The hilltop village of Les Baux perfectly combines the medieval ambiance of Provence with some great birding. Photo: Rick Wright
Mediterranean France is justly famous for the diversity of its birdlife and the richness of its 2,000-year-old culture. This relaxed tour, based at a single comfortable hotel in Arles, gives participants the opportunity to enjoy both, with a Mediterranean avifauna complementing artistic and architectural treasures from the Roman and medieval periods. On some days, birding will predominate, while others will be devoted primarily to historical sites, but most of our time will feature a balance between birds and culture. Relatively late starts (6:30 to 9:00 am) most mornings, leisurely meals, and plenty of time built in for shopping, strolling, or enjoying the sights ensure a more relaxed pace than is typical of many birding tours, and the food, the wine, and the varied landscapes of Provence combine to make this an especially appealing European sojourn for birders and non-birders alike.
Day 1: Our tour starts this evening in Arles with an orientation and introductory dinner at our comfortable, modern hotel, which will serve as the base for the entire tour.
Day 2: After breakfast we’ll start out on the two-hour drive (the longest of the tour) to Mont Ventoux, traditionally identified as the birthplace of the European Renaissance. Unlike Petrarch on his famous 1346 ascent, we will be driving to the summit of this 6,250-foot mountain, where we will look for high-elevation specialties such as Alpine Swift and Citril Finch against the rugged scenery of this outlier of the Alps. We’ll return to Arles after lunch for a visit to the city museum’s unparalleled collections of Roman and early medieval art; an early-evening break will be followed by dinner in one of Arles’s many fine restaurants.
Day 3: After breakfast we’ll make the short drive down the western branch of the Rhône River to the Petite Camargue, where we can hope for a variety of wading birds including Purple and Squacco Herons and Greater Flamingo; European Bee-eater and Roller are possible, as is Hoopoe. We’ll have lunch in St-Gilles-du-Gard, whose twelfth-century church preserves one of the most important monuments of Romanesque sculpture on the pilgrimage route to Compostella. After admiring the world-famous west façade, we’ll return to Arles and a short break before dinner.
Day 4: A later start this morning will find us leaving Arles after breakfast for the short drive to La Caume in the dramatic limestone hills of Les Alpilles, where we’ll stroll along a wide paved road (closed to traffic), getting to know the birds and wildflowers of a typical French forest. Just over the hill is Les Baux, one of the most atmospheric and most carefully preserved of all France’s medieval villages, with a ruined fortress brooding above it; we’ll drive here for lunch, after which the birders in the group can look for Black Redstart, Sardinian Warbler, and Blue Rock Thrush, while the rest can take advantage of the village’s abundant shops and cafes. Arles is not far away, and there is the possibility of some free time for shopping or sightseeing before dinner.
Day 5: We’ll leave Arles after breakfast for Les-Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, a colorful resort town on the Mediterranean Sea. Along the way we’ll search for Gull-billed Tern, Black-winged Stilt, and Pied Avocet, among many other marsh birds. Lunch will be in Saintes-Maries, followed by the leisurely drive to Arles, where we can visit the necropolis of the Alyscamps before heading to dinner.
Day 6: This will be the only truly early morning of the tour, with a 5:30 am start for the steppes of La Crau, an otherworldly landscape reminiscent of eastern Europe in both its vegetation and its birds. Once at our birding site, we’ll walk nearly a mile on a level path across an open pasture where we have a good chance at most of the open-country birds of the area. We will be looking for specialties including Stone-curlew, Little Bustard, Pin-tailed Sandgrouse, and Little Owl, and there are always good chances for a surprise here. We’ll eat lunch in nearby St-Martin, then return to Arles, where we will reassemble in the late afternoon to visit Romanesque St-Trophime before dinner.
Day 7: After breakfast in Arles, we’ll visit Avignon, where our first stop will be the Palais des Papes, the largest Gothic building in the world. After lunch, we’ll view the important collection of Italian and Provençal painting and sculpture in the Musée du Petit-Palais, then take time for more sightseeing and shopping. We are unlikely to do any intensive birding today before returning to Arles for dinner.
Day 8: Our final visit to the marshes of the Rhône delta will take us to the Eastern Camargue. Slender-billed Gull, Bearded Reedling, and large numbers of Greater Flamingo can be hoped for, and the salt pans should host a good variety of shorebirds. Today’s midday meal will be a picnic at covered picnic tables. We’ll make a particular effort to locate any species we may have missed on our earlier visits to the marshlands, but the real pleasure of this excursion will be in taking time to relish some of the birds that were new to us just days earlier. We’ll return to Arles in time for dinner.
Day 9: We’ll begin this morning with a visit to the Pont du Gard, an impressive Roman bridge and aqueduct; the river, woods, and even parking lots of the visitor center offer some fine birding, with Rock Sparrow a special target here. Lunch will be in Beaucaire, where we’ll visit the massive 13th-century castle before returning to Arles for a late afternoon break and a festive concluding dinner.
Day 10: The tour ends this morning in Arles.
Updated: 19 June 2008
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Notes
Note that the tour dates have changed since this tour was originally published.