Old ruins and flappy birds

The morning we left Roses we had a very sulky mutt (Alf, not Rob) on our hands; as we drove out of the site all his 'friends' were waving him off as he stood on his hind legs looking out the window at them!  We've found that he sulks for the day every time we move on somewhere new; he gets himself settled, makes new friends to play tug with and then doesn't want to leave.  We resisted the pull of the French Pyrenees as we decided we see enough mountains living in the Lake District and instead headed to The Camargue for something completely different, stopping first at Carcassonne in the Languedoc region of France.  The main attraction is the Cité which is a medieval city entirely enclosed within fortress walls.  It's full of narrow lanes, tempting restaurants and cafes along with the usual touristy souvenir shops. 

Camargue 1

Camargue 2

Next stop was The Camargue in Provence, a very flat, marshy region used as a breeding ground for the bulls which participate in local festivals and events and famous for its white horses, flamingos and numerous other seabirds.  After failing miserably to see flamingos back in Spain, we made up for it here - we saw hundreds. The only problem is they are really camera shy and despite our best Bill Oddie impersonations we couldn't get close enough to them to stun you all with our fantastic wildlife photography.  So sorry but you're stuck with pictures of small pink dots, although they are very pretty pink dots!  We stayed at the only town in The Camargue, Santes-Maries-de-la-Mer, and walked almost 20 miles one day (we wished we'd brought our bikes that day - oh yeh we did but someone pinched them!) through the marshes out to a lighthouse (we can hear you Shell - we know we're mad!).  It's a beautiful area and although we are not particularly into bird watching it was amazing to see so many unusual birds (even more unusual than the ones I used to work with-Rob) - much more impressive than the odd sparrow we get in our backyard! 

Camargue 3

Camargue Sunset

Carcassonne 1

Carcassonne 2