Arles to Saintes-Maries de la Mer

The Romans were here.

Old city street in Arles.

The drive from Arles to Saintes-Maries de la Mer (SMM) was beautiful, passing through the Camargue, France's equivalent to the Everglades (including flamingoes!), with the Mediterranean visible a good bit of the way.  As we got closer to SMM we found numerous horse ranches offering holiday riding. Barbel tells us this is the place to take your children on Holiday to teach them to ride horses.  Many horse ranches along the road and many parties of horse riders going off on trails getting their last rides in before the end of Holiday the end of August.

For some reason, we expected SMM to be a fairly deserted fishing town.  I don’t know why.  What we found instead was another crowded Miami Beach type of place.  Passing through the town square with its bocci courts (very prevalent through the region), we reached the local cathedral, passing many Gypsies along the way, who were offering medallions and other trinkets.

Church at San Maries de la Mer

Inside the church all the pictures came out wierd.  Granted, it was dark, but so were other places we were at and they didn't turn out like these.

By history and tradition, SMM is where Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene and their company landed after their journey across the Mediterranean, and is also one of the main gathering places for the various Gypsy tribes.  There are horses and gypsy and bullfighting influences everywhere.  Many gypsies outside the church.  Watch out for them energetically and well as physically.  They try to give you a medal, "It's tradition....".  In the book The Witch of Portabello, by Paulo Coelho (which I happened to pick up at the airport to read) they talk about the patron saint of the gypsies as being St. Sarah.  She has not been canonized by the Catholic Church so her image is kept in a crypt outside the church (built in the 9th 10th and 11th Centuries).  At festival time, when especially the gypsies come to pay respects to St. Sarah, her statue leads the procession.  St. Sarah is believed to have met Mary Malone, a cousin of Jesus, when she arrived at SMM  escaping Roman persecution.  Sarah-la-Kali was of noble lineage.  The procession reenacts the meeting at the sea and is followed by celebration, song and bull runnings. (Seriously – there are street signs warning about 'Taurean Events'!)  We were not present for festival, just for the end-of-summer throngs.

 

Behind Door number one........a real Water Closet.

Finally, we headed to Carcassonne,  arriving at the Abbey where we were supposed to have reservations.  The Abbey was ancient and smelled of mold - at least in the hallways.  We never made it to seeing the rooms as there was again a misunderstanding about the dates and they had us down for the next day.   It was a good experience, though, as the gardens in the center of the building were lovely.  Since there was no room at the inn (so to speak), we went off and found a modern, moderately priced and comfortable hotel nearby, with a unique room design: the room had two doors that you would assume would each lead to a closet.  Instead one was the molded WC and the other was a molded shower.

A long and beautiful day.  Time for a good night's sleep.