Reale Estate Antibes

The Camargue
To its handful of inhabitants,the Camargue wasthe isdo, the 'island' between the two branches of the Rhone.The river's course hastaken manydifferentforms over the millennia;the present one, with itstwoarms, hascreated a vast marshland-this is France's salt celiar, its greatest treasure house of waterfowl and the homeof some of its mostexotic landscapes.The two branche, the Grand and Petit Rhones, really build separate deltas, leavingf space in between a soupy battleground where land and sea slowly strugglefor mastery.With its unique coastlineand wild expanses, the Camargue providesa soothingantithesistothe morecrowde areas of the region. It is also ideal for outdoor activities, including hiking, climbing, diving, surfing and horse-riding.<br />
During the early Middle Ages, on the other hand, at least four monastic colonies were founded on theedges of the Camargue, not only to reclaim land butto collect that most precious of medieval commodities, salt. In this inhospitable countrythese colonies disappeared long ago; the most importa nt wasthe abbey of Psalmody,which becamequite a powerin Provence. Today only scant ruinsof itcan beseen,on a farm stili called Psalmody.tothenorthof Aigues-Mortes in the region called the Petite Camargue, west of the Petit Rhone.<br />
By the17th century.the monks gave way to cowboys (gardians), who created large ranches to exploit the two totem animals of the Camargue: the native black longhorn cattlethatthriveon salt grass and have always been the preferred stock for Provencal bullfights, and the beautiful white horse, believed to have been introduced bythe Arabs back in the Dark Ages. A true cowboy culture grew up-a romantic image dear to the Provencaux, and especially to Provencal writers such as Mistral.<br />
There are stili a few score gardians in the Camargue today, keeping up the old traditions. Big changes have come to the swampland in the last century. For a while, the French threatened to dispose rationally ofthis land altogether, with dykes and drainage schemes turning large areas into saltpans and rice fields. Fortunately, however, a few nature societies secured the creation of a wildlife reserve around the heart of the Camargue in 1928, and the government made a regional park of the area in 1970.