Day trippers

After sorting out a Sky reception problem back home we set sail for Aigues-Mortes some 33kms from Montpellier.

Aigues-Mortes is a completely walled city, built on a lido, in 1240 by Louis IX - the shape is an irregular quadrilateral and the walls are 1640 metres long

Arriving in town parking was hard to find as some of the parking areas outside of the Walls were taken over by the Sunday market which was a hive of activity with I guess over 50 stalls selling veggies, meats, breads, clothes and bric-a-brac.

It was a colourful environment.

The main entrance to the city is an imposing tower set in the walls and through that entrance one walks straight into the commercial part of the city leading down to Place Saint-Louis the historic heart of the town.

The immediate reaction is that the town has been over commercialised but when you go up on the walls and look across the whole town the area that has been commercialised would be less than 20%, the remainder being the townsfolk's residences.

It is quite a delightful town to visit and the walk around the walls gave views of the salt lakes adjacent

The photo of the lakes above doesn't do justice to the colouring seen through the eyes as they were very much distinctly pink.

6 kms down the road and also in Camargue natural region sits the town of Le Grau Du-Roi. If we thought that Aigues-Mortes was commercialised then we hadn't seen anything as Le Grau Du-Roi was absolutely a mass of people walking what appeared to be aimlessly passed shop after shop.

It struck me that when they left home with the idea of visiting Le Grau Du-Roi those folk were going there to swim, look at the scenery or even take a boat trip out into the Mediterranean but they arrived and were seduced by the shops which like a magnet drew them in.

This photo was taken at 4.57pm and the crowds didn't even hint at thinning out.

Whether the shops are worthwhile someone else would need to say!

There was a canal flowing from Aigues-Mortes down to Le Grau Du-Roi and then on out into the Mediterranean and there were various tourist vessels taking visitors through the canal and out into the sea

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Leaving the masses behind we walked along the beach promenade and came across three sand sculptures that some one had crafted during the day

By now it was after six so we returned to the carpark, fired up the 3008 and drove back to Montpellier and home.

All this tripping around would be impossible without a good GPS and we appear to have that in this vehicle the motorway issue arriving in Montpellier excepted!