"I'm a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride"... Well, they were cowboys and probably would have been safer riding on steel horses!

Aigues Mortes.  A picturesque twelfth century Medieval walled city, impeccably preserved and still inhabited today.  Once a year, around mid-October, the town pays tribute to its location in the 'Petit Camargue' and plays host to a Camargue festival.  The traditional 'Fête Votive' illustrates the amalgamation of Hispanic influence, Camargue traditions, French culture, and bulls.  That's right, bulls.  Twice a day for the duration of this festival, they let bulls rampage through the cobbled streets of their beautiful medieval city.  When I say bulls, I don't just mean the things you see ambling around with cows in your standard West Country field (or in our case, the bulls you find living in your back garden when they escape from the field behind your house), I mean proper, full-sized, angry bulls.  With horns.  Big horns.


On the Tuesday when my parents were visiting, we decided to explore a little of Montpellier's surrounding area.  My Dad was insistent that he wanted to visit Sète, an old port about a half an hour drive to the west of Montpellier.  I must admit that I wasn't overly impressed with the town; we had a bit of a wander, and although the town is pretty, the overwhelming stench of dead fish mixed with thirty degree heat was somewhat off putting.  Francis, one of my French housemates, had recommended that we visit Aigues-Mortes.  So, after a small argument with the sat-nav (not only can she not speak French, but apparently she's also incapable of correcting your spelling when you miss an 's' off the end of a place name), we set off on the drive to Aigues-Mortes; about a half an hour's drive to the east of Montpellier.

We arrived at around five in the afternoon/evening to discover that there was a fair on outside the walls of the city.  Some other sort of 'event' was also taking place, causing a couple of hundred caravans to park up in the fields outside of the walls, whilst the grassy areas surrounding the walls were filled with parked cars.  Interesting.  Still, unperturbed we parked up and marched through the nearest archway into the city.  We were just admiring the quaint little cobbled streets and the impeccably maintained cottages lining each and every one of them, when we came across the main street.  The town seems to have been built in a rectangular shape with a 'hatched' design; the main street runs directly from one archway to another, whilst the other streets criss-cross out around it.  This would be the main street that, when we arrived, was in fact blocked off by iron gates at each and every entrance.  The bars on the wrought iron gates were wide enough to slip through, and there were people on the other side, so of course we stepped through to find out what all the commotion was about.


An announcement over a tannoy system soon informed us in English, albeit through a thick French accent, that they would shortly be running bulls through the main street.  Me, being the fearless Brit that I am, immediately leapt back behind the gates.  Once the blind panic had subsided and I noticed that several small French children were still running around on the pavement of the main street, I thought I'd better come out of hiding.  A fanfare signalled the start of each 'run' and upon hearing the first one, we looked to the archway and could only see horses.  Now, I had definitely heard something mentioning horses over the tannoy so assumed that perhaps something had been lost in translation; how silly of us! They wouldn't actually let bulls rampage through the streets! Oh no, actually, they would.  Three horses and a bull came hurtling along the main street.  About two minutes later, the same thing happened again.  And again, and again.  In total, at least about a dozen bulls ran through the streets of Aigues-Mortes on that perfectly unsuspecting Tuesday afternoon.  The men (and the occasional woman) were using horses to surround the bulls and keep them in check, so that they ran directly from one archway to the other.  Or at least for the most part they ran directly between the two archways.  On occasion, the bulls got a little, er, distracted, or made a bid for freedom and strayed from the path a little.  No big deal though - it was only a full size bull veering into a crowd of people.

The best part was trying to photograph the whole charade.  Once you'd managed to heave yourself over the general fear factor, the desire to actually dare to capture this amazing feat on film (or memory card as it were) kicked in.  The trouble is, when you have your camera set to 'preview', you can take the photo, then be so intently engrossed in looking at the preview that you blithely forget that the bull and three horses that remain motionless on the photo, are in fact still hurtling towards you.  I definitely made that mistake at least once.  On the bright side, I got my cardio work-out for the day and burnt off the calories from the afternoon's ice cream in pure adrenaline!


Once the cowboys had finished taking the bulls for their afternoon run, we headed outside the walls, to discover a make-shift 'arena'.  The day's events had evidently finished, as everyone was making their way to the main square in order to dampen the adrenaline with large quantities of Pernod.  Finding the main square wasn't difficult either as you simply had to follow the distinct, overpowering smell of Pernod, mixed with a subtle hint of beer.  Lovely.  We agreed that we would return on Friday afternoon with my boyfriend, who would be with us by then, so we could see what it was that had been happening in the 'arena'...

Friday rolled around and we arrived to the same scene of caravans, burnt out and bashed up shells of cars, dusty terrain and hundreds of people looking forward to an afternoon of daredevil antics.  It turns out that the 'arena' was used to release the bulls into.  From there, it seemed that it was common practice for the teenage members of the community to play 'chicken' with the bull.  We were standing where we presumed it would be safe, behind a four foot high solid wood fence.  As it turns out, the bull was quite happy to 'ram-raid' into said fence when some body waved a red sweater in its face (cue my mother and I immediately using my 6'2" boyfriend as a human shield).  On this occasion, the bull managed to jump a fence of similar height inside the ring, before later jumping another barricade of similar height and escaping from the ring entirely.  That's right, a fully sized and well horned bull was running free around the make-shift car park.  We left the ring after a tense twenty minutes, assuming the bull had been captured.  On returning to the ring about ten minutes later, we realised it hadn't been captured at all, as we bore witness to it finally being ushered back into the ring, complete with half a motorbike hanging off of its horn.  We went to have a look at the motorbike in question a bit later, and let's just say that is going to be quite the insurance claim: "Mais, bien sûr madame, ma moto a été attaqué par un torreau!"  Yeah, right mate, on yer bike.  Or your half bike as the case now may be...


I can't say I entirely agreed with the goings-on in the ring.  There was something that just didn't quite sit right as I watched a bull, getting increasingly more frustrated, being taunted by the younger members of the community.  Insane?  Yes.  Ethically and morally correct?  Maybe not.  But traditional?  It would seem so.  The running of the bulls through the streets, however, really was something incredible to witness.  There was just something awe inspiring about the sheer power and strength of the bulls being contained by three beautiful Camargue horses and their fearless horseback riders.  I know this has been a ridiculously long post to have dedicated to one day, but it was something I don't think I'll ever see the likes of again.  Well worth a visit if you're ever around the South of France in October, just remember not to wear red.