Day Trips in Languedoc A Day Off

Even in France you sometimes need to truly take a day off. It seems like we have been working hard since the Spring vacation finishing up some writing and Jean working diligently on his dissertation which is a life of its own. Plus end of the school year activities are added into the schedule with what seems like less and less free time. Now I know this is all relative as we do live at a leisurely pace, but a day off was needed. 

I decided it was time for a mini vacation so we headed off for Marie St. La Mer and the Camargue where the original cowboy came from. The land of white horses and taureaux. Starting off we took a two hour horseback ride through the Camargue to see the etang and the flamingos close-up. Zoe-Pascale having taken a year's worth of poney lessons was confident on her tall white horse, one of the famous camarguais horses. Jean a bit timid loved his gentile horse and moved through the landscape slow and steady.
Interstingly all the baby horses are born brown but turn white as they grow older and only the males are used for horseback riding.

After our ride we went out for a nice lunch in the village and then to the beach.

This is where the key to creating your lifestyle comes in. I finally decided that it was time we made ourselves truly comfortable at the beach and also protect ourselves from the hot sun and future skin cancer of course. The way to do this is to rent a comfortable lounge chair and umbrella (that doesn't blow away) from the various places on the beach. For 8 euro a person we were in ecstasy. Besides we could order ice cream, water, wine, coffee, drinks and more from the restaurant at the back of the beach. Yes, it is a luxury but one we decided is well worth it. I'd rather eat at home one night and lay comfortably on the beach for an entire afternoon!