It's Me, Sara Louise

I messed up.

About a month ago, when I planned on meeting Auntie Ilene and her friends (Les Bargettes as they’re known) in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, I was sure that I would be there for the whole Gypsy ode to St. Sara because after all, seeing St. Sara worshipped and paraded about has always seemed like a destiny of mine (I told you all about it in this post).

But what I didn’t pay attention to, was that the whole procession thing occurs on the Friday, not the entire weekend, and since on Friday The Husband and I were catching up on sleep and laundry (I’ll give you one guess on which one of us caught up on what), we planned on meeting them on Saturday and well by Saturday, all of the fun and games were just about over. Luckily however, having lunch with Les Bargettes is still reason enough to visit Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.

Sidenote – Auntie Ilene is not in fact my Aunt. She is my friend’s Aunt but I have adopted her (and posted about said adoption here). Les Bargettes are a group of friends from Texas who go on holiday every year to a different area of France and after a few days of traveling about, set sail on a barge down one of the rivers. Hence the name Les Bargettes. And P.S. I kind of want to be a Bargette. 

We had raw oysters, cooked oysters, and the cutest darn waiter there ever was.

 

Since it wouldn’t be fair that just because I messed up and missed the whole St. Sara Gypsy thing, you guys all had to miss out, Auntie Ilene was kind enough to share her photos of the festivities…

I decided that that colorful lady up there is named Esmerelda. It could be something like Jane for all I know, but to me, she screams ‘Esmerelda’.

And because Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer is in the Camargue, Auntie Ilene through this picture of flamingos in for good measure….

And I couldn’t help but snap some of the wild horses hanging out alongside the road on the way home. They aren’t Gypsies, but they’ll do.