes Maries. In my imagination an isolated village out with the wild horses, Saintes Maries started with kms of good beaches, with parasailers and even more families. Then at the entrance to town - hundreds of camping cars, mostly from Italy. And deeper in, a pedestrian area packed with people buying ice cream and generally milling about. No lonely outpost, this was a tourist Mecca. How did we ever find a room amidst all this?
It turned out that the back streets, such as the one with our hotel, Les Palmiers, were quite calm and relaxing, with characteristic white buildings with tile roofs, and the sea visible beyond. It actually is a lovely vacation town, even if not a lonely outpost.
We did not have the strength to go out and join the throngs for some ice cream and excitement. In fact, at 2.50 euros a scoop, we would pass on the ice cream anyway. So we will just rest up and tomorrow hope to meet some more horses and bulls as we cut across the Camargue on the way to Sete.
Today's ride: 80 km (50 miles)
Total: 2,114 km (1,313 miles)
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