May 31| Arles to Aigues Mortes

Flamingos

From Arles we rode into the Camargue, hoping for lunch and a stop on the Mediterranean at Sts.-Marie-de-la-Mer. It was easy to find our way out of Arles, but the D570 was a very busy road, with lots of beach traffic. The shoulder was wide, though, and it didn’t feel dangerous.

White Horses

We turned off onto the D85A, the first chance to use a smaller road, and after that the riding was terrific. We went past salt water bays and marshes (literally ponds, or étangs.) This is the Rhone delta, famous for its habitat: birds, white horses, black bulls, and independent-minded people. Whether it was because the annual gypsy festival was the weekend before we arrived, or because it was hot, or just because it really is tourist season, it was too crowded for us. I don’t do well with the combination of big crowds, bikes and not knowing where to eat when I’m hungry.

Unexpected ferry crossing

  

We had bought some food at a vegetable stand, including some spectacularly delicious apricots and cherries, and its own sausage and wine. We bought cheese from a grocery store in town. Lunch was under a tree, for shade, on the way out of town. That would have been perfect, except that the huge plates of shellfish that we could see crowds eating at expensive restaurants looked so good as we rode by. The town is close to Arles and Avignon and I’m sure everyone heads there when it’s hot. I would.  NEXT 

Prologue, Planning, Packing

2009 was my first visit to France, to Europe actually, and my first cycle tour there. Oddly enough, this text is written after my 2010, second, solo trip in the Cevennes.

Luberon landscape

My husband Roy wanted to go too: he cycles some and it would be his first cycle tour anywhere. I spoke a bit of French and thought I could learn enough to get by, but he wasn’t interested in learning any. I wanted to see the country, its landscapes and cities, but the details weren’t important to him. It was my trip to organize and plan. I needed to define the route, improve my language skills, and accommodate our tight budget and my limited vacation time. 

Street scene Aigues-Mortes

Memoirs and the little bit of history I’d read easily decided me on the south of France, but just where? I wanted to see the land that produced a cuisine I am so fond of: Provence, with its olives, fish, wine, almonds, cheeses, fruit. I wanted to see a much older history than we have in the US: Roman and medieval France. I wanted to see the Mediterranean. Of course, I wanted to see Paris, but that was not a part of the bike trip.

French training: having no intention of being one of those visitors who expects everyone they encounter to speak English, I studied French daily: working with CDs, beginning with Lesson 1, CD 1. Unhappily I remembered only the most basic of basics, as I had never used the language outside of a classroom setting. It wasn’t rusty, it was next to non-existent. Cycle training: the New England winter with its icy roads and frequent snowfalls demanded that cycle training start indoors, in January, on a stationary set-up. By mid-March enough ice was off the road to move outside.

White horse in the Camargue

In planning I read journals posted on Trento and Crazy Guy on a Bike. For a specific route I relied on Michelin 300 series (Local) maps, and referred to Google Earth. This would be essentially a visit to several very famous, old cities, linked together by rides through the countryside. I wanted to visit Avignon, Orange, Aix-en-Provence, Arles, the Camargue and the Mediterranean coast. Catherine, a friend here in the Berkshires, grew up in Toulouse. Her description of the city, along with cycling journals of the Canal-du-Midi, led me to finish the trip in Toulouse. This was a good decision, but it meant less cycling in the Luberon, and missing Nîmes, Narbonne and other places I’d love to see someday. Another trip.

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