Aigues-Mortes, France

We departed Barçelona knowing we'd be spending the night in France, but not quite where. We'd brought a book with us of "Europe's Wonderful Little Hotels & Inns," and since we'd been lugging it around for a month, decided to put it to use. First, though, we had to leave Spain. Our train took us over the border at Cerbère and into France. We got off the train at Nimes, and using our book, found the Hotel des Arcades in Aigues-Mortes. We then boarded another train to take us there in time for dinner.

Aigues-Mortes translates to "dead waters," and that's what this town's got. It used to be coastal (on the Mediterranean) but over the years silt buildup has pushed the coastline farther away from the walls of the city; now there's a canal to get to the sea. The chief industry is salt production, with huge mounds of sea salt drying on the flats outside the town. The city itself is charming. It's a walled city dating back to the 13th Century and founded by King Louis IX as a rest stop on the way to the Crusades. Our hotel would prove to be equally charming. The hotel's owner was kind enough to pick us up at the train station to save us the walk, and we were thrilled to be driven through the ancient gate into the medieval city. We learned that our hotel had been constructed in the 16th century, but, fortunately for us, recently fully modernized. (After Barçelona, the plumbing was quite a treat!) We checked into our room and relaxed before heading back out to walk the inside perimeter of the city's walls and enjoy dinner at an outdoor cafe in the city's central square. As darkness fell, the square became a showplace for a troupe of young performers. They performed music, juggling, fire-eating, and acrobatics to keep the crowd entertained, and they were quite good at it.

We had heard a rumor back in Barçelona that there was a labor dispute in progress in France involving the tourist attractions, and we were soon to discover that it was true. The walls of Aigues-Mortes are normally open to visitors, but now the French Ministry of Culture was on strike, and as we were soon to find out, most publicly owned attractions in the country, including the walls of Aigues-Mortes, were closed. While this was a disappointment, we were able to occupy our time in other ways, spending a few hours by the pool at our hotel and taking a cruise through the local canals.

The cruise aboard the barge "Pescalune" took us along the local waterways past a huge salt works and into the local commercial harbor, as well as past a huge flock of flamingos and the nesting sites of a colony of bee-eaters. We shared the barge with a large contingent of local nuns, one of whom was particularly amused by my height as it compared to hers. (I had an extra 50 cm over her.)

We had dinner that night at our hotel, and the next morning, while walking around the city, took some time to call ahead to our next destination, Paris, to secure lodging. We were unsuccessful, but undeterred, we were chauffeured to the train station by the hotel's other owner. For some reason, our train to Nimes was a bus, but at Nimes we boarded the TGV and grandly vitessed our way to Paris.