FR26.10 Camargue

The Camargue is a large national park in southern France and is best known for its wetlands. As such, you’ll find lots of salt producers and lots of mosquitoes. It’s also famous for its wild horses and flamingos 🦩

We had a grand plan and drove to a lovely farm that offers official tours on tractor-pulled trailers. Our plan, however, was to park up and go for a nice bike ride that would include the flamingo reserve as well as the supposedly lovely town of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.

Our perfect plan, however, got off to a slightly rocky start. Only 200 metres into the bike ride, the farmer who was driving a tractor with three trailers full of tourists started shouting in our direction. By the third shout it was clear he was shouting at Kathrin and around the thirteenth shout — and once certainly ALL tourists on ALL three trailers were staring at us — we finally understood that he was simply trying to warn Kathrin that the bike stand wasn’t folded away and that she would probably end up on her arse at the next left turn.

Once we had survived that properly embarrassing moment, we were certain we could finally enjoy the bike ride. About 1.5 km later, however, on an incredibly narrow road, a French car slowed down to our speed and the passenger started shouting something in French.

We tried to explain that we didn’t speak French, but that didn’t seem to matter. The shouting continued until they eventually drove off looking rather annoyed.

To this day we have absolutely no idea what they wanted.

Some ten minutes later we called it quits and returned to Wilma as the roads were simply far too busy and our route research had clearly been flawed. Instead of a romantic bike ride through the Camargue, it felt more like a constant fight for survival with cars passing at 80 km/h.

So we packed the bikes away and instead drove Wilma to the Ornithological Park of Pont de Gau.

To our surprise, we found a parking spot almost immediately. Delighted with our luck, we entered the park armed with two cameras and two phones to make absolutely sure we’d get a picture of a flamingo if we were lucky enough to see one.

What we didn’t know — and certainly didn’t expect — was that the park would be full of them.

Our day had suddenly become a whole lot better.

Extremely excited and happy, we spent hours watching these wonderfully ridiculous birds.

At the exit, some vendors had conveniently set up shop and we immediately spotted a wooden flamingo magnet that would fit perfectly into our collection.

Up until that point I had collected surprisingly few mosquito bites.

That changed within seconds.

I was under attack.

It was a vicious assault on my life and I briefly daydreamed about running around with a flamethrower showing them who was boss 🔥🦟

Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that I wasn’t the boss.

The mosquitoes were.

So I ran around for a bit and then ran away towards Wilma, leaving Kathrin behind to buy the damned magnet.

Which she did.

And she didn’t just pay in euros. She also left a considerable amount of blood behind in tiny mosquito bellies.

Later we counted.

I had 27 bites on my back alone.

THIS WAS NOT FUNNY!

But somehow it was still entirely worth it because we had seen flamingos, which really are just amazing.

After that spectacular experience we felt we deserved a quiet little café to enjoy a coffee and some pastries. A suitable place was quickly found in the heart of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer and so we set off. For some reason we started Google Maps navigation even though it was literally eight minutes further down the same road.

Interestingly, Google showed a bright red ETA of 20 minutes and the road ahead was marked in red as well.

Kathrin joked:

“Probably all the people parking on the side of the road who want to visit.”

Sadly, she was absolutely right.

As it turned out, there was a Gypsy Pilgrimage taking place that very day and the place was packed.

Absolutely packed.

Endless rows of Italian tour buses, kilometres of roads lined with parked cars on both sides and absolutely no chance of getting anywhere near the village or finding a spot for Wilma.

Consulting Google Maps once more, we spotted an official campsite on the other side of town and decided that we really wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

So we took the 30-minute detour through the Camargue to the campsite.

€16 for 24 hours.

Fair enough.

The campsite itself was little more than a dusty sandpit with a service station attached.

Still this campsite was packed, too.

The location, however, was excellent, with just a two-minute walk to the beach and about twenty minutes on foot to the village centre.

Under normal circumstances we probably wouldn’t have picked it, but this was an exception.

Happy that we had found a safe spot for Wilma, we walked into the village. Our hopes of enjoying a coffee in a nice little café had long since disappeared, but that was okay.

Unfortunately, the festivities had apparently evolved into more of a youth drinking event and the village was littered with rubbish.

Huge numbers of armed police officers — including a mobile command centre and at least one drone constantly hovering overhead — made it pretty clear that they were expecting the odd incident here and there.

We made the best of it and wandered through the little alleyways. It wasn’t what we had imagined, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Peeking into the church, we noticed that the usual candles weren’t located in the main hall but in a cave-like cellar directly beneath the altar.

I had never seen that before and decided to go down.

Immediately the air became thick and heavy and the temperature felt at least 5-10°C warmer.

I couldn’t believe that a room full of candles and poor ventilation could have such a dramatic effect.

It was certainly an interesting experience.

Afterwards we headed to a nearby beach club and enjoyed colourful mocktails while looking out over the Mediterranean Sea.

The next morning we had breakfast overlooking the salt flats, paid them a quick visit and then headed off towards our next destination…