It didn't burn down, fall over, or sink into the swamp

the prison, high windows are for the guards

Aigues-Mortes (week 29)

In 1240, the French kingdom had no Mediterranean port, so when King Louis IX ("Saint-Louis") wanted to mount the Seventh Crusade, he had to either depend on Italian ships or build his own port.  He chose the latter.  The natural harbours that are now part of France (at Marseille, Toulon, Nice, etc.) were under the control of other crowns at that time, so Louis chose the site of the salt works in the swamps of the Rhône delta, uninspiringly called Aigues-Mortes = "the Stagnant Waters".  Charlemagne had already established a small defensive tower there in 791 to protect the salt workers and fishermen.  Saint-Louis greatly expanded the fortifications to create a walled town with navigable channels to allow loading of seaworthy vessels (the town was never actually on the coast).  He also built the Tour de Constance on the site of Charlemagne's original tower.

The fortifications are remarkably well preserved and restored, and in fact Constance Tower has been in use since it was built.  It has often been used as a prison, holding Templars after their order was disbanded, then Protestants when the Edict of Nantes was revoked and Protestantism became illegal in the Kingdom of France.

windy!

We visited Aigues-Mortes on a very windy day, travelling by way of the Camargue wetland preserve.  It is famously home to three animals identified by their colours: black bulls (for bullfighting), white horses (for herding the bulls), and pink flamingoes (for starring in the title sequence for Miami Vice).  We saw plenty of the first two, but did not venture into the bird preserve.  The drive itself has long straight stretches bordering large fields, reminiscent of the southwestern Ontario plains.  The mountains are a distant, ghostly presence, and the flat open spaces were actually a welcome change from the normal driving over and through the mountain valleys that dominate this area of France.

Upon arrival, we had lunch at the Restaurant Coco.  The restaurant was small and the tables were pushed close together, but it was friendly, warm, and had the best fries we've tried in Europe.  Unfortunately, despite our insistence that we really did want our toro to be cooked bien cuite, the steaks came out somewhere between raw and rare.  After lunch, we dropped into the local office de tourisme and the Templar church of Notre-Dame-des-Sablons and wandered through the town.  We then paid the €15 fee to access the walls and tower.  The walls can be circumnavigated, a 1640 m round trip.  Along the wall are various strong points (towers, gatehouses) and every section had its own "toilet" (a seat with a hole to allow the waste to land outside the wall).  There are excellent views over the canals, and mountains of salt stand as testament to the continuing use of the salt marsh.  The views are even better from the top of the Constance Tower.

l: Andrew atop the Porte de la Marine (gatehouse); r: David demonstrates the wall-top latrine

We also tried dropping into the Château d'Avignon, but it was closed for the off-season.  It's only open from April 31 to October 31.  <-- yes, that is EXACTLY what it says on the sign.