Day Trips from Aix Part 1 - The Camargue and Arles

One of the things we loved about Aix-en-Provence as our choice of location for a month in the south of France was its location ideally situated within an easy one to two hours of many wonderful day trips. Some of our favorite times were hopping in the car (rental cars were surprisingly inexpensive in Europe!) and setting out to explore the Provençal countryside, surrounding cities, old towns, the coast and natural wonders.  The freedom to roam at our own pace was delightful and coming back to a home base was grounding for everyone.  After the adults in the car figured out how not to devolve into arguing over navigating with or despite google maps, our road trips were usually a happy way to spend the day.

Some of my favorite people to do day trips with:

We combined visiting two very different destinations in one epic day when we went to Arles and then the Camargue.  Arles is an ancient city that was once a Roman capital and has roman ruins including a large amphitheater.  It is also where Van Gogh spent a few years living and painting while in and out of hospital.  Arles and the surroundings are the inspiration for many of his paintings.  Arles was our first (and at the time we thought would be our only) exposure to Roman ruins.  It was cool to see the amphitheater and walk under the ancient arches and between shadows and sun rays.

The Camargue is a natural region located south of Arles, between the Mediterranean Sea and the two arms of the Rhône delta.  It is a countryside renowned for black bulls, white horses and pink flamingos.  We went to the Ornithological Park of Pont de Gau where hundreds of flamingos gather.  We wandered the paths that border the ponds and watering holes, taking innumerable photographs of the shockingly pink birds.  As often happens when the Lacalejos meet up with wildlife, we spent an impressive amount of time in the park without even covering that much territory!  It is truly a wonderful gift that all five of us can enjoy ourselves when watching birds, animals and nature.  Sometimes one person is more into the nature, another time someone will engage via photography, another it is simply being out in the sun.  Regardless, it is a treat that nature and wildlife is a shared love for all of us.

Looking at the flamingos.

Watching a muskrat.

After the park we drove a loop that took us through the Camargue past salt marshes that end at a saltworks. In the Camargue "salt can be found widely in the soil, and the nature of the flat and clayey land, dotted with ponds, lends itself well to the extraction of sea salt. It is also a region where evaporation is the most intense and rainfall the weakest." (https://www.avignon-et-provence.com/en/natural-sites/saltworks-aigues-mortes-camargue).   As the sun started its descent we made our way to the edge of an immense salt production field where evaporation basins cover 14,000 hectares. As far as the eye could see, extending out to the horizon, was an immense shimmering pale purple-pink plain.  That was the flat!  The pink colour was courtesy of a microscopic algea.  

Upon our arrival at a look-off, the kids ran to the shriveled edge of a stream that meandered in from the flats and exclaimed in glee when they realized that the piles of white were salt!  Soon they were crouched down digging their hands into the salt, trying to extract large intact flakes.  After some trial and error they realized the best way to harvest clean clumps of salt.  Soon we had Ziploc bags* filled with freshly harvested salt.  We dug and we laughed and we marveled that more people don't just come and get their own salt. (Which then raised an interesting question of was it allowed, or perhaps it is just too much of a hassle...Regardless, we had FUN.)

*As a side note, having a small stash of Ziploc bags was a travel essential.  They were used and reused for all manner of treasure hunting finds, from shells, to sand, to salt, lego pieces, veggie sticks and pickles.  We became very aware of the excessive use of plastic around the world, bags, water bottles, etc, and tried to use our own reusable bags and bottles where possible, but a few ziplocs were often exactly the answer to a storage conundrum.

Once home from our jaunt through Roman history, ornithological wetlands and salt marshes, the salt preparation assembly line began. The kids and Leo jumped into sorting the collected salt into piles, cleaning the ones that needed a bit of polish, spreading some out to dry, grinding some into smaller pieces, and finally putting them into small baggies to take home.  What fun and what great memories when we use the hand collected salt from the Camargue (as long as we can get the baggies of white powdery substance across all the borders we have to cross!)

I unfortunately only thought to take pictures at the end of the process.
All three kids participated but I only have pictures of V.

I planned to do one long post with all our day trips, but there is just too much to share, so I will break them up into smaller posts.  Next up, a completely different pace: Monaco.