Languedoc, one of southern France's great old provinces, is a loosely defined area encompassing such cities as Nîmes, Toulouse, and Carcassonne. It's one of France's leading wine-producing areas and is fabled for its art treasures.
The coast of Languedoc -- from Montpellier to the Spanish frontier -- might be called France's "second Mediterranean," with first place naturally going to the Côte d'Azur. A land of ancient cities and a generous sea, it's less spoiled than the Côte d'Azur. An almost-continuous strip of sand stretches west from the Rhône and curves snakelike toward the Pyrenees. Back in the days of de Gaulle, the government began an ambitious project to develop the Languedoc-Roussillon coastline that has since become a booming success, as the miles of sun-baking bodies in July and August testify.
Ancient Roussillon is a small region of greater Languedoc, forming the Pyrénées-Orientales département. It includes the towns of Perpignan and Collioure within its borders. This is the French Catalonia, inspired more by Barcelona in neighboring Spain than by remote Paris. Over its long and colorful history, it has known many rulers. Legally part of the French kingdom until 1258, it was surrendered to James I of Aragón, and until 1344 it was part of the ephemeral kingdom of Majorca, with Perpignan as the capital. By 1463, Roussillon was annexed to France again. Then Ferdinand of Aragón won it back, but by 1659 France had it once again. In spite of some local sentiment for reunion with the Catalans of Spain, France still firmly controls the land.
The Camargue encompasses a marshy delta between two arms of the Rhône. Arles serves as the area's northern border, and the village Sète functions as a gateway to the region. South of Arles is cattle country, and here strong wild black bulls are bred for the arenas of Arles and Nîmes. Cattle are herded by gardiens, French cowboys, who wear wide-brimmed black hats and ride graceful white horses, said to have been brought here by the Saracens. The whitewashed houses of the Camargue, plaited-straw roofs, pink flamingos that inhabit the muddy marshes, vast plains, endless stretches of sandbars -- all this qualifies as "exotic" France.
