The forecast for Montpellier was for a hot day, so it was a surprise to see clouds obscuring the sun this morning. The clouds even produced some rain on the coast, but we only had a sprinkle on our ride, passing through areas that had more. Getting out of Montpellier was a lot easier than getting in, no doubt helped by being a Saturday, and the careful perusal of maps and google the night before. As it turned out, we got onto the cycle route heading towards the coast quite quickly, and the cycleway was good and fast, and heading downhill on a slight slope, past massive new apartment blocks. As we got close to Carnon (on the coast), the cycle route went along the Canal du Rhone Sete, and turned from sealed to unsealed. It appears that there are separate authorities responsible for maintaining cycleways - the highway departments and the canal operators, for instance. Reaching La Grande Motte, we were flung into the traffic and crowds of a French resort area - lots of apartment towers, marinas, stalls for fast food, ice creameries, amusement parks - and the occasional nice beach squeezed in amongst it all! Threading our way through all of this took a bit of time, and of course it was worth a look. It was with some relief that we managed to get to the other side and see the low key resort area of Le Grau du Roi, though today even that was crowded, with traffic jams leading into the town and across the little bridge over the Le Vidourie. Times like these it is great to be on a bike! Lunch was at Aigues-Mortes, in the middle of the walls around the old city. The port was used by the French Crusaders to embark for the Middle East in the 1200’s. On the way to our accommodation near Arles we saw the three iconic things to see in the Camargue - bulls, horses and flamingos! And also red Camargue rice… such a contrast with the vivid green to the salt pans and scrubby growth. We also met and rode for a while with Helmut, an Austrian solo bike traveller, who is riding from Madrid to Italy before taking a train back home. We have seen lots of cycle tourists this year, but he is the first to be really chatty - I’m guessing that he has been on his own for a while!