From Cassis to the Camargue

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Bonjour!

Well, I think we’ve definitely found the HIGH point of our accommodations so far – La Villa Mazarin, in Aigues-Mortes. However, before I tell you about that, let me go back and recap the fairly lazy day we’ve had!

Up to a sunny, spectacular day on the Cassis coast; down to breakfast by 8, and in the car and heading out by 9. Rather a funky kind of place, but very comfortable overall; certainly more of a B&B than a hotel. From there, we first wanted to explore the cape – huge, rocky area – to the east of Cassis. Climbed up a VERY high mountain to reach the top, and had wonderful views all around. (Except that the view looking eastward included La Ciotat, which turns out to be another BIG port city!) Wound up, around and then down, stopping and taking pictures as we went. From La Ciotat (where, by the way, they have a LAVARIE AUTOMATIQUE!!!) headed to the peage toward Aix-en-Provence … which is where we stopped…a TERRIBLE traffic jam (called in French “bouchon” – after a wine cork!); completely stopped, all three lanes. Took us quite a while; probably half-hour or longer – to work our way through to the accident site, and by that time, voila! The accident was finally cleared! Wow! As R points out, the limited access roads can be terrific for getting places – but also, VERY hard to get out of if something goes wrong!!
Got off right after the accident, and started circling to the north of Marseilles; preferred NOT to go through the center of town once again, if we could help it! Drove through some beautiful areas, heading again toward Arles, which we needed to actually go through, to get on the other side of the Rhone, and to the Camargue.
The Camargue, for anyone not familiar with the area, is basically the huge estuary between branches of the Rhone River, as it comes out to the Mediterranean. We had visited several years ago, but decided that we couldn’t take the horsey smell of our inn – so we jumped ship and high-tailed it to Avignon! The Camargue is famous for having 400 species of birds, including 160 migratory, with their star attraction being the pink flamingo; black bulls that are used for Camargue bull-fights (NO killing!!), and small white horses. This time, however, we figured that we’d pass through it, on the way to Aigues-Mortes, a small, fortified city right on the coast to the west of the Camargue.

Drove first to Stes. Maries de la Mer, the largest town in the Camargue, where we found lunch. R had a large pile of Moules a la Provencal – (but not as good as last night’s at Nino’s!) and I had a wonderful tomato and mozzarella salad – served with RED salt! Very odd, but fun and tasty!

From Stes. Maries we decided to push on to Aigues-Mortes, a 13 century, walled city we’ve passed several times – once by car and once by train. This time, we made it inside the city walls, and found our hotel, La Villa Mazarin. So … now is definitely the time for superlatives! They have their own parking garage, a block away from their entrance, but upon entering, there is an elevator which brings you up right on the hotel grounds! Only 20 rooms; it’s not a HUGE place, but WOW is the only word for it! We are in room #16, on the second floor – in fact, in our building, there are only four rooms in total! Our view looks out over the courtyard and actually into the indoor swimming pool and Jacuzzi! Would LOVE to go in, but R reluctant…will decide if I want to go in later!!

Settled in for a few minutes, then headed out for our walk around the walls. However, found that by the time we got to the entry, that the wall walk was closing shortly, so we decided to delay our walk until tomorrow morning, and then do some sightseeing on the Camargue after that. Figure that regardless of the weather, we can still walk the walls! We then walked around town – and guess what?! Would you believe that we’re now wonderfully ensconced in the ONLY town in France WITHOUT a Laverie Automatique??? NO washing machines?! What kind of place is this? Our wonderful hotel has offered to do laundry for us, for not too much $$, but still…will have to ponder my next washing move…don’t really need to do anything until probably Sunday or Monday, but prefer not to cut it that close!!

So…back to walking around the town. Beautiful little place; took pictures and walked through shops. Not sure what we’ll do for dinner, as I don’t think either of us is up to a big gourmet affair tonight … is that a pizza calling my name?? Wandered back to the hotel where we had glasses of Chardonnay on the patio in the courtyard … this is definitely the way to live!

More later!
Lots of love!
m