Mas d'Auphan

SELF-CATERING COTTAGES IN THE HEART OF THE CAMARGUE

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BEACHES FOR FAMILIES ... OR FOR THOSE WHO PREFER TO BE ALONE

We have have miles and miles of sandy beach, some of it crowded, some deserted, but all accessible, free and a long long way from the nearest parking meter. For more beach pictures, click here.

Most accessible, 15-20 minutes away, is the Plage de Piémanson, known locally as the Plage d'Arles. Said to be biggest remaining natural beach in the Méditerranée, it is a wide beach, backed by sand dunes. You can drive onto it and in most places keep your car nearby. There is a an area with beach guards but most is unsupervised. Go 1km to the east and and you come to the officially designated naturist (nudist) area managed by Camargue Soleil, a local group. Up to that point it can be crowded (but not like the Côte d'Azur - there is plenty of space for everybody!). Go a bit further and you will find virtually no cars or campers, just perhaps the odd fisherman, and you can walk several kilometres to the mouth of the Rhône past the brackish lagoons popular with flamingos and other water birds.

Further west and reached by a different route taking about ½ hour along an unmade road and you find Beauduc, with its odd little village of cabins. It is a very wide sandy beach and the sea is shallow and warm. Again you can take your car, although not far to the west as cars are not allowed inside the National Reserve. But you can walk all the way to Les Saintes Maries de la Mer, about 14 km or all the way back to the mouth of the Rhône, a similar distance. And for most of the way see nobody! The sea here is saltier than at Piémanson, being less diluted by the fresh water flowing out of the Rhône, and warmer, because it is shallower.

Beauduc is favoured by the telline fishermen, but you can scratch around in the sand in the shallows and easily find enough for dinner at either beach. Tellines are shellfish, about 1-2cm long, which live in the sand of the shallows. They are pale in colour and bilaterally symetrical. Keep them fresh and cool in a bucket of sea water and let them stand for a few hours to rid themselves of sand, then quickly boil them in a slosh of white wine with a bouquet garni for a few minutes and ... yum! Eat them with your fingers and have plenty of paper napkins to catch the juice dripping off your elbows.

And to work up an appetite try windsurfing or kitesurfing, for which Beauduc is popular- a good mistral will bring you close to the world speed record (set near by).

BIRDS - SELF-CATERING - GITES - HORSES - BEACHES - WINDSURFING - BIRDWATCHING - KITE-SURFING - GARDEN - RIDING - FLAMINGOS -TRANQUILITY

Mas d'Auphan, Le Sambuc, 13200 ARLES, France

tel. +33 490 972041 - e-mail mas-auphan@wanadoo.fr