Marseille

Again, I've made three posts at once to catch up the blog (start with Nice below, then La Ciotat for the past couple of days). Right now it's midnight and I'm typing this blog sitting on a cold bench near the ocean as it's the only place where the campsite's free wifi works!

Today is Monday 7 June (well at least it was a few minutes ago). It had potential to also be a little disappointing here in La Ciotat with us getting hopelessly lost on our walk from the campsite to the train station and ending up a few kms off course and missing our train to Marseille. Eventually I asked a lady pulling out of her driveway for directions "a la gare". She smiled to suggest we were absolutely nowhere near it and after us not understanding her directions, invited us into her car with her daughter to drive us there. Again, it's some of the unexpected things that make a trip like this so memorable and it was a really nice thing for her to do to help us out. So, to the men reading this, a bit of advice when you're lost ... having young kids can actually be an advantage!


Eventually we got the train and travelled half an hour into Marseille. The city truly feels coastal unlike Nice and Sandra had a great idea that we take in a cruise as we were all bussed out. Just as they were about to depart we sweet-talked our way on board a three hour cruise (like the lady earlier, they probably felt sorry for some

confused Aussie tourists). I'm so very glad we made it aboard because it was a truly awesome experience. I thought I'd seen a beautiful coastline in Victoria's Great Ocean Road (and it is indeed great), but wow, the coastline here is breathtaking. The boat took us past 12 different hidden inlets with secluded beaches (a pity we couldn't stop for a swim). Massive rock mountains with caves passed us by and after initally being a little sea-sick, Johanna described it as her new best experience of the trip so far. We struggled to get her out the front of the boat to start with, then couldn't get her inside despite the waves drenching us at times. But the weather was postcard perfect and we dried off in no time. Another excellent day.

Tomorrow (Tuesday 8 June) we head off north-east, leaving the southern French coastline for St Remy-de-Provence which is near Avignon. Sandra has been inspired by a Sydneysider who wrote a book about her experience renovating an old place and moving there. And word is there's a good market there on Wednesday (let's hope we can find a place to camp as we haven't got anything booked yet). It might be a couple of days before my next blog entry as we're not sure how we'll go with internet access in the next couple of towns.