2018-04-03 Northern Italy and Southern France Vignobles Jean Jaques to Plage des Trois Digues

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Northern Italy and Southern France Vignobles JeanJaques to Plage des Trois Digues

Northern Italy and Southern France by Hymer Motorhome

Vignobles Jean Jaques to Plage des Trois Digues

Heavy overcast day, by 8am four men are in among the vines tying in the new growth. We take a more leisurely breakfast, then walk over to the winery shop for wine tasting, we taste white, red and rosés, and purchase all except the rosé. Rosé really is not to our liking. There are no service facilities here, but I am sure that if we needed water we could find a tap and fill up. We are on our way by 11am, heading for the Pont de Gau Parc de Ornithologique. Good motorhome parking at the Pont de Gau bird park, €7.50 each entry fee, quite expensive. Inside the bird park there is an immediate choice, you can go left, taking the long walk, around 7km, to the hides and other observation areas, what I would call the serious birdwatching side. To the right and only a short distance is the family-friendly area that is aimed at children, families and the less serious birders. I thought this was an excellent split because the two different audiences will not readily interact well.

We took the long route and note the flamingos, stork, large egret, little egret (with yellow feet) and cattle egret with black feet. Grey and night heron, avocet, black-wing stilt, and several pairs of snipe skulking in the reeds as well as numerous other wading birds that we would see at home. We are pleased to see so many birds that we would not see back home. There are also marsh harriers and black kites patrolling over the reeds. We arrive back at the entrance very tired, so spend only a short time on the family side of the park, then eat lunch in the Hymer.

We move on from the Camague, passing St Maries de la Mer where we see huge motorhome parks, it’s no wonder that there are so many camping cars on the roads in this area. We continue on towards Montpellier, stop off at Leaders supermarket where we purchase milk, meat, fruit and vegetables. No wine or cheese because the selection was poor. We drive on towards Sète, a huge port on the Mediterranean coast with oil terminals, large shipping areas and railway connections. This is really interesting, much more interesting than we expected. We fill up with diesel, another 42L then along a narrow spit of land that separates the Etang de Thau from the Mediterranean Sea. This really is a narrow strip of land, it carries the road and railway but not much more. We are tired from the hiking around the bird park, especially me as I was carrying binoculars and a large spotting scope and tripod. We saw a collection of motorhomes on our left and were surprised to find an aire perched on the narrow windswept land between the road and the beach. By now it is 7:15pm, much later than we like to be driving, so we stopped, 25km short of our intended destination, but we are both glad to stop.

It doesn’t take us long to pay €9.76 for the overnight stay using the automated machine. This is a great spot, the wind is roaring across from the sea, sweeping over the road and railway on onto the Etang de Thau, the wind rocks the Hymer as it passes over us. It doesn’t take us long to open a bottle of Alsace Gewürztraminer and eat our starter of pâte and thinly sliced bread then eat meatballs in chilli sauce prepared by Gill. Fresh strawberries and greek yoghurt for dessert. What more do you want in this idyllic location? Later we are lulled to sleep by the roaring of the wind and ocean.