A Highlight of our Languedoc Bike Tour – the Salin d’Aigues Mortes

Visiting The Camargue On Our Languedoc Tour

One of the highlights of our Languedoc tour is our visit to Aigues-Mortes. We have a look round Arles, including the spectacular Roman arena, then we leave Arles by crossing the Rhone, into a different world. The Camargue (You can click on each image to enlarge it – they’re worth it).

The Camargue is the delta of the River Rhone, extending some 930 square Km (almost exactly the same size as Dartmoor) and bordered by the Large Rhone to the East, and the Little Rhone to the West. It consists mostly of brine lagoons and marsh land, separated from the Mediterranean Sea by sand bars.

The Camargue is partially drained with a system of embankments and canals, and this is what we cycle along, so it’s gloriously flat, and teeming with wildlife. We’ve seen turtles, wild horses, wild cattle, Giant Egrets, Little Egrets, Storks, Herons, and of course their famous Flamingos.

After a leisurely 28 Km or so of quiet, tiny roads and cycle paths, we arrive at Aigues-Mortes. Yes, it’s a tourist trap; yes, it’s absolutely amazing!

Originally built by Louis IX, Aigues-Mortes is a walled town with its 13th century wall still perfectly in-tact. Inside, the town is laid out like a Bastide in a grid fashion, and we stay at the Hotel Saint-Louis in the centre. Sitting in the central square with a cold drink is just one of the favourite things in my life. And we’re here for 2 days, which is wonderful.

We spend an extra day in Aigues-Mortes on our Languedoc tour. What is there to see in a small town built in the middle of a marsh? So much! We go for a swim in the Mediterranean, we have lunch in the Grau du Roi (The King’s Scar), where the main canal enters the Mediterranean Sea, and then we go to one of my favourite places in the Languedoc – the Salins d’Aigue-Mortes, one of the largest salt-producing sites anywhere in the med, extending beyond 10,000 hectares

The two key elements that make the Camargue a special place for salt manufacture are the sun, and the wind. The process starts in spring time, when they let water into the first lagoon from the Mediterranean sea. This sea water can travel more than 70Km, as it passes through a series of canals and ditches, from lagoon to lagoon, evaporating a little bit more in each lagoon during their 5 to 6 month journey.

On its journey, salt-resistant algae and bacteria turn the water pink. These same algae support a population of brine-resistant shrimp, and its the eating of these pink-coloured shrimp that give the glorious pink colour to Flamingos

From July onwards, salt crystals begin to form on the surface, and these can be harvested by hand to create the famous ‘Fleur de Sel’, known to you and I as ‘posh salt’.

The final destination for the salty sludge are clay-bottomed ‘crystallisation ponds’, each as large as 10 or more football pitches. By now, the salt lies between 10 and 15 cm deep on the bottom of the crystallisation pools and is harvested by huge mechanical diggers. This coarser salt is sold as sea salt, into the food industry for food preservation, for Chemical and industrial uses such as the production of chlorine, caustic soda, and soda ash – used to make products such as paper, plastics, detergents, and glass.

The lower-grade salt (the crust that forms on the mountain, for example) is used for de-icing roads in winter.

The scale of this operation is enormous. We are taken on a little trin to explore the lagoons and see the process close-up, and we see dozens of enormous bulldozers and scrapers. Dozens of them!

It’s an amazing place, and yes, naturally they take us to a visitor centre where you can buy some fleur de sel for the cook in your life. Of course they do!