Yesterday we took a mini bus tour to the Camargue: the Rhone river delta south of Avignon. It’s flat, marshy and agricultural – lots of the local fruit and veg comes from there. It is also the only place in Europe there are flamingoes, and we visited a park to see them – a bit like a French Zealandia – and we saw heaps of other birds and the odd critter too.

Then we were off to St Marie de la Mer, which is right on the Mediterranean coast, for lunch and a stroll (it was too hot for the local speciality of beef stew so we had a gelato instead), and finally we visited Aigues-Mortes, a small walled town next to the Camargue salt pans. All very interesting. Along the way we saw some of the local camargue black bulls: while bull fighting is big in this part of the world (St Marie had a small arena of the waterfront with statues of famous bulls outside) they use bulls from Spain – the Camargue bulls are apparently for eating! We also got to see some of the local white horses at a manade (ranch/farm) – horse trekking is big here too.

Internet being slow – so here are a few flamingoes and I’ll post the rest of the trip later!