Aigues Mortes

St-Marie’s-de-la-Mer

We drove up the minor roads through the marshes today up past Arles to Aigues Mortes. Seeing many wading birds and birds of prey. 

I think all the tourists in Provence decided to go to Aigues Mortes today

We eventually parked along a small outer road by someone’s wall 🤪

The whole old town is within a walled city.

You can walk around the ramparts but there was such a queue of people waiting to pay we decided to stroll around the narrow streets and see all the many small shops. (It reminded us of concarneau but bigger)

There was such a smell of jasmine which was in flower and growing up many of the shops and apartments. Craft shops boutiques sweets cafes ….. very atmospheric. Well worth a visit very French.

Next we continued exploring the Camargue area. Towards st Marie’s de la Mer. The area is an huge conservation area. We did spot flamingoes, Stilts, egrets and wading birds. 

St Marie de la mer the town is very tourist commercialised and like a huge holiday camp But the natural areas of the surrounding camargue are wild but managed by farming

The wild horses are in enclosures and fed . There was a field full of the black horned bulls too. A bit disappointing but still lovely to see them. We saw rice fields and salt marshes. The whole area is “managed”

There are many wild flowers, poppies ,yellow flag irises ,purple thistles ,gorse 

etc

So we finally headed for our holiday retreat.

Tired grandads sit here!