Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer – Camargue

In the early afternoon, we found a campground that had already started its opening season in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. In this rather cold weather, there were only few campers. So we had a great choice of spots. We decided on a spot not too far from the restrooms.

We tried out the outdoor pool which had just opened. The water was slightly warmer than the air but we didn’t tolerate this “refreshment” for long. On top, it was starting to rain. So we hurried to the warm showers and back to the car.

Despite rainy weather, we went for a long walk to the city centre to go to a restaurant. On the way, we saw a couple of nutria (coypu) in small creek in ditch. Since we were directly by the Mediterranean Sea, we wanted fresh fish for dinner. The search was exhausting and took so long that we had to bridge the time until dinner with another snack.

Thanks to an app, we finally found a tiny rather shabby looking pub. “We’ll try this one because locals are entering.” Despite the smoking bar at the entrance, we decided to stay at one of the few dining tables in the back. We actually got the last available spots because a German couple invited us to share the table *nice*

Thanks to the young waitress, trying her best to explain the dishes to us and some help by the digital translator and the Germans, we enjoyed small shell fish, delicious fried potatoes, and a special fish they called “the chicken of the sea” – very meaty and tender *mhh*

Despite our umbrellas and rain pants, the rainy way back was pretty miserable. This night our van’s heater didn’t only serve the purpose of keeping us warm but also of drying all of our wet clothes =o/

The next morning, we had breakfast at the campground’s little restaurant: our own food and fresh croissants. It felt really good not to be cramped in the car, but to have a big room – even all for ourselves – with some sun shining through the glass walls =oD

With my broken French and the operators’ broken English, we managed to arrange a ride with the pony Galaxy from a ranch, right next to the campground. The walk along the beach was beautifully sunny but the wind was so terribly strong and cold :o/

At some point Galaxy stopped walking – no matter how hard we pulled on her rope. Grass could also just make her take a few steps *stubborn* The owners blamed us for having taken a wrong turn so Galaxy didn’t know the area or how to get back to her ranch “oops*

On the way to Montpellier we stopped once more by the Mediterranean coast so the girls would get to play a bit in the large “sandpit” ;oP Again, the sunshine outside look very nice from the car but when we got out, we were almost blown away by the cold wind.

Erna kept destroying the sand castles that Magda had built and decorated neatly with sea shells; same thing with my sand crabs, sea stars, and sea shells =o( “That is not nice! How about you also construct, not only destruct!?”