Vendargues to Gallargues le Montueux, 27 km
I departed the F1 hotel at the crack of dawn (well, not quite!) fueled by a day old pain aux raisins from the nearby Aldi and a machine coffee. The day was somewhat mediocre with a couple of notable exceptions. Gone are the forests full of birds ( but now that I know the complex song of the nightingale, I often hear them. They must be insomniacs if they sing both night and day! Also gone are the distant horizons. Everything seems to be no more than a couple of km away: no more distant hills or mountains. One of the trail markers had a spot height: 18m. That’s a sure sign that I’m close to the Carmargue.
As to the aforementioned exceptions. The first was in the first village, where the local cafe was setting up for the traditional Sunday lunch. The young woman behind the bar was making a coffee, so I asked if I could have one. She promptly gave me the one being made – which was probably for her – meaning that I got the real deal and not the tourist version. It was the best coffee in France yet (although it’s a rather small sample).
The second exception was after bumbling along some less than inspiring landscape, the trail suddenly encounters a river gorge, with a large rock face popular with the rock climbing set. The only downside was that for a couple of kms the trail was composed of the same gnarly rocks – although that didn’t seem to faze the trail runners who blazed past me!
Gallargues is a nice village, with quite a bit of history attached. The original 13th century tower was used from 1832 onwards as an optical messaging station. You can see the black & white panels at the top which were used for messaging.
The town had a number of signs warning of bulls, and barriers positioned to block off streets when required.
I went for a stroll around town wondering where all the residents were on a Sunday evening, when I came across the event in progress – bull fighting in the manner of the Carmargue region. It was rather exciting to watch, and likely more exciting for the participants – there’s about 8 guys in the arena at a time basically playing tag with the bull. Getting tagged by said bull is to be avoided!. And less bloodthirsty than the Spanish version!
2saunter 