Saint Marie de la Mer ,part one,walking tour in the odl center,4k video.
Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer is a French commune located in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region. The village is a small grid of white houses surrounding a magnificent Romanesque church, surrounded by a wild landscape and imbued with an evocative atmosphere: a windswept seafront awaits, with immense white-sand beaches, picturesque gypsies wandering the small squares with guitars and black hats, fortune tellers who read palms, and numerous little restaurants where you can sample the region’s delicacies. The village was born from a legend of Christian refugees from Palestine, including Maria Salomé, Maria Jacobé, and the servant Sara, the three Marys of the name. They landed on a ship that miraculously reached the Camargue, becoming a sacred place and later fortified against pirates. A Romanesque church houses their relics, and is a destination for gypsy and Christian pilgrimages.
We begin our tour in the most touristy part of town, with rental apartments and supermarkets, along Route de Cacharel and Rue Joanin Audibert. We then reach Place Mireille, then the market square, Place des Gitans. Passing the Hôtel de Ville and the statue of the Bull and Torero, we enter Rue Victor Hugo into the oldest part of town. From here, among the multitude of local craft shops, bars, street food stalls, ice cream parlors, and various souvenir shops, we pass the Ancien Hôtel de Ville, reach Avenue Friederic Mistral, and return along Rue Victor Hugo and Jardin Lucette Pennes. We head towards the Sanctuary of the Saintes Marie de la Mer, the Church of Notre Dame de la Mer, where we can admire the splendid decorations and the statue of Sara la Negra, the patron saint of the Gypsies, legendary servant of the Maries who arrived with them by sea.