• Border hopping between France and Spanish Catalonia

    As we’ve said before, sticking to an itinerary is not our style, so it is that our art tour of Languedoc Roussillon takes us into Spain, where the temperature is five degrees higher than its French Pyrenean neighbour. From here we plan to border-hop back into the artists’ haven of Céret. Soon we’re winding up…

  • We get distracted in Arles – City of Art and Philosophy

    Even the ring-road round the centre is graceful in Arles, wrought iron balconies on creamy limestone, where we park up before passing the Medieval and Roman town walls. The park by the walls hosts a striking WWI memorial fountain. The agonised face of a woman defending her children stops us in our tracks. Not far…

  • In Van Gogh’s Footsteps in Saintes Maries-de-la-Mer

    Before we check out Van Gogh’s series of works painted in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, we trundle around the vast marsh and lagoons which border the sea beside Camping La Brise de Camargue. It is big sky country here, the sun breaking through white clouds, strings of riders out on horseback threading through the marsh’s paths. An egret…

  • The Pink Salt Pans of the Salins du Midi at Aigues-Mortes

    There’s only one thing left to do before we leave Palavas-les-Flots, we need to visit the small 18th Century fort, La Redoute de Ballestras, on the Lac du Levant. Once protecting the town from pirates, it now houses a strange museum with the works of Albert Dubout, an artist who specialised in cartoons of the…

  • Languedoc Marshland to Montpellier’s City Delights

    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…

  • Palavas-Les-Flots in Languedoc Roussillon

    Base Fluvial Paul Riquet Camper Stop in Palavas is on the port of the canalised Le Lez River. We’re surrounded by a watery wonderland of lagoons and river. I watch the flamingos out on the water from our pitch. Even better, we’re a five minute walk to town centre and beach front. The colourful Catalan…