The end

After leaving Saintes Maries we headed to Arles, on our way back to Avignon.



A quick look round the ancient Roman ruins, the amphitheater is most impressive and is still used today for concerts and a French form of bull fighting that involves people running across the bull ring and taking a rosette from between the horns, there are other forms, but all are bloodless for the bulls, the Human participants are the ones that get killed.

Leaving Arles we set off towards the Chaine des Alpilles via the remains of a Roman Aqueduct



Quite unlike remains in the UK you can get up close and personal with them. The chain of mountains seemed quite insignificant but were quite impressive as we went over them.


We stopped for a bite to eat in St Remy de Provence and got talking to a bunch of firemen from Scotland who were doing a sponsored cycle ride from Calais to the Mediterranean. we met them on Monday and they had set off the previous Tuesday.

Back to Avignon and this time we could enjoy it in the warm.

We did not use the bikes.

The next day we returned home. This was not an uneventful journey,we had sussed out the way to the station the day before so that was no problem. The problems came trying to get the car back to the rental firm. First try we ended parked up in a car park with what looked like the office fairly close, wrong, we were on the other side of the station. Lucky for us the first 20 minutes parking were free, we used this facility 4 times in all before we found the right place, and that included a complete second circuit of the complex because we saw the right spot as we passed it.

Then on to the station to catch the train.





Note that the train is a double decker. Off to Paris, where we arrived just after 5.00, at the Garre du Lyon, the heart of the rush hour. After getting our tickets to the Garre du Nord we had to find the right platform, then the right train ( thank heavens for helpful Parisiennes). Last lap, the Eurostar left on time, but we then had people trespassing on the track and the train crawled for what seemed like hours, I think this delay meant we must of missed our space on the track because we seemed to travel very slowly right up to Ebsfleet, we were about 40 minutes late. Our next hurdle was to get out of the car park at Ebsfleet. The system, if you have prepaid, is as you arrive to park your car a camera recognises your number plate from the booking form and lets you in. This did not happen with us and we just took a ticket. When you leave you are recognised again and let out, as we had not been recognised going in the system did not know we were there so it would not let us out, you then have to press the help button identify your self and are let out. I think there must be quite a lot of problems with this process because a name was enough to identify us, they did not even want the booking reference. Back home about midnight.

Sunday

After looking round the bit of Sete where we stayed,




Saturday evening was a bit low key.

Sunday morning we set off and ended up at the highest point of Sete, not where we intended.



Eventually we got away and headed to Palavas another lovely resort.



Pam and Chris crossing the canal.


More signs of jousting.

After finding the car we left for Aigues-Mortes, a medieval walled town


We found the main square, with statue of famous French king


and had our archetypical French Sunday lunch, in company with what seemed like hundreds of French people.

This was our Café, with others around the square.


We then returned to Saintes-Maries-de-lar-Mer for our last night before our return to Avignon.

Saturday

Early start and off up the coast on our return journey.

Our first stop was Adge, again after much driving around we found some parking and walked back to the town centre.

In the back streets








All the town organisations had displays on one of the main car parks, that was one of the reasons for the shortage of spaces.

By the veterans section were two jeeps.

Also an interesting game being demonstrated by kids, it was a type of modern jousting, our elf and safety police would have kittens, the lances had four metal points and even with the kids the shields were being torn to bits.





Then on to Cape de l'Adge where Chris had some oysters, crevettes and mussels and we had a more modest repast.



Driving from Adge to Sete the road is a causeway with the beach on on side and water on the other, a bit like Chesil beach with sand. A long the side of the road camper vans were parked as far as the eye could see, the mind boggles as to what it would be like in high season.









Paddlers of the word unite.


Then on to Sete for the night.

Storms and things

Friday

The grand plan was to travel east quickly and find somewhere to stop and then meander back slowly.
The weather forecast was for thunderstorms today,and they started last night, a most amazing storm, that had cleared away by breakfast time, so we set set off with happy hearts. we got out onto the A9/E15/E80 (take your pick it is the same road) and were travelling east quite nicely and then the storm started again. (French thunderstorms are better than English ones and they can keep them). Visibility fell to about 2 to 3 meters, hugh bow waves from the trucks, etc. It was not nice but we survived, Turned off at Beziers and ended up at Valras-Plage


as a stop for the Friday night.
As the storm stopped the temperature started to rise to about 30c with quite a strong wind, most unusual weather for us.

An interesting point when I use the Blogger spell check all the words come up in French.

Thursday

We woke up to nice weather as it should be. We had breakfast in the hotel and set off to find the sea somewhere else, we found Le Grau-Roi. After we found a parking place we started to explore. When we arrived at the beach Pam had a paddle in the Mediterranean.



We ended up down harbour area.




We walked up the canal and found people gathering

And something was happening,







it turned out to be a bull run; a band came along and played,



The riders came along





And then they all came back





A quick snack and then onto La Grande-Motte






Obviously a place that required money

We returned via a BAC (ferry) and we had to give up places to some horses.


A stroll around Saintes – Maries


and another nice meal

Part 2

10.30 pm
Back now after a terrific meal and great fun with the staff.

After crossing the Rhone we travelled by the back roads to Saintes Maries

Camargue Horses

A bit of the beach

You can't see but these are Flamingos.

When we arrived we parked up overlooking the water where the flamingos were seen and then we walked along the prom. to the tourist office to get details of hotels, we chose the place to rest our heads tonight,found it,booked in, and prepared ourselves for the night.