The Camargue is where the Rhône gives up and turns to water, reed and salt. It is flat to the horizon, half land and half lagoon, worked by white horses, black bulls and the men who ride them. Come for a day and you will only see the road; come for two and the place starts to make sense.
I. The delta and its birds
At the Parc ornithologique du Pont de Gau, near the Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, the flamingos stand in their thousands and let you walk among them. South of Arles the road runs down to Salin-de-Giraud, where the salt pans turn the water rose and the harvest still piles in white hills.
“The Camargue keeps the horizon honest — there is nothing to hide behind.”
II. The walled town and the sea
To the west, Aigues-Mortes sits inside its complete medieval walls, a perfect square in the marsh from which Louis IX once sailed for the Crusades. Beyond it the empty beach at Beauduc runs for kilometres — wind, sand, and the long line of the Mediterranean.
