Sunday Oct 6th

I'm trying to give you some idea what this festival looks like but there are so many moving parts it's hard to break the days into blog size pieces. In the last blog post we went from the meadow where the bulls are rounded up, directly to the bullfighting. We missed the abrivado where the bulls are run through town to the arena. We will do that today and as this is the official opening day of the festival it will be extra special. More on that later.

The bulls are run out of the meadow, down a lane, into the town, and out the south gate, as in the pictures below.

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After delivering the bulls to the arena the gardiens would all line up against the town walls. It had a ritualistic look to it.

_8509530 (2) Note how many of the gardiens are women.

_8509528 The extra special part is that this being opening day, the abrivado was followed by a parade of locals in period dress, antique cars and motorbikes, horse drawn carriages, and an assortment of anything anyone wanted to ride in a parade. Here are samples.

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Motorbikes like the one above and below, with the motor mounted on the front tire, were very popular. Cute, but they smoke something awful. 

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We were immersed in a combination county fair/rodeo that had been celebrated for many hundreds of years. These people did all of this just for themselves. It certainly wasn't to make money off the tourists. For one thing, we didn't see any. For another, the entire festival was free, including parking the car. 

When the parade was over we realized we had lingered around too long to get a seat in the arena for the first bullfight so we took this chance to look around town. 

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Above is our friend, St. Louis, King of France, founder of this town.

This was our chance too, to walk the top of the town wall. 

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Below is the great salt recovery works. Aigues-Mortes has been in the sea salt business since the early Middle Ages. The pink water is caused by algae. _8509621 _8509625 We wondered how these people like having a steady stream of visitors looking into their in their backyards.  _8509626 _8509641 (2) _8509651 _8509700

We caught the afternoon bullfight, reported on in the previous blog post, and then it was time for the bandido. That is, the running of the bulls back through town to the meadow. I consider this a great photo op and one has to get there early to stake out a good spot. In fact, this being opening weekend, there were throngs of people both inside the town and outside the south gate, all of them inside the steel barriers. I think it was worth the effort.

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_8508632 (2) The image above is the one the judges at the Post Dispatch liked. _8509368 (2) _8509408 (2)

It is impossible to overstate how fun this is. But wait! There's more! Our next post will top it all!