2018-04-02 Northern Italy and Southern France Fontvielle to Vignobles Jean Jaques

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Northern Italy and Southern France Fontvielle to Vignobles Jean Jaques

Northern Italy and Southern France by Hymer Motorhome

Fontvielle to Vignobles Jean Jaques

One of our objectives on this trip was to visit many of the bird watching sites along the Mediterranean coast of France, with that in mind I had read reports from other birders, and noted the locations that were supposed to be good. Despite that, we did not have great success in spotting many birds, however, that’s one of the hazards of bird watching, sometimes you just don’t see what you expect, but come back to the same spot half an hour later and there are the birds.

We left the aire at Fontvielle and drove through the town, it was market day but there was nowhere to stop with such a large vehicle so we pressed on. At Le Sambuc I walked around looking for the lake, but did not find it, my view is that the lake had dried up or been overgrown by the tall grasses. We drove around the Etang de Vaccarès, a large lake close to the Rhône estuary. Here birds were plentiful, Flamingos, Large Egret, Grey Heron, Great Crested Grebe, Garganey, Black Bite, Lesser Kestrels, Black Headed Gulls and Napoleon Gulls; and further on Avocet. Further on we drove via a narrow spit of land to Cabanos de Caberon, it was not clear whether or not the road would go all the way, so I flagged down a truck that was coming in the other direction and asked the driver, Oui! so we continued and got through. During this part of the drive we saw many of the Camague white horses. We stopped off and purchased local produce at a roadside shop, lots of interesting things on sale.

The day ended at Domaine Montcalm, Jean Jacques winery, parked at the edge of a huge area of vines that were starting to come into bud. One other camper shared the site.

This is the kind of day we love and what drives us to return to Europe, wandering about in the motorhome and finding such interesting places that few tourists will ever visit.

Our Hymer motorhome trip to Northern Italy and Southern France

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Summary of motorhome journey –  Fontvielle to Vignobles Jean Jaques