Campervan Therapy

The cycle tracks radiating out from Palavas-Les-Flots are amazing, speaking as someone whose Sussex town has been fighting for a cycle track to the railway station for years. We cycle off among the marshes and lagoons north of town and stop off to stroll along a narrow spit of land to watch the flamingos staging a fly-by: the black tips of outstretched wings remind me of a velvet evening stole against a pink satin dress.  

There’s a time-honoured fishing system here, poles and nets and hoops strung up. So ecological and sustainable, catching only the shell fish that wash up in the net.  Tamarisk trees and red and green glasswort cling to the spit.

A grumpy heron hunches into itself, refusing to move, a Camargue pony munches wild grasses beside the lagoon.

We cycle to Maison de la Nature, on the Méjean Lagoon, its paths winding through tunnels of oak, tamarisk and bay. A man crumples a bay leaf and its citrus smell fills the air. We follow the streams through the marshland, with only a croaking frog for company, to a sweep of artistically pollarded plane trees, their bare branches silver in the sunlight.

The ubiquitous flamingos fish and bury their heads in the lagoon waters, ignoring the terrapins swimming by.

Storks sit in their messy nests up high in the ash trees, gazing down at us. One shoves a twig from her nest down onto her neighbour below.

Two tap their beaks together and when I look up at the noise, their necks and beaks make a heart shape.

So, leaving the grand artist – Mother Nature – behind, we cycle to the Number 3 tram stop into Montpellier in Lattes. The numbers 3 and 4 have interiors designed by Christian LaCroix. The trams in Montpellier are worth a trip in themselves, they are works of art, each line themed differently, be it literary, marine, natural or technologically inspired.

Even better, the forward thinking council have made the trams free for residents.

It’s so peaceful to walk around the city centre, no cars, only trams and the most gracious limestone buildings, with their wrought iron balconies.

The wrought iron work always makes me think of my old dad who served a metal turning apprenticeship in Ireland before emigrating to work on the buildings in England. He’d have loved the workmanship of these balconies.

We stroll around imposing churches; up narrow alleyways, owing more to Spanish city-scapes than French. Elegant squares lead onto the second Arc de Triomphe, dating from the 18^th Century.

Through it is the impressive statue of Louis 14^th on his stallion and the 18^th Century aqueduct, along with the most ornate water tower I’ve ever seen.

We carry on by the imposing columns of the law courts, and through streets full of stucco worked roaring lions, vines, laurel leaves, and mermen caryatids.

But Montpellier is also vibrant, full of students, multicultural and fun. It’s a town where people inhabit the outdoor spaces, to dance, play music, talk and read.

We examine our irises in a magnifying glass outside a shop selling prints of your iris – and I realise my eyes aren’t a mere blue, but there’s grey and lemon and all sorts of amazing colours in there – our irises are works of art in themselves.