Somewhere in the past millennium a group of Spanish sailors settled in the The Camargue and today there is such a strong Spanish influence in this area it is surprising that these people actually speak french. The Camargue is famous for its “wild” white horses (of which none could be found by us), and also it black bulls. Restaurants serve predominantly Spanish food, the decor includes paintings of flamenco dancers and bulls, and the furniture shows a very Spanish style. Town out of season is reminiscent of a western ghost town and finding a restaurant open is a bit of a battle.
Our little hotel unfortunately left a lot to be desired, definitely looked better on the website. The room was extremely basic, no fridge, no heating or cooling, crappy shower over the bath, skimpy towels and definitely no assistance from reception as they left after breakfast and there was no presence until 3pm, even by phone. The restaurant only opened Saturday night and the place was locked up the rest of the time so no nice lounge or bar to relax in.
We came to call it Stalag 13 as to get access we had to enter a pin number into an automatic exterior door which sounded just like a jail door opening (as per TV as I have never heard one myself in person).
Its only saving grace was that it was right next door to the Parc Naturel Régional de Camargue where there were Flamingos. Lots and lots of Flamingos.
What a joy to see, I don’t think that I have ever seen a live Flamingo and definitely not one in the wild, and in such numbers.
Many hours were spent photographing these birds and others, and walking the wetlands in the hunt for the elusive white Campagne wild horse. Four horses were sited at the park (a long way away so I needed to use the 400 lens at max to photograph them) but it is debatable that they were actually wild as the park does have fences. Lots of white horses in the area for hire to ride, but no wild ones.
The flamingos are very ungainly birds, they actually run on the water trying to take off, and then when flying their legs are not always neatly trailing behind but sometimes flopping about, they are definitely not the most graceful of flyers. They look a bit like skinny pterodactyls learning to fly.
The park is also home to a number of other creature, rescued injured owls that cannot be released to the wild, wild boar (which we found the tracks of but never saw) and a cute otter/rat like animal called a Coypu.
The park attendants scattered grain on the second morning we were there which brought some of the inhabitants out of hiding, there was an absolute feeding frenzy.
We spent two days in this little piece of Spanish France enjoying the park and hunting down other sights to see.
And finally I found another Cheese Shop. 
I had not seen one since my cheese tour. I know that Italy must have them, but I am beginning to wonder where the Italians buy their cheese as in our walks in Milan and Luca we did not sight a single cheese shop.
Fromage et Fromaggio 