Last night we had another amazing meal at a Michelin star restaurant in Provence. Honey roasted duck breast with slivered apple wine glaze and miniature garlic potatoes with fresh organic seasoned broccoli.
Actually, Douglas made this lunch for me yesterday! He is a really good chef.
We are on a road-trip to the Camargue- land of Flamingos, cowboys, wild horses, gypsies, bulls and a Black virgin. The area is about 30 minutes south of Arles and is marsh land and looks very different from the rest of France. The landscape reminds me of some of the swamp areas in Louisiana and Florida. There are rice paddies, vineyards, orchards and salt fields.
Our first stop was Aigues-Mortes, founded in 1240 by Louis IX who became Saint Louis. He left on the crusades in 1248 and 1270 from this port to try and reconquer the Holy Land. For a couple of hundred years this was the only port in the kingdom trading spices and wool. When Provence became a part of France in 1481, Marseille took its place as the major port and remains so today. This is a large, well preserved Medieval Village with an expansive rampart you can pay to walk on top of, view the interior of the village, and visit the various towers. In 1684, the towers of Aigues-Mortes were turned into prisons for the Huguenots ( a nickname given to Protestants by Roman Catholics).
Today, the towers house education exhibits and amazing art installations from artists around the world. A couple of weeks ago when we were visiting Chateaus in the Loire Valley, Douglas sent me this article http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/salt-labyrinth-motoi-yamamoto?utm_medium=email&utm_source=flipboard about a Japanese artist that creates art installations using salt. I had no idea that we would walk into one of the towers at Aigues-Mortes which lies next to a salt mine and see this installation first hand. Deja Vu!
We had a couple of delicious salads in the village then checked out some small chapels on our way out. [Ed. use slider control located in the corner of the image]
Stopped at the The Parc Ornithologique de Pont de Grau which is a bird nature reserve, located a few miles north of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. It is a 20-acre marshland with a thousand Flamingos ( Flamingo post at: https://www.travelerblues.com/destinations/france/flamboyant-flamingos/ ) plus eagles, storks, and herons…looks like they have nutria too…
Next destination, the Black Madonna of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, but that’s another post 😉
