Provence - Aigues-Mortes to Avignon

The Camargue, from the saddle

Aigues-Mortes is the kind of place that fixes a holiday in your memory before you've even unpacked. Crusader-era walls, salt flats stretching off towards the horizon, and the slightly improbable sight of pink flamingos picking their way through the lagoons — this is where the week begins, with the barge moored up and dinner on deck the same evening you arrive. The cycling that follows is unhurried Provence: country lanes between canals and reed beds, white horses in the marshes, villages where the bull-running tradition still pulls a crowd at fête time.

This is a bike and barge trip, run with a local operator, so you'll share the boat with an international group of cyclists. A guide leads each day's ride, but if you'd rather cycle at your own pace the route notes are yours to take. E-bikes are available if you want the assist for the longer afternoons.

The route, day by day

The first proper day is a 30-mile loop out of Aigues-Mortes through La Cailar, Marsillargues and Saint-Laurent-d'Aigouze, with about 160 metres of ascent — flat, in other words, by any honest measure. There's a stop at an organic vineyard for a tasting, which is the sort of thing that sounds like brochure filler until you're actually sitting under a fig tree with a glass of something cold.

From here the barge tracks slowly north towards Arles and into Van Gogh's Provence — the same olive groves and cypress lines he painted, now threaded with quiet cycle lanes. The week's set-piece is the Pont du Gard, the Roman aqueduct that still strides across the Gardon nearly two thousand years on; it remains, as advertised, the highest one ever built. You'll also pass the abbey of Saint-Michel-de-Frigolet, tucked into the Montagnette hills, before rolling into Avignon. The final toast is a glass of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, which feels right given how much of it you'll have cycled past.

The grading is 2 out of 5 — leisure cycling, mostly flat, suited to anyone who's reasonably comfortable on a bike for a few hours at a stretch.

Practicalities and who it suits

The barge is your hotel for the week: cabins on board, dinners cooked and served on the boat, evenings spent comparing the day's photos with whoever else is sharing the trip. You join in Aigues-Mortes from 17.00 on Day 1, with a briefing at 18.30 and dinner that night. If the standard direction doesn't suit, the route also runs the other way round, starting in Avignon — worth asking about when you book.

Eight days, seven nights, prices from £1,775 per person. It's a good fit for couples or solo travellers who like the idea of a sociable group dinner but the freedom of solo days in the saddle, and for anyone who'd rather wake up somewhere new without ever repacking a suitcase. Less ideal if you want big climbs or hotel-to-hotel privacy — the Camargue is genuinely flat, and the barge is genuinely shared.