Marseilles
Having said goodbye to Belinda the day before we headed to the train station after breakfast hoping for a uneventful trip knowing we had to change trains at Nimes, and would not arrive in Marseilles until after 8:30pm a little late but we were prepared for that, but not for what eventuated.
Apparently, someone thought it was a good idea to end it all by jumping of a bridge, in front of a train on the track our train was to use, this resulted in a slight delay, well it was a bit more than a slight delay the train from Nimes was delayed indefinitely. The French aversion for speaking English reared its ugly head there were many announcements in French and some in Spanish but not one in English we were totally in the dark, until an English-speaking Dutchman kindly translated for us. Eventually the train stopped at what appeared to be an abandoned station where they opened the doors to let us have some fresh air, it was here that we were told the full extent of the situation.
What were we to do? No train to take us to our accommodation, eventually there was a rumour that we were to stay on this train and change somewhere down the line for another train to Marseilles a rumour that was later confirmed but only after we asked the guard, but little other information was forth coming. What station was this and would our tickets for an entirely different train be ok and our booked seats in First Class would we have any? Questions that we could not get answers for.
By now we were already too late for the connection we eventually arrived at Nimes by about 20:16 and we were told to stay on the train to the next station (which I think was Tarascon) were we would change trains to Marseilles via Avignon eventually arriving at 22:30 very late.
The worrying thing about all of this is that where we eventually changed trains the station staff handed out PRE-PACKAGED food packs from their store room as this seems not to be an isolated event on their train system
We eventually arrived in Marseilles very tired I went to look for a Taxi to take us to the hotel, luckily Carol was more alert and stopped me, as she could see the hotel just across the road from the station, so we walked and were met by some friendly people at the reception who made us feel welcome, keeping the book in process as short as possible saying the rest could be fixed in the morning after we rested and had breakfast, so different from Madrid.
After breakfast and finalising the book in we started to explore. I wanted to see the local Arc de Triumph, then continue on to the old town, only I made a mistake going through the Muslim area and their clothing market. We did eventually find the harbour but away from the old town, we walked past the old dock area warehouses now converted to a commercial area past a grand church and to the old town (this was the long way, real long way) but it did prove to be interesting so it was not a waste of time. (we did find the short way and took it many times later).
We did our often used ploy using the Hop-on Hop-off bus to spot places we wanted to explore for the first bus we had a very cautious driver taking us through some narrow streets, the commentary was a little sparce but it was in English (recorded) and gave us a good idea where we would get off the next day, this was in vast contrast to the driver of the second bus, I feel because it was his last trip of the day, he drove like he was Alain Prost, a world champion F1 driver, not even slowing down for some speed bumps (not good for my back) I even felt he went through a red light, along with this he felt he could do a better job of the commentary and turned off the recording to give a live running commentary, only in French ignoring the fact he had international people on board who did not speak French (the 2nd time it happened to us, not an enjoyable ride)
Day 2 we took the bus again this time getting off at the stops we chose the first stop was the WW1 Memorial, then walking some 2 km to where we could catch the bus again and on to the Basilica of Notre-Dame of la Garde which overlooks the whole of Marseilles, this stop was still a climb up to the basilica past a American WW2 Tank set up as a memorial (Might have been the one that damaged the walls during the liberation see the photos).
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Welcome to Herman and Carolann’s Travels to Europe
Portugal Trip 2023