France by Bicycle | PART 21: ARLES AND THE CAMARGUE

We say au revoir to the Mediterranean and head inland, toward the Camargue, western Europe’s largest river delta, but not before enjoying Le Grau du Roi’s beautiful harbor. Heading inland, after seeing a few more flamingos, the scenery changes dramatically, with lush landscapes, the elegant white horses of the Camargue and beautiful Parasol Pines and luxurious reeds lining the highway. No separate bike path here as we contend with fast traffic, albeit with a shoulder for nearly our entire route. When we reach Arles we take in a few sites in this loveliest city, but retire early to our very nice room, run by an exceptionally friendly family, choosing to take more time visiting the city in the morning. And we did take our time the next morning, checking out the old Roman ruins, especially the amphitheater, before heading north toward Avignon. Although the ride begins on an exposed plane, braving strong winds, we soon find a beautiful landscape of lush flora, vineyard and orchards and castles crowned with ancient ruins. Soon, we are crossing the Rhône into Avignon, our stay for the next couple of evenings. We will wait to explore the town until tomorrow.

Music:

Accordion and Glockenspiel Comedy – JK Productions
Pond Five
081716572-accordion-and-glockenspiel-com
a href=”https://www.pond5.com/royalty-free-music/item/81716572-accordion-and-glockenspiel-comedy-short-version”Stock Music/a provided by JK_Production, from a href=“https://www.pond5.com/”Pond5/a

Clear Fresh Air – Headland
Epidemic Sound

Streak of Light – Dandelion
Epidemic Sound

A Swan’s Tale – Howard Harper-Barnes
Epidemic Sound

English Country Garden – Aaron Kenny
YouTube-AudioLibrary

Elevated Consciousness – Amaranth Cove
Epidemic Sound

Kite in the Sky – Magnus Ludvigsson
Epidemic Sound

Morning good morning talk to me baby I don’t got anything we got nothing I got nothing I just need to ride Thank you Well good morning we’re sitting out here in front of the uh Hotel Splendid camock kind of a possibly drizzly day gray day it’s our last view of the Mediterranean so we figured we’d say goodbye from here it’s a nice little stay it was a good stay but I think

We’re ready to start heading up the Rhone river found a nice Italian restaurant yes real close to us and had a fabulous meal and just finally got to scratch that itch because all we’ve been having is crappy Seafood down here Juliana has not been impressively no

Overall I mean this food here in France has been remarkable but uh but just not besides but yeah the South France has been a little bit a little bit spotty ocean makes up for it yeah the ocean makes up for it it’s been really beautiful but we are leaving the ocean

This morning and uh heading up North heading up towards ARL we uh checked out kamut this morning and technically we could probably we have enough time to ride to Zurich if we you know if we ride relatively consistently um but we’ll see how far we get we’re

Down to about two weeks that’s about what we got left so um we should see some more flamingos there’s also these wild white horses and bowls they said there’s wild bowls so maybe we’ll be maybe we’ll pick up some miles you know we’ll get some speed

Going here we’ll see how that works yeah but uh don’t wear red how you feeling I’m tired today yeah Julia is wearing out I think next time we’re going to keep it down to you know four to six weeks probably two months was probably a little pushing it

We’ve got to keep cranking so [Laughter] got a headache on top of it I buy Atlantic bye bye Mediterranean look at all they want is a resort town but one with history we rode through a bit of the Old Town stopping by the port to savor the last bit of ocean vibes

Who knows how long it’ll be before we see the ocean again Foreign North it’s been beautiful sunny to sleep by seagulls okay just leaving the girl and wall nice little Resort but we’re kind of leaving the resorts behind and heading Inland check out a little bit of the Kamar see some more flamingos maybe maybe some white horses we’ll see you later town oh yeah

Nadia says that the flamingos fly in from Africa yeah and they spend the Summers here and then they fly back oh is that right yes yes we did I wonder where they’re going after that look to see them migrate yes what you know flocks of flamingos look like

Flying with all that red under their wings yeah when they lift their wings it’s really quite brilliant we rode under gray Adam Skies along waterways in itong French for bayous with the flamingos always keeping their distance I’d say right hold on yeah no left okay left here we go it’s delayed a little

Bit it’s not getting great coverage through here and then we rode past the medieval walls of ingomat and on towards the Kamar Western Europe’s largest River delta sorry as we were to leave the sea behind we were excited to discover this new chapter of our trip Thank you heading into the Kamar south of oral kamut has us onto a road fairly busy road but a decent shoulder we got our bright colors and our flashing lights and feel pretty good about it we haven’t had to deal with this for a little while

But it’s not too bad and it looks to be like plenty of other cyclists as well We found this stretch to be beautiful fairly flat but with beautiful trees and grasses it’s home to the camarge a white-haired horse that is one of the oldest breeds in the world so I don’t know if the branch is here with white horses don’t know seen a fair amount on ranches wild yet

The chemical typically live in semi-feral conditions here along with flamingos wild black bowls and some of the worst mosquitoes in all of Europe although we were blessed to see neither mosquito nor bull but we’re officially in the provence of Provence the province of Provence and also in the natural part of

Decamar and moving along to along critically this early afternoon late morning early afternoon alongside this highway just cruising opening it up getting some good miles You know what they’re all talking about I believe this is all tourist traffic everybody here to see the nature of course Nature’s got a different thing here in France than it does in the United States where Wildlife is abundant wild areas are abundant not so much here

Pretty hard to find spaces where things are relatively untouched Not slowing us down too much though Also just the tiniest bit of rain coming in Foreign Hello guys look how pretty you are Sure sound nice I know there were a few alternative routes through these lands so our path led us on a fast busy highway and although it offered a shoulder the noise and commotion would begin to Fray Our nerves as the days ride war on definitely makes it a little more

Stressful getting into oral eventually camut found us a side road which we greatly appreciated good to just get a little bit of quiet constant noise of the cars not just always feeling like you’re looking in your rear view mirror oh yeah you know when it’s coming and you just hope you

Live through it you know yeah luckily we haven’t had too many of those And you know with the shoulder it’s still stressful but it’s not doesn’t feel super dangerous I you’ve been doing a good job of navigating us around that kind of stuff well in France has done a pretty good job of having a lot of bicycle paths right so won’t last for too long

Sorry I’ll take this over here yeah The remainder of our ride through this Lush Paradise was uneventful until we reached aural an old Roman settlement in our home for the night there’s our first view of Their Own thank you ARL is a delight with narrow streets lined with weathered buildings and an ancient air

We stopped along the Rhone river taking in the sights and enjoying a bit of charcuterie big fish out there in the room photo Worthy and then we Meander to the hotel acacius our home for the night run by the sweetest young couple with a beautiful little baby well that’s not bad

That’s it because we wandered the town before turning in for a well-deserved night’s sleep uh good morning from ARL we left our baggage at the hotel very nice hotel really nice couple with a young little baby with the Brit Acacia Hotel I’m gonna go check out the sites of ARL in

The rain and hopefully the rain will stop by the time we are ready to ride up to Avignon where we’re going to do a little rest day and just enjoy this beautiful part of Provence since you know you just don’t get many opportunities to to see places as

Fabulous as this so I think it’s nice to slow down and enjoy a town rather than getting up looking down breakfast and riding on you know yeah you gotta stop and enjoy some of the places too it’s not all about getting from point A to point B yeah find special ones that you

Want to enjoy take the time yes exactly and Van Gogh used to be here and Van Gogh was here in the Romans too so pretty cool area Earl was settled around 800 BC and was an important Phoenician Port before being taken by the Romans in the second century BC

And it’s filled with Roman monuments and architecture including the amphitheater modeled after the coliseum in Rome it was also an important site in the Middle Ages and was where Vincent van Gogh painted several of his masterpieces [Applause] [Applause] thank you Morning good morning probably a little afternoon but we’ve checked out the town of aural now we’re heading up to Avignon with a steady headwind yeah yeah seems like we were just talking about this seems like no matter where we go here in France it’s windy and it’s almost always a headwind

For riding along the coast we’re dealing with headwinds for riding down the Loire we’re dealing with headwinds we’re riding up the road we’re dealing with headwinds I don’t even know if you’ll be able to hear us because it’s probably just a bunch of wind noise but I’m going to look into this route

It’s a nice route but it might be something if you want to take it might be something to reverse and to go clockwise instead of counterclockwise we could have left Zurich and been going downhill all the way to aural you know you just never know how it’s going to go

Anyway got these white flowers very perfumey it’s all you can smell very strong talk to me baby that was a good morning good breakfast nice hotel nice Town great shops bought myself a sweater because it’s getting cold I don’t got anything else got nothing I got nothing I just need to ride

All right both hands on the wheel Gotta say this wind is discouraging it’s everything we can do to get like 10 miles an hour and we have a short day today but still it’s just blowing in the ears and we’re just totally Exposed on this Trail Not digging these uh entrance ways they slow you down every time a little much Going through a very industrial part of France here bike touring sees you you know shows you the reality of things you know it’s not all pretty I like it that way there’s the lovely Rhone river Oh that’s so much nicer look at all those pretty flowers the wind that bedeviled us early in the ride seemed to ease somewhat and once we left the more industrial stretch the landscape began to improve significantly get ready to take a left right cheer left here whatever there there we go

Here we go right look at how they built this train track well well hunger calls you gotta stop it’s like yeah where do we stop right here yeah but this is a nice place somebody’s little apple orchards looks like it’s well loved nobody’s gonna bother us here and all we got is some

Crackers and maybe a piece of fruit or something we’ll see maybe some cheese some old cheese yeah some questionable cheese well that was a nice little uh little lunch break kind of getting into some cool territory here actual Hills Seattle this lovely little Orchard yeah it was lovely it was it doesn’t take

Much to make us happy simple needs I mean what was lovely was we actually had calories that’s you know that’s all we need every scrap of food that we had except for an orange except for an orange yeah and that’s because that was going to be sticky yeah

Yeah I like the honey wasn’t it all right so we got like maybe 11 miles to get to Avignon and uh here we go Feels like a good place to stop check out the castle at the hang up on your right look at that It’s a big river here Yeah this is the one we’ll follow all the way up really gets wide down here okay we are finally on eurovilo 17 the viarone which we’re gonna try to stay on but yeah it depends how you feeling babe I’m a little tired I think Juliana was saying you know she was tired yesterday

And I started realizing that my body’s feeling tired and that uh Avignon will be a great place to try to rest the bones for a day we’re wearing out it’s been a lot of days getting a little depleted right we found ourselves riding along a rustic stretch of the vierona the bike trail

That follows the Rhone all the way from the Mediterranean to near its source in Switzerland here the cycling was superb with Lesh Gardens crumbling stone walls and open welcoming Vistas Well as the random super highway hundreds of feet above our heads a ride into Avignon was exquisite Foreign which leads over the realm and Into the Heart of this ancient and historically fascinating City this is pretty Wow Let’s go check that out for example those you want me to go ahead um we wandered through the narrow streets to our Airbnb Jaws dropping at the beautiful architecture and promising

Ourselves that we would take a little time giving this town the attention it deserves Avignon would be a perfect place for a well-needed rest day you didn’t see any other addresses 60 there it is right there for now we were content to enjoy the City by Night wetting our appetites to

See what the morning would bring Got chapsticks pork and strap sticks yum