ARLES, France--The white horses of Provence, you imagine them splashing through the surf and scaring the pink flamingoes into dramatic flight, a tribe of several hundred broad-footed ponies that roam freely in the salt marshes of the Rhone delta.
It's called the Camargue, a 360-square-mile wildlife, wetland and nature preserve that extends from this ancient Roman city down to the Mediterranean. They're not exactly tame, the horses, but they're docile enough to ride and strong enough to pull the gypsy wagons that are rented these days only by foreign tourists. They're ponies are also the traditional mounts for the colorfully costumed gamekeepers known as gardians as they round up the Camargue's black bulls.
For all the mystique surrounding the name (think "Everglades"), the Camargue is flat and uninteresting, sparsely inhabited. Rice is the principal crop, with fresh river water flooding the low-lying paddies, producing 95 percent of the rice grown in France. The mistral, the fierce wind of Provence sweeps across the landscape, barely deterred by tightly planted clumps of reeds. About 100 ranches called manades survive, offering pony rides, non-lethal bull fights and copious farmhouse meals. The bulls, it turns out, make a tasty, slightly gamey stew.
The ponies, on the other hand, run free. You see them wandering through the fields and pastures, nuzzling brush or rubbing against fenceposts, not quite wild, not quite stray, nobody's servant.
My visit (with more reports to come) was underwritten by the regional tourism authority of PACA (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur). Photo via Wikipedia Commons.
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