Day 12 – Thursday 26 June

Avignon to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer

Hotel

Hôtel le Mirage

Notes

I missed the others for coffee and somehow (I don't remember) managed to get lost in Terascon and didn't cross the river to the west bank. Instead I picked up a small bye-road with the name La Petite Route d'Arles which I thought sounded promising so down it I went. It turned out to be dead straight alongside a railway and stayed on the east bank all the way. It was along this stretch that I took the photograph of the sunflowers. I eventually got to the river again in Arles, on the east side embankment but could find no easy way off the terraced walkway to cross a small bridge, so I unloaded the bicycle and heaved everything down steps to the street and round a corner up onto the bridge.

I came across the others not long afterwards. They were in a bar / restaurant and the proprietor had been looking out for me. I spotted their bicycles locked outside and he came out and confirmed they were all inside. He and his wife (we think) were playing a double act to the amusement of the other people there and we added to the general hilarity. I needed to toilet and there must have been a look of horror on my face as went in and realised it was a squatting loo. They told me afterwards that there had been a running joke about following the route, and the thought was that I would be sucked down the loo only to emerge some miles further on grasping my satnav and shouting "toujours en route".

The ViaRhôna will apparently go through Montpelier when it has been completed but from Arles we made our own way to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. There had been some fear of mosquitoes as we got into the Camargues but didn't come across anything serious in the way of bites. I had taken a tube of antihistamine as well as hydrocortisone but in fact didn't use either. There sere lots of riding stables; I saw some white horses but no black bulls that are bred for the bullrings of Spain and Languedoc. Nor did I see any flamingos; I suppose they are further east towards the centre of the region.

We stopped for photographs at the edge of the town with town signs in both French and Occitan and a few minutes later we were at the beach. We had arrived, and felt just a bit proud of it. We had a celebratory beer on the promenade and then found the hotel. There were fly screens at all the windows and a rattling fan in the ceiling but no air conditioning. After cleaning up we went in search of a restaurant. After several inspections we settled on a likely place. We were the first there and were ushered onto a terrace and entertained by a waiter with multiple tattoos.