Arles is the head of the Rhone River delta. The two branches of the river, the Grand Rhone and the Petit Rhone, are navigable and offer river tourists an unusual way of discovering the Camargue. Arles is a favourite stop for the Rhone River cruise boats going up or down river. The Rhone has always forced her way to the sea, and men have had to learn to live with her.

Water is everywhere, be it along the quays where Van Gogh painted and where the Rhone River cruise boats dock, in the Camargue where it’s “water water everywhere”, or along the 50 km of sandy beaches that separate the mouths of the Petit and the Grand Rhone. For Arles is also “sea, sand and sun”, with the largest natural beach on the Mediterranean : the beaches known as Beauduc and Piémanson stretch out for 26 km of fine sand and dunes in an extraordinary landscape without a building in sight.