“Earth hath not anything to show more fair.”

Under the disguise previously described, we bravely set off once more, because there are so many beautiful, historic, unspoilt places to visit within a reasonable car journey from here.

Gary had meticulously planned a trip to La Petite Camargue.    Our first stop was in La Grande Motte with its extraordinary 60’s architecture.   I loved this town and don’t agree with those who say the buildings have not stood well against  the ravages of time.

And then to the wild and wonderful beaches at Le Grau du Roi.

(No Gazzie I’m not making a sand castle   I’ve fallen over.   Stop taking the damned photos!)

We had lunch on the red and white gingham table cloths of Les Capucins Restaurant in the town square within the Medieval city walls of Aigues-Mortes.   Afterwards we walked along a canal lined with bone white coppiced plane trees, looking like calcified limbs against a pale blue sky.

Gary had planned our day to perfection. He knows the area because when he was hitch hiking as a student he was picked up outside Paris by three students of Romany heritage. They drove him all the way through France, feeding him and  sleeping on beaches.    When they got into the Camargue they invited him to the family wedding they were attending in Ste. Marie de la Mere.

We visited this seaside town, purported to be the capital of the Camargue and certainly the spiritual home of Europe’s gypsies. Of course, out of season, almost everything was closed,  which lent the town a ghostly air. Though a group of elderly gentlemen played a spirited game of Boules, mufflered up against the sea breeze.

We definitely want to return, possibly in May when gypsies from all over Europe return to Ste Marie for annual festivities. The town is dominated by huge statues of bulls and horses. These animals are central to the lives of the people of the Camargue.

We recounted this story at our French conversation class but didn’t know the French word for gypsy. We learned that a female gypsy is a Gitane, hence the iconic emblem on the cigarette packet.  

We Juliette Greco clones remember these:  the Look; the smell;  the cough.

In order to get to Ste Marie we needed to cross the Petit Rhône canal.  We did this on the Bac du Sauvage or ferry boat.   Completely  free,  the ferry plies its trade every half an hour during daylight hours.    On a Wednesday in January, Gaz and I and Mistress R. Soul were the only passengers.

As we drove deeper into the countryside we passed the many manades, where visitors can stay and take part in the lives of the “cowboys” of the Camargue.   The manades have guardianship over semi-feral horses and cattle.

We started to make our way home as a fierce orange sun began its own journey towards the horizon.  The wetlands around us tck tck tickered and slippy-slithered as the wildlife prepared, some to settle down for the night and others for a night out.

Behind the swathes of golden reeds the white  Camarguaise horses snickered and gently hoofed the soft ground.   Huge black bulls looked over their fences to see who had the temerity to disturb their twilight rituals.

And then, impossibly, a starling murmuration, swept over the car and across the marshland.   The air around us stirred to the beat of a thousand wings and for a moment we were in dark shadow as they passed before the dying sun.

We had opened our windows and it seemed to us that we, alone in all the world, at that precious moment, were privileged to be part of the greatest show on earth.

We could not speak.  There was no need.   We had shared a day that had shown us the best that man and nature can offer. The memory will be there for us when man and nature are at their worst.

And then we will say,

“Remember?”