I have been to Death Valley and to Badwater Basin there. I wouldn’t mind seeing what’s left of Deadwood or the Alaskan city named Deadhorse. Those are pretty foreboding names — which do nothing but further intrigue tourists.

Aigues Mortes is a French entry in the “morbid town” competition. It translates from the Occitan as “dead water” — a name it has been carrying around for about 1,300 years.

Lots of events have happened at Aigues Mortes (pronounced: EH-goo mort) over 13 centuries, which must be a factor in one of the biggest wiki entries for a city of 8,300 people.

First, how did it come up with that morbid name?

It’s all about the water.

Aigues Mortes is located in the Camargue, a large wetlands region in southern France between Montpellier and Marseille.

Much of the “land” is marshy, and the water is salty because it is the Mediterranean Sea creeping north.

Thus, Aigues Mortes has water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink; it has to bring in potable water.

That was never a problem for the French government, who wanted it as a port. Charlemagne built a tower on the site, which has been a salt-producing region for thousands of years, and later French kings turned it into a port — back before the area between the town and the sea silted over and left Aigues Mortes a bit inland.

Probably its single biggest moment was when Louis IX, later to be known as Saint Louis, sailed from Aigues Mortes at the launch of the Seventh Crusade; the French crown at that moment was in possession of no other port in the area.

So, Aigues Mortes. Famous there for a bit, and important enough to build a long wall of perhaps a mile in length and some 40 feet in height around the square center of the old town.

It is almost as impressive as the towering battlements of the inland city of Carcassonne, and significant enough that the town charges 7.50 euros to let a tourist climb up the inside stairs and circle the walls.

Down on the salty plain, much of the town is oriented towards tourism, with the usual collection of inns, restaurants, bars, ice cream joints and nick-nack shops.

The place is clean and well-lit, and the commercial orientation of it is not as overt as in other places in the country. (Carcassonne, for instance.)

It has a “real French people” feel to it. Most of the visitors today seemed to be French, and dozens of people were jammed into bars and restaurants trying to watch France’s round-of-16 match with Ireland in the Euro 2016 tournament.

Two girls were listening to the game on the radio, and they told us Ireland was ahead, which might have explained (along with a strong sun) why the place was very quiet at 3:30 on a Sunday. That peace was broken when France got one goal (shouts across the town) and then a second.

So, yes, the old city walls, which look quite impressive, but a modern city inside.

And, in the middle, the Place Saint Louis, which includes a statue of the warrior/king/saint. He looks rather fierce despite his fairly awful record on the field of battle.

The Seventh Crusade ended in Egypt with Louis losing nearly the whole of his army to the Mamluks. King Louie was captured and ransomed for an enormous sum. He returned to France, after several years, and led the Eighth Crusade, aiming at Tunis, also a disaster. Louie and many of his men died there from dysentery, and that was the end of the papacy-inspired crusades.

A special added attraction to driving to Aigues Mortes is its proximity to the ranches and vineyards of the Carmague. The sandy soil yields up some pretty good roses, including the dirt cheap Listel, which is sold all over the country.

The black bulls and white horses of the Camargue also are known in the area, the former as dangerous opponents in the bull ring, and the latter as strong and compact riding horses.

We took a loop of about 30 miles to see Sainte-Maries de la Mer, capital of the Camargue and an out-and-out beach town — with a corniche and a barbecue competition going on.

The roads in the Carmague can be busy this time of year, between gawkers, campers and beach-goers all moving around on a couple of two-lane highways running between salty lakes and ponds.

So, lots going on there. I liked “Dead Water” (Aigues Mortes) best because of all the history of the place. And also the really good slushies they sell near the front gate.