Aigues-Mortes and Grau du Roi

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It’s been a while since we’ve visited this part of the Camargue. I brought my daughters here in 1990, driving all the way in 2 days with them in my Astra GTE and we stayed in a Eurocamp caravan at Port Camargue. I can remember walking into Aigues-Mortes and my eldest telling me to put the camera away as I looked like a tourist 😊

That’s where we headed today. Extremely hot and indeed full of tourists when we got there. The first 3 carparks said they were full, though annoyingly as we drove past we saw several empty spots. Managed to find a space in the car park at the end of the city walls and walked in through one of the gates. The walls are so impressive, completely surrounding the town inside. Outside there are the salins which process the famous Camargue salt.

Had a lovely wander round and eventually found ourselves in the main square at a creperie. Perfect for lunch we thought, but that creperie had none, only salad which was a little confusing 😊 We found another in the opposite corner and which had big ceiling fans to cool us so a perfect spot for lunch of cold drinks and lemon crepes with icecream.

Next stop was Le Grau du Roi just a little further along and ‘The seaside town’ of the area. Also heaving with people but this time, apart from those heading for eating places, these were off to the beach.. Found a free half hour spot behind the beach and having decided against the hassle of changing into swimming costume I just went into the sea for a paddle. Came out nicely cooled down especially as a few breaking waves had wet all my shorts which was extremely pleasant given the heat.

Then back to the car and following, goodness knows which route the satnav decided on, we took a few rat run back roads, one which was 2 km of unsurfaced road, past ranches with high protective walls and gates, and lots of white horses and we did eventually get onto the main road back to the campsite. We failed to find any more flamingoes and have concluded they are just not in this part of the area.

We have decided that our campsite is absolutely delightful, beautifully maintained and a lovely pool but it is really not best located for the Camargue areas we want to visit. It also has sandy ground and the ground for our pitch was full of ant holes. I bought some ant-spray from the campsite little shop and sprayed all the ground sheet and everything which was in contact with it to avoid carrying 1000 ants away with us in the motorhome back locker.

PS apologies for my delay in posting but it has been so hot that instead of sitting writing this and sorting out my photos I have tended to fall asleep

😊

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