Le Grau-du-Roi in Occitania

Thursday, 14 November 2024 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination:
Category/Kategorie: General
Reading Time:  3 minutes

© Clem Rutter/cc-by-3.0

© Clem Rutter/cc-by-3.0

Le Grau-du-Roi (Occitan: Lo Grau dau Rei) is a commune in the Gard department in southern France. It is the only commune in Gard to have a frontage on the Mediterranean. To the west is the Herault department and La Grande-Motte village, and to the east is the Bouches-du-Rhone department.

Using the sea as a vantage point, the commune has four distinct sections: the right beach (Plage de Rive Droite), the Village, the left beach (Plage de Rive Gauche), Port-Camargue and L’Espiguette. Immediately landwards are the large shallow étangs, saline marshes, which separate it from Aigues Mortes, a neighboring mediaeval walled city that used to be a port. The étangs are home to numerous flamingoes.

Town Hall © Daniel VILLAFRUELA/cc-by-sa-4.0 © Wolfgang H./cc-by-sa-3.0 Le Grau-du-Roi Lighthouse © Guigui59/cc-by-2.5 © Clem Rutter/cc-by-3.0 © Clem Rutter/cc-by-3.0 © Happolati/cc-by-sa-3.0 Port Camargue © Wolfgang H./cc-by-sa-3.0 Quai Bougainville at Port Camargue © Jmpoirier1/cc-by-sa-3.0
<
>
Quai Bougainville at Port Camargue © Jmpoirier1/cc-by-sa-3.0
Le Grau-du-Roi is south of Aigues-Mortes, in the Gard department. It is in the canton of Aigues-Mortes. It is separated from Aigues-Mortes by a series of saline marshes, called étangs in French, and a bend in the river Vidourle. The étangs are named as follows: l’étang du Ponant, l’étang du Médard, l’étang du Repausset Levant, and the lac de Salonique, which is a lake rather than a marsh, as its name suggests. To the west of the town, the coastal strip is breached where the Vidourle empties into the Mediterranean, and to the east is that of the Petit Rhone. The course of these two rivers has been subject to change and reversal. The Rhone used to flow into the étangs further to the west and at one point, the Vidourle flowed into it rather than the sea, The route in the 12th century was through the Grau Louis and the Old Channel. In 1570, a new breach occurred at a point called Gagne-Petit. It is around this grau that the settlement was formed. The area between the étangs and the sea was settled by Italian immigrants at the end of the 19th century. From then until the 1920s, the economy was based entirely on fishing, but tourism later became important, culminating in the construction of Port-Camargue. Le Grau-du-Roi station has rail connections to Nîmes.

The modern-day resort town benefits from 18 km of fine sand beaches, with sand dunes on the Pointe de Éspiguette forming an important wildlife habitat. The étangs are noted for their birds, which include flamingoes.

Read more on Le Grau-du-Roi and Wikipedia Le Grau-du-Roi (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.




Recommended posts:

Share this post: (Please note data protection regulations before using buttons)

We wish you a peaceful Advent season, Merry Christmas and a great start into a happy, amazing, healthy, awesome and successful New Year! 🕯 🎅 ✨ 🎄 🎁 🍾 🎆

We wish you a peaceful Advent season, Merry Christmas and a great start into a happy, amazing, healthy, awesome and successful New Year! 🕯 🎅 ✨ 🎄 🎁 🍾 🎆

[caption id="attachment_224634" align="aligncenter" width="590"]Christmas tree and Hanukkah menorah on Pariser Platz in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin © Leonhard Lenz[/caption] Read more on Wikipedia Twelve Days of Christmas, Wikipedia Saturnalia, Wikipedia Advent an...

[ read more ]

Cathedral Notre Dame de Paris

Cathedral Notre Dame de Paris

[caption id="attachment_25625" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Notre Dame de Paris © flickr.com - Bertrand/cc-by-2.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"](latest update: 7 December 2024) Notre-Dame de Paris (French for "Our Lady of Paris"), al...

[ read more ]

Chernihiv in Ukraine

Chernihiv in Ukraine

[caption id="attachment_235266" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Chernihiv Philharmony © Nomad0212/cc-by-sa-4.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Chernihiv is a city and municipality in northern Ukraine, which serves as the administrative ce...

[ read more ]

Pingyao Ancient City in China

Pingyao Ancient City in China

[caption id="attachment_223749" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Rih Sheng Chang Bank © Peellden/cc-by-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Pingyao, officially Pingyao Ancient City, is a settlement in central Shanxi, China, famed for its im...

[ read more ]

The Eden Project in Cornwall

The Eden Project in Cornwall

[caption id="attachment_24994" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Eden Project gardens and Humid Tropical Biome © geograph.org.uk - David Dixon/cc-by-sa-2.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Eden Project is a visitor attraction in Cornwall...

[ read more ]

Portrait: Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, first winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics

Portrait: Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, first winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics

[caption id="attachment_183110" align="aligncenter" width="385"] Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was a German mechanical engineer and physicist, who, on 8 November 1895, produced and detected ...

[ read more ]

Theme Week Chateaux of the Loire Valley - Château de Chambord

Theme Week Chateaux of the Loire Valley - Château de Chambord

[caption id="attachment_153150" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Aerial view © Lieven Smits[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The royal Château de Chambord at Chambord, Loir-et-Cher, France is one of the most recognizable châteaux in the w...

[ read more ]

Theme Week Afghanistan - Jalalabad

Theme Week Afghanistan - Jalalabad

[caption id="attachment_209412" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Spīn Ghar Range © Christopher Killalea/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Jalālābād, or Dzalalabad, is a city in eastern Afghanistan. It is the capital of Nanga...

[ read more ]

Hard Rock Cafe

Hard Rock Cafe

[caption id="attachment_241145" align="aligncenter" width="590"] London © Adz2042/cc-by-sa-4.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Hard Rock Cafe, Inc. is a chain of theme bar-restaurants, memorabilia shops, casinos and museums founded in 1971...

[ read more ]

The San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area

[caption id="attachment_171621" align="aligncenter" width="590"] San Francisco Cable Car on California Street © Fred Hsu/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The San Francisco Bay Area (referred to locally as the Bay Area) is a pop...

[ read more ]

Brijuni Islands National Park in Croatia

Brijuni Islands National Park in Croatia

[caption id="attachment_23897" align="alignleft" width="590"] Hotel Carmen © Zumbulka[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Islands are a group of fourteen small islands in the Croatian part of the northern Adriatic Sea, separated from the w...

[ read more ]

Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren

Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren

[caption id="attachment_232829" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © EmDee/cc-by-sa-3.0[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]The Royal Museum for Central Africa or RMCA (Dutch: Koninklijk Museum voor Midden-Afrika or KMMA; French: Musée royal de...

[ read more ]

Theme Week Dominican Republic - La Vega

Theme Week Dominican Republic - La Vega

[caption id="attachment_245366" align="aligncenter" width="590"] © Veganazo99[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]La Vega, is the fourth largest city and municipality of the Dominican Republic. It is in La Vega Province. The city is known as t...

[ read more ]

Oświęcim in Poland

Oświęcim in Poland

[caption id="attachment_150658" align="aligncenter" width="590"] Oświęcim Castle © Beemwej/cc-by-sa-3.0-pl[/caption][responsivevoice_button voice="UK English Female" buttontext="Listen to this Post"]Oświęcim (german: Auschwitz) is a town in the Lesser Poland province of southern Poland, situate...

[ read more ]

Return to TopReturn to Top