Camargue Half-Day 4x4 Safari from Arles

Arles, the gateway to the Camargue

Arles sits on the Rhône exactly where the river splits into two arms and the delta begins, which makes it the natural starting point for any Camargue tour. The town was an important Roman city, and its amphitheatre, Roman theatre and Romanesque cloister are listed by UNESCO together with the rest of the old centre. Many travellers looking for things to do in Arles combine a morning among the monuments with an afternoon in the wetlands, or the other way round.

The tour starts from 1 Rue Émile Fassin in the town centre, an easy walk from the arena and the Rhône quays. Within a few minutes of leaving the streets of Arles the landscape flattens into open marshland, and the change from Roman stone to wild delta is part of the charm of this Camargue day trip from Arles.

Camargue Regional Natural Park and the Rhône delta

Created in 1970, the Camargue Regional Natural Park covers around 100,000 hectares between the Grand Rhône and the Petit Rhône, one of the largest river deltas in Western Europe. It is a patchwork of freshwater marshes, brackish lagoons, reed beds, dunes and salt flats, with the great Vaccarès lagoon at its heart, protected as a nature reserve since 1927. The park is a UNESCO biosphere reserve and a wetland of international importance for birds.

Much of the delta is private land or protected reserve, which is why a Camargue 4x4 tour is the best way to see it: your guide-driver uses tracks and dykes that ordinary cars cannot take, stopping where the wildlife is. Is the Camargue worth visiting? For anyone who loves open skies, birds and wild horses, it is one of the most unusual landscapes in France.

Lagoons, salt ponds and pink flamingos

The Camargue is the only place in France where greater flamingos breed regularly, and tens of thousands live on its lagoons for much of the year. You see them wading in long lines through the shallow water, filtering tiny shrimps and algae that give their feathers the famous pink colour, and taking off in a flash of black and coral wings.

The same algae turn some of the salt ponds of the southern delta pink. Herons, egrets, avocets, black-winged stilts and, in season, bee-eaters and marsh harriers also feed here, so bring binoculars if you have them. The best time to visit the Camargue for birds is spring and autumn, when migrating species pass through, while winter brings the largest flocks of flamingos.

Ranch lands, white horses and black bulls

The traditional Camargue ranch is called a manade, and its herdsmen, the gardians, still work on horseback with a long trident to move the cattle. The Camargue horse is one of the oldest breeds in Europe: foals are born dark brown or black and turn white only after several years, and the sturdy, sure-footed horses live half-wild on the marshes.

The black Camargue bulls, smaller and lighter than Spanish breeds, are raised for the course camarguaise, a local sport in which young men try to snatch ribbons from the bull's horns and the animal is never harmed. During your Camargue safari the guide stops near the herds so you can watch them grazing in the reeds, a classic image of Provence that you can only see this closely in the delta.

Rice fields and farmland of the delta

Away from the lagoons the northern Camargue is farming country, and its main crop is a surprise to many visitors: rice. The fields are flooded with fresh water from the Rhône, which also washes salt out of the soil, and the Camargue produces most of the rice grown in France, including a protected-origin red rice. In early summer the paddies are bright green, and in autumn the harvest begins.

The tracks between the fields are also good places to spot birds of prey, coypus and storks, and the guide explains how farming, salt-making and nature protection share the delta. The drive back towards Arles crosses this open farmland, giving you a last look at the wide horizons before the tour ends where it started.