Experience the best of Le Grau-du-Roi

Le Grau-du-Roi lies on the Languedoc coast in the Gard, at the edge of the Camargue, about 70 km south-west of Avignon. A canal runs through the middle of town lined with fishing boats, fish restaurants and bars, and the Seaquarium, an aquarium with sharks and seals, stands beside the beach. Next door, Port Camargue is a very large marina for pleasure boats.

Beyond the marina, the Espiguette peninsula is a wild beach of dunes with a lighthouse. Aigues-Mortes, a walled medieval town from which Louis IX sailed on crusade, stands a few kilometres inland beside salt pans that turn pink in summer. To the east the Camargue's wetlands begin, with white horses, black bulls and flamingos, and Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer lies further along.

Tellines, tiny clams from the sandy shallows, cooked with garlic and parsley, are the local seafood, and the Camargue adds gardiane, a stew of local bull, rice grown in the delta and fleur de sel from the salt marshes. Wines grown in coastal sand are a local curiosity. Spring and early autumn suit the Camargue best, while July and August are hot, busy and full of mosquitoes.