This is the "beastly" story of "Gandar"= A legendary bull from the area covered by this map (you can click to increase size,I hope) Gandar is immortalized in various ways, recently by the installation of a statue in stone in the village of Vauvert (see link to "Vauvertvillage"). The story goes that Gandar started his career as a perectly normal bull, at the Manade Blatiere,doing "bullish" things in the area.Around 1942 he was born, and passed into the arenas for the traditional Camarguaise festivals, and proved his worth by taking out a few of the local raseteurs (those people who try to get rings onto the bulls horn). His career took off one day when he was being transported back home and the transporter literally exploded at the railway level crossing in the village of Vauvert. He was badly injured, one of his horns being torn off in the accident. The owner decided that rather than having him put down, and probably sold as the main ingredien...

(reeds in the Camargue) Nope-it's not rest and recreation, Army style - R,R ans R's represents the area of France in which Mr le Marquis resides - "reeds,rice and 'rigglers! For those of you who may not know the area, or have vaguely heard of it, somewhere, or indeed for those of you who may like to visit the area, here is a little trip! This is a fairly typical view of the Camargue, being situated along the shores of the Med. sea, les etangs (lakes), with a varied nature . In fact the area has more than people think - it is, for example, Europe's largest producer of rice, particularly the "natural" rice (brown and not white). Buildings like the one below were built to accomodate, originally, the workers in the reed industry, and this industry is still the biggest in Europe today, although the buildings have passed into legend, or have become hunting lodges/gites for the tourists/occasionally a meeting point for locals. (Typical thatched roof in Camar...