Summer Holidays: Sète à Saint Chamas

Gee, at this rate it will take me the rest of fall to finish telling the story of our summer holidays. Where was I?

Monday Sète à Saint Chamas

David and I dragged ourselves away from another potentially beautiful day on the beach to head to our next stop in Saint Chamas. Saint Chamas is located near a barely inland lake, en route to Marseille. As we pulled out of town I consulted the guide book to find a tourist site on our way. I selected the town of Aigues-Mortes, with its promise of a fortress tower overlooking the Camargue - the mouth of the Rhône delta and the marshes of southern France.

On the road through the Camargue, we saw many of the animals identified by the region; sturdy, smokey colored horses, dozens of black bulls, and shallow pools full of light pink flamingos.

In Aigues-Mortes we drove around for a while before finding a shady parking spot, then strolled into the walled old town. Like so many historic "old towns", the streets were lined with tourist shops and ice cream stands. We walked directly to the tower, where we were promptly relieved of seven euros each to visit the fort.

Maybe we're jaded, maybe it was the principle of paying for something that would normally be free in most any other village, but we weren't impressed. Another stone fortress in another French village. We climbed the tower overlooking the Camargue and took in the view below; red tiled roofs, flat expanses of marshes, and distant piles of salt. Not quite as breathtaking as I'd imagined, but at least the weather was pleasant.

We descended from the tower, poked around the courtyard a bit, and decided to take our leave, feeling somewhat unsatisfied. We made our way back to the car, stopping only for an ice cream.

Back on the road, we pointed the Mondeo toward our next tourist site before reaching our final destination of the day; Pont du Gard. David had already seen the 2000 year-old Roman bridge - part of a 17 km aqueduct - some years ago on a family vacation, and for that reason I almost suggested that we skip it. But he insisted that he'd like to see it again, so we put it into the
GPS and trundled on.

We reached Pont du Gard in the mid afternoon, during the most oppressively sweltering part of the day. We parked at the visitors' center and hiked along a path to the river and the towering bridge. What an impressive site, this ancient feat of engineering. We scrambled along the rocky banks taking photos for a while before the heat started making me cranky. I perched on a rock and watched people jump off the banks into the water below.

Hey, let's go swimming.

So we hiked back to the car, stashed the cameras in the trunk, and did a speedy wardrobe change in the front seats. The big Mondeo was turning out to be a real blessing, serving as both our closet and changing cabin. Donning towels and sandals, we returned to the path and walked back to the river.

Naturally, as soon as we got to the rocky banks of the river in the shadow of the aqueduct I got cold feet. David waved off my sudden onset of timidness and left me behind to climb up a small cliff we'd seen kids jumping off of earlier.

After jumping off twice, he led me to a lower, less intimidating set of rocks where I could hop into the water from a dizzying height of one to two feet. It was enough to make my day. I jumped and jumped, then dove into the water again and again like a happy little dog chasing a stick. The water was so different then that of the sea the day before - calm and fresh and crystal clear. The banks dropped abruptly into the river, making a perfect natural diving platform.

Finally we got hungry enough to drag ourselves out of the water and towel off before returning to the car and doing another clothing change in the front seats. We set off on the road again, and were soon in Saint Chamas at the steps of our chambre d'hôte, or bed and breakfast.

David and I chose to stay in chambres d'hôtes instead of hotels for most of our vacation. We wanted to avoid the tourist crowds as much as possible and stay in quiet local homes. L'Escapade was a perfect start - the house was off a side road away from town, surrounded by overgrown fields. Our hostess cheerfully waved us through the gate and led us to our room overlooking a meadow. We threw open the windows, laid out our swimsuits to dry, and immediately left to find dinner.

On our hostess' recommendation we drove down to the neighboring mideval town of Miramas. We parked at the bottom of a hill and climbed a set of stone steps into the town center, which was glowing orange and pink in the setting sun. Maybe because it was Monday, the town was almost completely deserted, save for a few wandering dinner hopefuls like ourselves. We located the only open restaurant in town - a crêperie - and were seated at a table overlooking the valley and the lake below. After our crêpes we each tried absurdly giant ice cream desserts, which apparently is a speciality of the region.

Following dinner we drove back to the chambre d'hôte in the dark and schemed for the day ahead - the Calanques.