The Camargue: Not Your Mama's South of France

I was introduced to the beauty of the Camargue through a rather schmaltzy 1971 movie called Friends, which was filmed here. I was entranced by the glittering water, pink clouds of flamingos rising out of the reeds, and white horses galloping across spits of sand and through shallow, silvery pools. But I found it even more beautiful than I expected, with emerald-green rice fields, red-roofed farmhouses, and lines of dark green trees marching across the landscape. Then there is the appeal of the locals, many of whom have a romantic gypsy cast (black hair, olive skin, and brilliant black eyes), and their distinctive culture. It’s an unusual corner of France with many Spanish and Gypsy influences, worth a day or two for those who enjoy outdoor activities or a touch of the exotic.

The Camargue is a national and regional nature park of marshes and wetlands encompassing the Rhone River delta, just south of Arles. Despite its flatness, the landscape is quite varied, with waterways, rice fields, pastures, beaches, lagoons, marshes, and salt pans. White horses and short-horned black cattle roam the drier areas, while many waterfowl, including herons, egrets, and flamingos, populate the marshy areas. You can explore on foot, by bike, jeep safari, boat tour, or on horseback.

There are two very different destination towns, both worth a visit. Aigues-Mortes is a fortified town built as a point of departure for crusaders by King Louis IX (later Saint Louis) in 1241. The perfectly rectangular town is surrounded by walls and towers; within is a largely pedestrianized fantasy of cobbled streets and limestone buildings. Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer looks rather Greek, with whitewashed buildings, blue shutters, and red-tiled roofs, and it has decent sandy beaches fronting directly on the Mediterranean. It’s a major pilgrimage site for gypsies, who hold a gathering and festival here each May, with religious ceremonies and associated celebrations. You can also catch a bloodless Camarguaise bullfight in the arena here.

The small Musée Camarguais, located on highway D570 about halfway between Arles and Stes-Maries, displays the history, traditions, and lifestyle of the Camargue people. If bird-watching interests you, visit the Parc Ornithologique, located 4km from Stes. Maries on the same road, where you can see a striking variety of marsh and sea birds.

Quick Tips:

The Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer tourist information office, conveniently located next to the arena on avenue van Gogh in Stes-Maries, offers a wealth of information, provided by a helpful English-speaking staff, on exploring the marshes. Ask about bullfights, too – these are the Camarguaise variety in which the bull is not harmed.

While Aigues-Mortes is the more attractive and historic town, Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer has interesting gypsy connections and is the better base for outdoor activities due to its proximity to the beaches and marshes. If you have a car, it’s a short, easy drive (31km, or 20 miles) between the two.

Folks, "marsh" is a nice word for "swamp". If you are coming in or near summer, it can be very hot and humid, and they grow some fierce mosquitoes here. For a pleasant visit, bring light clothing, sunscreen, and mosquito repellent, and use them. Between the heat and the bugs, air-conditioning is virtually essential in summertime.

This area is quiet in the evenings; day-trip here from Arles or Nimes if you require nightlife.

Best Way To Get Around:

Arles and Nimes are the closest big towns. Trains run from/through Nimes to Aigues-Mortes, but Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer is only reachable by bus. Public transportation is minimal in this area; a car is the easiest way to get to and around the Camargue. Don’t despair, however, if you’ll arrive by public transport, as there are many ways to get out into the beautiful countryside.

Stes-Maries is the best base for exploring the wetlands. The flat terrain is well suited to biking; bikes can be rented from several establishments along rue de la République. Other options will get you to the wilder parts of the marshes. The Tourist Info office has information on hiking trails. Jeep safaris and boat tours can be booked at Camargue Safaris, 22 avenue Van Gogh. The most beautiful areas I saw, however, were from horseback and weren’t accessible by car or bike and probably not on foot either, unless you don’t mind wading through the marshes. There are several horseback riding establishments (called promenade à cheval) around the Camargue which can take you deep into the park at minimal effort while keeping your feet dry.

The two-star Hotel Mediterranée is located a couple blocks inside the perimeter of the pedestrian zone, not far from the arena and the Tourist Information office. It presents a charming face to its broad pedestrian street, with a profusion of green-leaved vines and brilliant blooms setting off its fresh white exterior. With just 14 rooms, it’s small enough to be fairly personal, run by a staff that appeared to know little English, although it was not difficult to make myself understood with phrasebook French. A pleasant, homey lobby furnished in country style and decorated liberally with potted plants welcomed me. A flowery patio waited just off the far side of the lobby. The entire first floor was quite inviting.

My room was upstairs, where a rabbit warren of narrow, windowless halls with timed lights – not a problem when arriving, but something of an issue when leaving! – led to my small room. The room had a double bed sporting a heavy, garish bedspread, a small table with two chairs pushed against a wall, and a wall-mounted television. It was adequate for one person, but couples might want to spring for a larger room to have a little extra space. The TV got no English channels, but I was nonetheless amply entertained watching the American soap opera "Days of Our Lives" dubbed in French and shows that were clearly "French Idol" and "French Survivor". Surprising how easy it was to follow the action! The shuttered window opened out on a view of some rooftops and the back of another building, not scenic but inoffensive.

On the minus side, the plumbing was pretty anemic. The toilet was difficult to flush, and it didn’t have much power, often requiring a couple flushes to get even the most minor deposits to go away. The shower, situated in a small fiberglass compartment, had adequate but not ample water pressure and the flimsy shower curtain made it hard to keep all the water inside. Another drawback was the lack of air-conditioning. In early June, a summer which would soon set records for heat was beginning its assault on southern Europe, and there was no question of sleeping with the window closed. However, the open window admitted a number of mosquitoes. As a consequence, I was forced to sleep under a sheet when I would have preferred not to.

Nonetheless, Hotel Mediterranée is a budget hotel, costing me only €43 per night, not including a €5 charge for breakfast. In mid- to late summer, air-conditioning in this region would be a necessity, and you would definitely want to look elsewhere. But for the price, I couldn’t really complain.

While I was advised to park in a pay lot, I had no trouble finding street parking for free. Watch where you park on market day, however, as parking is more restricted then.

E-mail: hotel-mediterranee@camargue.fr

Arriving in Aigues-Mortes without a reservation or even a listing of local hotels, I had no great expectations of what I’d find for a hotel. Fortunately, the 22-room Hotel St. Louis (named after King Louis IX, founder of Aigues-Mortes), which I stumbled onto just down the street from the main square, place St-Louis, suited me just fine. Its dark lobby was almost a little too classy, given my limited budget, and I caught a glimpse of a walled patio with a flourish of potted plants to the rear. But the friendly English-speaking desk clerk lined me up with a room on the second floor for a reasonable €63 and gave me a pass to park inside the city walls for the night. Entrance into Aigues-Mortes is controlled for cars, and without a pass, you must park outside the walls. I had heard tales of theft from cars in the outside parking lots, a common complaint in pedestrianized towns beloved by day trippers, so I was happy to park inside, although I was also careful to empty the car anyway as a wise precaution.

Despite the fact that I was traveling alone, I ended up with a room with two comfy double beds, a generous amount of floor space, and a TV with a single English-language news station. There was no air-conditioning, but the large, unscreened window faced onto the narrow street, and the standard Provençal shutters, latched just ajar, allowed for adequate cooling with sufficient privacy. I left the shutters open overnight, and while I could hear snatches of music from the nearby place, it wasn’t enough to disturb me. The decor, while not exactly charming, was at least inoffensive.

The bathroom was enormous, nearly half the size of the sleeping area of the room. Its porcelain fittings were that same muddy brownish-pink which could be found in the U.S. forty years ago, but everything was in excellent condition, sparkling clean, and worked great. The glassed-in shower was set on a tiled platform a step above the rest of the floor, giving the somewhat peculiar sensation of showering on a pedestal.

The hotel also has its own restaurant, L’Archére, which was out of my modest price range, but it has a good reputation and specializes in beef dishes – a good sign in this region known for its cattle. But the desk clerk, who had lived in Miami for two years and loves America and Americans, was quite willing to point me in the direction of a couple dining options that fit my budget.

All in all, I found Hotel St. Louis to be a friendly reasonably priced hotel option in the heart of the walled city.

E-mail: hotel.saint-louis@wanadoo.fr

Oh good, I thought as I pulled up to Place des Gitans, a market! I love Provençal markets, and I’d arrived at the tail end of one, just before noon. After a wander around looking at the usual displays of crafts, cheeses, sausages, and so forth, I salivated at the tantalizing aroma beckoning from a rotisserie trailer. Several beautiful brown chickens were turning on spits, dripping their juices over a tray of potato and onion chunks. I didn’t resist; for about €6 I got half a chicken and a generous serving of the potatoes, fragrant with garlic and herbs. Yummmm!


Yummm! Spit-roasted chicken

It was a different story that night, when I started looking for dinner. Many restaurants had large lit menu boards in three languages (French, German, Spanish), usually not a good sign. One had translations into English, too; among the more intriguing selections were "paved beef" and "apple doormats". Well, I wasn’t going to eat there! For my first dinner, I ended up having a pizza at Côté-Jardin, across rue Frédéric Mistral from my hotel. French pizza isn’t American pizza, and it isn’t Italian pizza either; but this wasn’t good pizza: overdone crust, zingless sauce, limp toppings. I should have known better than to order cheap Italian food in France.

The next day at lunch, I considered the offerings of the open-air patisseries along rue Victor Hugo, but the wares were displayed unshaded from the sun, glistening with exuded butter and danced upon by the occasional fly. Instead, I chose a restaurant right across rue de la République from place des Gitans. OK, I knew it was a touristy location, but there was a €10 menu of fish with lemon sauce and rice, how bad could that be? Pretty bad, as it turned out: the fish came with a scum of curdled orange sauce, crunchy yellow rice, and overcooked (gasp! in France!) vegetables. I don’t think I ate a third of it. If I was going to suffer, I should at least have eaten at the place next door, where a nine-year-old boy with a remarkable voice was singing in Spanish, "¿A Donde Vas?" ("Where Are You Going?") to the guitar accompaniment of his father. And to think, I’d passed up that restaurant because I figured the entertainment was compensation for bad food!

That evening I had my dinner at Le Provençal, on place Esprit Pioch. I ordered fish again—I’m on the Mediterranean, right, that means the seafood should be good?—and was served a thoroughly mediocre white fillet under a dollop of sauce of the same cheery but off-putting orange color as the previous day’s. At least the accompanying potatoes and vegetables were adequately prepared. It was a disappointing meal, but at least it was edible.

I’ve always believed that it isn’t difficult to find a good meal anywhere in France, even if you haven’t much money to spend. I stand corrected.

The drive south from Arles along the D570 road through the Rhone River delta passed by downy pastures, flooded rice fields, and beds of reeds under a muggy early-summer sun, a flat rural landscape dotted with occasional farms roofed with red tiles and interspersed with dry scrubby patches. A few kilometers later, I caught my first glimpse of the town of Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, a cluster of whitewashed buildings with blue shutters, its church topped with a pyramid of arches in which the church bells hung. The feel was more sleepy Greek island village than French coastal resort.


Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer on the horizon

A closer view gives this town away. The road into town leads past a painted carousel, the modern tourist information office, and the arena. After rounding the turn by the arena onto what passes for the main drag, boulevard de la République, I found that staple of France, the weekly farmers’ market, set up in dusty place des Gitans with its two petanque courts, next to the town hall. The shops lining the place were jammed with garishly colored, inflatable beach toys and guarded by sidewalk racks of postcards. A block away, a paved promenade overlooked pleasant stretches of sandy beach reaching down to the Mediterranean. Many of the restaurants’ menus were flagrantly posted in three languages: French, German, and Spanish. At least the sunburned visitors who must crowd these streets in July and August apparently don’t come primarily from the U.S. or the U.K. But in early June, the summer crowds had not yet arrived, and even on market day (Tuesday), the town seemed somnolent, with only a few sunbathers scattered on the beach. Still, the slate-paved pedestrian quarter, with its alleys winding between whitewashed buildings, made the impression of a laid-back Greek village hard to shake.


Pedestrian street

Stes-Maries is named for a trio of saints named Mary: Mary of Bethany (sister of Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead), Mary the mother of the apostle James, and Mary Magdalene. According to local legend (and The Da Vinci Code), these three Marys, along with Lazarus, their black servant Sarah, and several other friends of Jesus, were set adrift at sea off the shores of Palestine after Jesus’s death, and eventually they washed ashore in the Camargue. After converting many of the people of Provence to Christianity, the saints died and were buried here. Their relics were discovered during the frenzy of relic acquisition that possessed Catholic Europe during the Middle Ages and are now housed in the town church.

The Church of Saints Mary-of-the-Sea is an unusual church. Built during the Dark Ages, when this coast was plagued by pirates, the church served as a fortress and sanctuary as well as a place of worship. Though of modest size, it is imposing, tall enough to serve as a watchtower, almost a mix of castle and church, with battlements and arrow slits, and at one time there was even a fresh-water well inside in case of siege.

The gypsy, or gitan, tradition here is related to the Sarah of the legend, whom the gypsies revere as a saint. As a consequence, Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer is a pilgrimage site for gypsies. As many as 10,000 gypsies from across Europe descend on Stes-Maries for a religious festival on May 24 and 25. After a ceremony in the crypt, the statue of Sarah is carried, clad in robe and jewels and accompanied by singing and dancing, from the church to the sea for ritual cleansing. This festival is also the occasion for many baptisms and marriages, as well trading and bartering.

The town arena is set near the beach and the market place. Here, if you wish, you can see a course camarguaise, the bloodless Camargue bullfight in which the bull is not killed. In this version, you will see the agile bull "fighters" evading the bulls while attempting to hook a circlet of pompoms around the horns of the bull. While undoubtedly the bull doesn’t enjoy these escapades, no blood (at least of the bull!) is spilled. Check at the tourist office for the schedule of upcoming bullfights. While the traditional Spanish-style bullfight including the kill is designated a corrida or novillada, anything called a cocarde, abrivado, or bandido will not involve the killing of the bull.

Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer Tourist Information Office Website

"Our eyes set upon Aigues-Mortes . . .
a jewel carefully set in a case of stone."
-- Alexandre Dumas


Porte de Gardette, an impressive entryway

My first view of Aigues-Mortes was a stunner, just beyond the bridge arching over the canal west of the old city. Facing the canal is a formidably stark, blond stone wall topped by toothed battlements. The fortified town is perfectly rectangular, with square towers at each corner and eleven fortified entrances, each unique but otherwise with a pointed Gothic arch. Just outside the walls is the imposing Tour de Constance, a tower complete with moat and arched bridge. While the tour buses buzz around Carcassonne, "restored" with photogenic but historically inaccurate artistry by the controversial Viollet-le-Duc, Aigues-Mortes still stands, stately and intact, pretty much as it did when it was built near eight centuries ago. Why had I heard so little about this place?


The long walls of Aigues-Mortes

Aigues-Mortes owes its creation to King Louis IX. Louis was a pious, ascetic fellow who literally wore a hair shirt and said fifty Ave Marias each night before going to bed. He was also something of a mama’s boy, perhaps understandable since he became King of France at the age of eleven with his mother ruling as regent until he came of age. For centuries Louis was held up to French children as a model son and to the world at large as the ideal Christian king. He was also noted for many charitable works for the poor and diseased. Later in life, he became passionately preoccupied with crusading and built Aigues-Mortes in 1241 to serve as a jumping-off point for men leaving for the crusades. Although nowadays it is landlocked, at the time of its construction the south wall of the town faced directly onto the sea, enabling ships to be loaded with men and supplies under the protection of the walls.


Walls at sunset

Louis later took up crusading himself, although he appears to have been appallingly bad at it. During his first venture, the Seventh Crusade, having left his mother to rule in his absence, he was defeated, captured, and held hostage by the Egyptians until the Knights Templar somewhat reluctantly coughed up a heavy ransom for him. He eventually returned home and spent several years putting France back in order, during which time he built the lovely stained-glass marvel of Ste-Chapelle in Paris. However, not having learned his lesson the first time, he embarked on another crusade in Tunisia in the height of summer. His army was soon decimated by plague and the sun, and Louis himself took ill and died at Carthage. He was canonized as Saint Louis thirty years later.


Gateway and pedestrian street

These days, Aigues-Mortes remains a medieval masterpiece. Within the walls, the majority of the streets are still paved in bricks and the buildings are all in the traditional style. There is a very limited one-way route for cars through the city, but you will not be permitted to enter unless you are a resident or have a pass from your hotel. Consequently, most of the city basks in the quiet of pedestrian streets. Yet, despite its movie-set beauty, somehow the town had the air of a place where people actually live, at least off-season. Kids’ bikes lay cluttering the main square near a clutch of outdoor cafés while an impromptu soccer game was played. A man stood at an upper-story window, smoking a cigarette while gazing out at this scene. At the nearby church, a wedding was in the offing. The groomsmen and bridesmaids, scarcely out of their teens, stood chatting nervously just outside in their finery. But the ceremony soon started, preventing me from casting more than a quick glance through the window of the door to see the simple interior.


Street outside the church

Although Aigues-Mortes hasn’t yet been discovered in a big way by Americans, it is clearly a tourist destination for others. The clutter of cheap souvenirs displayed along the main streets leading from the parking lot just outside the walls off boulevard Diderot to the place St-Louis can hold its own with that row of souvenir stands by the Leaning Tower of Pisa (those who have been to Pisa will know what I’m talking about), with every variety of gaudy T-shirt and postcard imaginable. And the fiberglass cow painted in tiger stripes was a bit of excess that doesn’t belong in any town that could pass as a living museum. The desk clerk at my hotel told me that in August, the streets are so wall-to-wall with tourists that one can hardly move; given that warning, I’d probably skip a visit here then. Yet much of the city is still quite pristine, and when I visited in early June, it was not at all crowded and definitely worth a few hours of anyone’s time. If you can come outside of late summer, I highly recommend a visit.


Tower, moat and bridge

The Camargue includes most of the extensive Rhône River delta, territory crisscrossed by canals but still with many wild areas. If you come here, you absolutely must venture out to view some of the renowned scenery, if only to see some of the flamingos that populate the marshes. The lazy man’s way is to take a drive in your rental car; the more energetic or those without a car can take the same trip on a bicycle rented from any of the rental shops along rue de la République in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. The land here is completely flat, and the only inclines you may encounter are the very occasional bridges, so it is easy biking. The roads are in very good condition and have a wide paved shoulder (rare in France), making them ideal for cars and bikes to share.


Camargue vista

The Rhône delta has been steadily growing; in ancient Roman times, Arles (the Romans’ most important city on the French coast) may have been well inland, and in medieval times the delta was significantly farther south. Modern Arles is poised on the very edge of the marshland. The Rhône River splits just above Arles into the Petit (Little) Rhône, which reaches the Mediterranean just west of Stes-Maries, and the Grand (Big) Rhône, which empties into the sea east of Stes-Maries at Port St-Louis. The majority of marshland in the Camargue is found in this triangle between Arles, Stes-Maries, and Port St-Louis.


Marshland and farmhouse

I set out from Stes-Maries heading north on the D854 road. I saw flamingos in nearly every pond I passed – a formation stalking past, or napping on a single leg with head tucked under a wing, or an entire flock feeding in the brackish waters. In the distance I could see the occasional red-roofed farmhouse. My drive took me past ponds large and small, fringed by reeds. The largest of these by far is the Etang de Vaccarès, the size of a large lake. My route roughly followed the shore of this lagoon.


Flamingos and reeds

The first few kilometers of the D371, the road just north of this largest pond, passes through brilliantly green rice fields. Rice farming in this area began as a practical method of reclaiming land for pasture. Rice can cope with salt water, and rice cultivation helped remove the salt from the land so it could be put into pasture, rather than as a cash crop. Nowadays, the Camargue is renowned for two food products, rice and salt, both of which are dependent on the salt marshes.


Rice fields

To my left heading eastbound on this road, I passed the occasional lane, inevitably lined by plane trees, which led to a mas, a big homestead farm characterized here by very large whitewashed farmhouses with red roofs. The Camargue version of the mas produces primarily cattle and rice, so the land is either in pasture or rice fields – this is one area of France not known for its wines.


Plane trees line this private lane

About 7 or 8km from the turnoff onto D371, you’ll see a bird-watching platform on the right side of the road. The Camargue is known for its profusion of bird life, and from the platform you may see egrets, grebes, herons, kingfishers, kestrels, avocets, curlews, warblers, possibly even the occasional stork, to name just a few. Even if you’re not into birds, it’s worth getting up on the platform for a look at the marshes from above. The view in each direction can be surprisingly different – to one side may be scrub, to another a brackish ditch framed with reeds, and to another a dry salt pan.


View from the birdwatching platform

After my venture around the Etang de Vaccarès, which involves a turn-around and retracing one’s route, I crossed D570 and found my way back to Stes-Maries via smaller roads. Along these roads I saw several pastures, and these gave opportunities to see more of the black bulls and white horses the Camargue is known for. Another advantage of this choice of route turned out to be a chance to view several examples of the traditional cottages of the gardians, the Camargue "cowboys" and herdsmen. These whitewashed houses are very simple, built of stucco with a thatched roof, rectangular with low walls and a very high pitched roof. There are several of them off of D38 west of Stes-Maries.


Gardian cottage

Depending on how much time you spend stopped, this route can be comfortably driven in about two hours, longer for shutterbugs and those with a deeper interest in birdlife. I didn’t see any shops along the way, so I recommend taking whatever food and drink you might want with you from Stes-Maries.







Homestead with rice fields (with Photoshop effects), my turn-around point




The route I took will keep the water primarily on your right to the turn-around point. My route:

• Heading toward the sea on the D570 (the main road from Arles), go left through Stes-Maries and take the smaller D854 out the "back door" of town.
  
• This road will eventually rejoin D570 in about 14km – turn right when you get there.
  
• Drive about 14km on D570, then turn right on D371.
  
• Continue about 15km on D371, then turn right at Villeneuve onto a small road.
  
• Retrace your route whenever you’ve had enough – D36, left turn on D371, left on D570.
  
• Drive about 11km on D570 and then turn right on D38.
  
• Drive about 2.5-3km and turn left on D38.
  
• When you come to a fork, both of which are D38, stay to the right.
  
• This road will return you to Stes-Maries.

I confess that ever since I’d seen the movie Friends, which is set in the Camargue, I knew I’d have to come here one day and go horseback riding to get out into the uncultivated areas and see the local animal life in its typical habitat. The experience did not disappoint.



You’ll see many stables along the main roads of the Camargue: a long open shed signed "Promenade à Cheval" shading a rank of saddled horses, most if not all of them white. According to my chat with the tourist information office, rates at the various stables are about the same. The main consideration in making your choice is where you want to ride: the closer the stable is to Stes-Maries, the more likely your ride will take you to the beach. I particularly wanted to ride in the marshes, so I had driven to a stable a few miles out of town the day before and arranged for a three-hour ride beginning at 10:00, emphasizing that I wanted to see "les taureaux et les flamants roses, pas la plage" – the bulls and the flamingoes, not the beach.



The next morning I presented myself at the stable and waited at a picnic table in a long, low rustic structure that resembled the Christmas stables one often sees, with one wall left open. The three-year-old daughter of a couple who worked at the stable was going on a ride of her own on a wooden rocking horse, her teddy bear propped in front of her. Another couple arrived who were going on the ride, and soon we had each been assigned a horse – of course, the white Camargue horses. The tack was a hybrid of English and Western: the saddles had a prominent pommel and cantle but no horn, while stirrups were English style and English length. Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to bring my backpack or my camera – bad luck indeed, because I could have taken plenty of great photos.



Our group of three headed off into the marshes behind our young female guide, where the horses often had to slog through shallows of brackish water – perhaps a foot to 18 inches deep, which required tucking your legs up to avoid being splashed. Much of the time there was no indication of a track or trail we were following, and due to the flatness of the terrain, there was feeling of being in the middle of nowhere except for the odd fence. We passed a few flamingos as well as a number of other marsh birds, including egrets and herons. The terrain varied from the marshes to salt pans to pastures, and the views were often wonderful.



Riding along some high bushes, we came upon a gardian, a Camargue cowboy, leaning against a large rock, his white horse beside him and a herd of horned black cattle grazing behind him. He was slim, dark-eyed, dark-haired, dressed in dark pants and a white shirt open at the collar, with a wide-brimmed hat set on his dark hair, giving the air of an insouciant gypsy, well enough dressed to have cut a sharp figure on a city street. He and our guide clearly had more than a nodding acquaintance and had a brief conversation before we rode on.



Inevitably, we ended up on a patch of sand, and after the guide made sure I was willing to gallop, off we all went for 200 or 300 yards. I had the slowest horse (always my luck), but he was a very mellow and willing horse and easy to ride, so I can’t complain.



Tips for riders:
You won’t need boots, but sturdy shoes are recommended, as are jeans or sturdy slacks (no shorts or capris). This might not be the best place to ride for the first time, but you don’t need to be an experienced rider, since the horses were very gentle. The saddles are easy to hold on to if you need to, and the guide will help you mount if that’s hard for you. If you don’t want to gallop, here’s the phrase you want: "Je ne veux pas galoper". Sunscreen and a broad-brimmed hat if you have one are heartily recommended, and mosquito repellant would also be a very good idea. If you haven’t ridden before or haven’t ridden lately, you might want to keep your ride to one or two hours – I was quite sore from my excursion.

Cost:
1 hour, €14-16
2 hours, €26-30
1/2 day, €35-40
1 day, €50-80