Finsatsea: October 11 - Sète and Aigues Mortes

Our stop today was in the port town of Sète in the south of France in the region called Languedoc. This port is a new city (in terms of French history). It was created in 1666 by Louis XIV, the Sun King, who wanted another port on the Mediterranean. It actually is connected via a 250 + km canal to the Rhone River. Now Sète is primarily a fishing town with lots of big boats that go out for one month per year fishing for tuna. The catch is controlled so they can only spend a month out.

We took a half-day tour to a very interesting place called Aigues Mortes (which means dead waters). This is a little town lying amid marshes and salt ponds. It’s in the region called the Petit Camargue. Aigues Mortes was founded in the 13^th century by Louis IX. The French King used as an excuse to build a city in an area where the French kings weren’t particularly popular that he wanted to launch Crusades from there to save the Holy Land. In reality he wanted the city there for economic reasons. Salt was a precious commodity and he wanted to control it.

The city is enclosed within stout , original walls. When you look at the blocks of stone forming the walls you can see that each has a mark of some kind on it. These were the stonemasons’ marks. They were paid by the number of stones they produced and to avoid disputes with the bosses, they etched their mark into each one. The first piece of the city built was the Tour de Constance (Tower of Constancy or Permanence). As I mentioned the French were not well-regarded in this region and the king wanted to show them he was here to stay. He constructed a 30 meter tall tower to show the Camarguens that he wouldn’t be leaving soon.

Tour de Constance

The walls with an archer's slit. Unfortunately the marks on the stones didn't come out.

Main square in Aigues Mortes

Today was a special day to be at Aigues Mortes. It was the last day of the festival when they do the running of the bulls through the streets and into a temporary bullring set up just outside the city walls. The bullfight here doesn’t involve swords or picks as in Spanish bullfights. Instead the participants attempt to get prizes stuck on the horns of the bulls. We left before the bulls made it to the streets of the town, which was probably a good thing. When we left there were tons of people coming in to see the spectacle and I think we were all a little old to be dodging rampaging bulls in the narrow streets.

Temporary private seating boxes in the bullring

This painting from one of the stands shows the man trying to tap the bull. There are no weapons as in Spanish bullfights and everyone lives to fight another day.

Around the city are salt flats from which the salt had been harvested this year. We could see huge piles of salt nearby waiting to be shipped out. There are also lots of ponds in which flocks of flamingos live. The climate is very temperate here so they stay most of the year. From what we could see as we drove by flamingos look like they spend most of their time with their heads in the water eating.

Mountains of salt

Flamingos, most with their heads in the water

When we returned to Sète we walked to the center of the old city. This city is riddled with canals and one of their customs is to have jousts on boats on the canals. The boats have two angled boards, one blue and one red, at the stern. Young men stand on these boards with a shield and a lance and attempt to knock their opponent on another boat into the canal. The jousting season runs from June to September and people come from all over to watch the jousts.

A jousting boat with the long angled boards. A man holding a shield and 20 foot lance stands on these trying to knock off the man on another boat

Since it’s a fishing town the restaurants specialize in seafood. We found a nice place along the main canal and had some wonderful oysters, shrimp and whelks (we’d never had those before; they’re chewy.) and some grilled fish. It was all good and then it was time to come back to the ship. Since it’s Sunday most things here in Sète were closed except for the restaurants.

The main canal with some of the many fishing boats

As we sat on our balcony we watched as preparations were made for a ferry to be loaded. Our guide had told us this was the fast ferry to Morocco (36 hours). It carries vehicles as well as people. The cars, trucks, and vans which lined up were amazing. Many had huge piles of what looked like all sorts of household goods strapped to their roofs.