Camargue Scenic Route (105 km)

Arles to Saintes Maries de la Mer

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Why this ride

A 105 km one-way ride from near Arles, about 1 h 46 of riding. It goes by way of Etang de Vaccares and Salin de Giraud. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.

Roadbook

1. Arles start

   Arles is where the Rhône splits in two and the Camargue begins, and for more than two thousand years it has been a city of power, art and sun. The Romans made it one of the great cities of Gaul, building an amphitheatre that still hosts events, a theatre, baths and an underground gallery, the cryptoportiques, and the Roman and Romanesque monuments of Arles are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Romanesque church of Saint-Trophime, with its carved portal and cloister, is one of the finest in Provence.

   Vincent van Gogh lived in Arles in 1888 and 1889, and painted some of his most famous works here, including the Café Terrace at Night, The Yellow House and Starry Night over the Rhône. He cut off part of his ear here after a quarrel with Paul Gauguin, and was treated at the hospital, whose courtyard garden he painted, now the Espace Van Gogh. The Fondation Vincent van Gogh shows exhibitions linked to his work, and the LUMA tower, designed by Frank Gehry, has added a striking modern landmark.

   The riding around Arles is varied. To the south, the Camargue is a flat land of marshes, lagoons and rice fields, with white horses, black bulls and pink flamingos, and the roads to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer and the beaches are straight and windy, with the mistral blowing hard from the north. To the north-east, the Alpilles, a range of limestone hills, have winding roads through olive groves and pine forests, past the village of Les Baux-de-Provence. Summer is hot and crowded, and the mosquitoes in the Camargue can be fierce.

   Arles, a city of fifty thousand, has fuel, shops and restaurants, and its old centre is a pleasure to walk. Fourques and Fontvieille, nearby, are smaller villages. Provençal food is rich and aromatic: bouillabaisse, tapenade, and the local specialties of the Camargue, such as red rice, gardianne de taureau, a bull stew, and saucisson d'Arles. The Saturday market, along the boulevards, is one of the largest in Provence. In the evening, the light over the Rhône, the same light that inspired Van Gogh, is magical.

2. Etang de Vaccares scenic

   The Étang de Vaccarès is the heart of the Camargue, a shallow, brackish lagoon of roughly sixty-five square kilometres, which makes it the largest in the Rhône delta. It is not the sort of lake you swim in. It is a wide sheet of pewter-grey water, ringed by reedbeds, salt flats and tamarisk, with the sky as the main feature. The water is so shallow that most of it is only a metre or two deep, and it is a nature reserve of international importance, a refuge for thousands of birds, including greater flamingos, herons, ibises and avocets.

   Riding here is a flat, open experience, and it feels more like being at sea than on land. The roads that approach the lagoon, such as the D36B and the D570 from Arles, run dead straight across the delta between rice fields, marsh and pasture, with white horses and black bulls grazing at the verge, tended by gardians, the Camargue cowboys, on horseback. The tarmac is narrow and often patched, with no hard shoulder, and the main hazard is the wind. The mistral, a cold, dry wind from the north, can blow for days and will push a bike sideways, and in summer the mosquitoes are ferocious. Spring and autumn are the best times, with softer light, migrating birds and fewer insects.

   The Camargue is a living landscape, made by the Rhône and the sea, and by centuries of human management. The salt pans, the rice fields and the ranches all shape the pattern. The park is run as a regional nature reserve, and you will find signed paths and small observation points where you can stop and look through binoculars. Walking is easy, with flat ground, but you should stay on the marked routes and keep clear of the horses and bulls. The light is the real gift: wide skies, low horizons and colours that change by the minute, especially at dawn and dusk.

   Services are thin around the lagoon. A few farm restaurants and village cafés serve local dishes such as gardiane, a stew of bull meat in red wine, with Camargue rice, and are well worth trying if you find one open.

3. Salin de Giraud scenic

   Salin-de-Giraud is a company village at the southern tip of the Camargue, built around salt, and the salt shapes the whole place. All around it, the flat land is cut into vast evaporation ponds, shallow basins where seawater is let in and left to the sun and wind. In summer the water turns pink and then almost red, a result of tiny algae and bacteria that thrive in the salty brine, and big white mounds of salt, the camelles, rise like miniature glaciers beside the pans. The effect, in clear light, is surreal, as though someone has dyed the landscape.

   The village itself grew up in the nineteenth century with the salt works and, later, a large chemical plant, and its streets of neat workers' housing still show the planned layout of a company town. Today the Salins du Midi still harvests salt here, including the fleur de sel, the fine crust from the surface of the pans that cooks prize. Birdlife is rich, and flamingos feed in the shallows in their hundreds, standing on one leg and looking affronted by the world.

   The ride is flat, open and straight. From Arles or from the Vaccarès, the road runs across the delta through rice fields and salt marsh, with the pans appearing on both sides, and the main variable is the wind. The mistral can make the final approach hard work, so brace the bike and lean into it. The surface is generally fine but narrow, and lorries from the salt works share the road. Summer is hot and glaring, and the midges are not kind, so spring and early autumn are the better seasons. The best light is early morning and evening, when the pans reflect the sky and flamingos glow pink.

   From Salin-de-Giraud you can head to the wild beaches of the coast, such as Beauduc and Piémanson, where the track runs across dunes to long empty sand, and in summer informal camper camps spread along the shore. To cross the Rhône, there is a small ferry, the bac de Barcarin, that carries cars and bikes across the Grand Rhône towards Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône. There is a fare, and the crossing takes just a few minutes.

   For practical needs, the village has a bakery, a café or two and shops. Port-Saint-Louis, about eight kilometres across the river, has supermarkets and fuel, which is the safer place to fill up. Bring water and sun protection.

4. Saintes Maries de la Mer finish

   The Camargue is the great wet delta of the Rhône, a flat, wide, shimmering land of lagoons, reed beds and salt pans, and Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer is its small, strange capital. The village sits on the edge of the sea, with a fortified church, Notre-Dame-de-la-Mer, that dominates the skyline like a stone ship, built in the twelfth century with thick walls and a roof designed for defence against pirate raids. Legend says that Mary Jacobe and Mary Salome, followers of Christ, fled Palestine in a boat without sails and landed here, accompanied by their servant Sarah, and the village is named in their honour.

   Every year on 24 and 25 May, thousands of Roma travel from across Europe to honour Sarah, known as Sara la Kali, the black Sara, who is their patron saint. The statue of Sara is carried down to the sea in a procession of horses, riders and singing crowds, and it is a very moving event, though crowded. At other times, the village is quiet and seaside, with white houses, narrow streets, a small bullring and a beach.

   The land around is full of wildlife and character. Pink flamingos wade in the shallows of the lagoons in their thousands, white horses graze in the marshes, and black bulls are raised for the Provençal bullfights, in which the bull is not killed. The gardians, the Camargue cowboys, still ride in the saddles and wear hats and jackets of a traditional cut. Rice fields, salt pans and rows of reeds stretch to the horizon, and the light has a clear, pale quality that painters have loved, Van Gogh among them, who painted the boats here in 1888.

   For motorcyclists, the road is flat, straight and scenic in an unspectacular way, with long views, big skies and the occasional flock of birds. The wind, particularly the mistral, can be strong, pushing the bike sideways, and mosquitoes are fierce from late spring until autumn, so bring repellent. There are fuel pumps in the village, but the crowds at the height of summer make a fuel stop slow, so the sensible option is to fill the tank at Arles or Aigues-Mortes. A plate of local bull stew, gardianne, with Camargue rice, makes a good supper.

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