Aigues-Mortes - Frontignan 8 April

Today we continued on the Rhone-Sete canal. Todays blog is written by Carl.

Fat Tower Constance, built between 1241-1250. Home or rather prison to Madame Durant who sat here for 38 years when the Tower de Constance became a prison for Protestants in 1705.

Most fantastic feature in this town are the Ramparts, commissioned by Louis IX. This city wall encloses a vibrant city centre.

Aigues-Mortes was built by Louis IX to give France a Mediterranean port. At that time France had no Mediterranean port.  A-M was to be the launching point for several of the crusades. Louis IX led three crusades. He died of gonorrhoea in Tunis. (Note from leslie, he died of typhus!) well it could have been syphilus. 

Slow moving across the canal that cuts right through the Etangs. On the Falsterbonaset we have "tångar" must be same word for inner salt water lakes close to the sea. 

This is the canal cutting through an inland sea. Very strange.

Tied up on the quay in Frontignan. Little town famous for its  Muscat wines, and not much else! 

In the background is the two bridges.  The grey one in front is the lifting bridge for cars and other traffic. It lifts twice daily four boats. We took for the 16:00 lift. The high green bridge is the train bridge. Every 5 minutes a train passes at a roaring noise. TGV and other more normal.

The building behind the street light is the Muscat Cave. Here we can taste the local sweet Muscat wine. Like a kiss from the sun.

View from Le Central Bar, Friday night.

Behind on the quay the same boats we saw last year in Sanary-sur-mer.

While in Cannes last year we saw this strange sport performed, called jousting. It appears that it comes from this part of France. Le Central Bar seems to be the meeting point for Le Bleu, the people who do this sport. This is from Le Central Bar.

With a lot of noise this boat rowed by the members of Le Bleu appeared next to us. They were happy to be photographed.