Route to the blog:
Finally moving on, finally checking out of our 12 m² hotel room, getting out on our beloved bikes, heading south along the coast. Still feeling a little cautious after the flu, we don’t set ourselves too ambitious a goal for the day. After just a few kilometers, things finally quiet down again – Marseille is an extremely loud and dirty city! The smells of dog poop and urine are replaced by fresh sea air and Provençal herbs – yes, they really do grow everywhere in Provence 😅.
Due to the long enforced break, it felt as if we were setting off on our big adventure all over again.
The climate along the coast feels very dry: lots of pine trees, the first cacti, and clay or sandy soil. So on our first beautiful wild-camping spot just outside the city, we thought: We’ll definitely have a quiet night here – there surely aren’t any animals around. Not even 20 minutes after crawling into the tent, Nicole said after a strange noise: “Was that a pig!?”
Beni: “No, in this dry region without water and without mud for wallowing, there are definitely no pigs. That was surely a motocross bike accelerating.”
So we decided to lie back down and sleep.
Beni: “Shit, I heard it too now 🙈🐗!”
This time we were properly startled – and apparently the pig was as well. When we jumped out of the tent, we only saw it running away. Wait a minute: right behind our tent stood a trough filled with water. That wasn’t there by chance – someone waters their pigs here 😂. And we were clever enough to pitch our tent right in front of it. No wonder the pig came so close. Luckily, for this trip we had chosen a smaller, freestanding tent (Durston X-Dom 2). It was easy to just carry it a few metres away. Now the pig could drink in peace and we could sleep in peace.
Unfortunately, these nightly encounters repeated themselves over the next two days. On the second night, we unknowingly camped between oak trees, whose acorns are used as feed for the wild Iberico pigs – the very acorns that later give their meat the typical nutty flavour. But by then we didn’t care about the pigs’ grunting anymore – they don’t do anything as long as you don’t get in their way. But when we suddenly heard our bike fall over, we were instantly wide awake and outside in a flash. A nearly tame fox had apparently smelled our leftover pizza in the food bag. Luckily, we noticed it in time, because he had already bitten through a bungee cord and dragged our backpack a few metres away. The fox simply wouldn’t leave, so that night wasn’t exactly restful either.
On the third evening, we already saw tracks in the mud, but we still got a fright when the pig splashed loudly into the creek right next to our tent as it jumped in to cross it.
Then the nightly haunting was finally over. The path led us further towards the “Regional Nature Park Camargue.”
The Camargue is located in the vast Rhône Delta, where the mighty river divides into several branches and forms a unique landscape of water, salt, and fertile alluvial soil. Wide plains, shallow salt lakes, wild lagoons, and countless birds characterize this area. Dozens of flamingos stood in the shallow water as if they had been placed there especially for us. The mixture of sea, marsh, and dry plains gives the Camargue a very special atmosphere.
November 2, 2025: Our plan was actually to spend the night at the campsite in Salin-de-Giraud. We had strong headwinds, were tired, and gusts of up to 50 km/h were forecast for the next day. However, when we arrived, we discovered that the campsite was closing for the winter season, starting today of all days.
When we looked for alternatives on Google Maps, we quickly realized that this was not the exception, but rather the rule. So we scrapped our plan and struggled a few more kilometers against the wind to find a suitable place to camp in the wild.
Although we set off early the next morning, the 50 km/h gusts soon made themselves felt. At least we had found a campsite in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer that was still open. There we found a wind-protected camping spot – and after the last few days, a shower was urgently needed!
It’s Beni’s birthday, and fittingly, the wind has changed direction and the sun is shining down on us all day long. Celebrating a birthday on a long journey is something special. You’re happy, but there are limits to how you can really celebrate. We wanted to treat ourselves to a nice dinner anyway. But reality had other plans: contrary to the opening hours listed on Google, most restaurants were already in hibernation.
After all the restaurants we tried were locked and it was slowly getting dark outside, we gave up. We sat down on a lit bench in front of a cemetery and instead of a delicious leg of lamb, we had pasta with broccoli and coconut milk 🤪 – it wasn’t so bad!
Suddenly, Anika rode her bike out of the darkness toward us. She was also looking for a place to eat her dinner and stopped out of curiosity. So Beni unexpectedly got some more company on his birthday after all—and we spent the evening having exciting conversations about traveling, experiences, and new plans.
After dinner, the three of us pushed our bikes to a nearby park, pitched our tents, and went to sleep. It was a somewhat different birthday, but definitely one that we won’t forget anytime soon.
Anyone who has studied our equipment list a little more closely may have wondered: Did Beni really bring his paraglider with him?! Yes, that’s right – Beni couldn’t imagine going without flying for such a long time. But until now, he had been lugging around a total of 9 kg with him. It’s not quite that simple: you have to be in the right place at the right time, and then the weather has to cooperate too.
But on November 8, almost a month after the start of the trip, the time had come. We were relaxing on a small sandy beach near Sète when Beni said the wind was just right for a bit of ground handling (playing with the glider without flying).
But this dry run wasn’t to be the last – just three days later, everything fell into place! At the Sémaphore launch site near Leucate, Beni was able to soar comfortably along the coast and get a bird’s-eye view of our route towards the Pyrenees.
Slowly but surely, the Pyrenees appeared on the horizon as we cycled along EuroVelo 8. The EV8 surprised us in a positive way: mostly wonderful asphalt, away from the road, often right along the coast. Only the countless tourist castles towering high into the sky clouded the picture. We didn’t even want to imagine what it would look like here in high season!
We often found charming places to sleep just a few meters away from the bike path—in the high season, this would certainly not be so easy.
We wanted to take one last break before Spain, as there was still a lot to do and organize. In addition to the usual things like washing clothes, showering, cleaning and maintaining equipment, planning our route, and writing to friends and family, our gas stove was causing us concern. The silencer attached above the gas nozzle looked as if it wouldn’t last much longer.
So we booked one of the few Airbnbs in Argelès-Plage and got to work.
It was a blessing in disguise: we quickly found the replacement part on Amazon Spain. Now we just needed a Spanish address to send it to. The Warmshowers platform is really handy for situations like this. So we wrote to a few people in Girona, the nearest large city in Spain, and Pau not only replied with his postal address, but also with valuable tips on routes across the Pyrenees. He also gave us an insider tip: the Refugi Centre Excursionista Empordanès, a mountain hut right on the French/Spanish border.
The hut used to be a bunker; thick reinforced concrete and small windows made spending the night there a bit of an adventure. We couldn’t help wondering how people must have felt in there during wartime 😣.
During the night, strong gusts swept across the pass and we were glad to be able to spend the night surrounded by thick walls rather than in a tent.
You can find out how things are progressing here in Spain in the next blog.
For even more insight into our everyday cycling life, check out our latest video: