CEBToD: Day 6 -- Avignon toMarseille

Today was a zero-mile day. There was a major lightning storm in Avignon overnight, and we were concerned about biking in that weather. So in the morning we decided to spend more time in the city and then take a train south. Of course by noon the weather had cleared up and it was an incredible day, but we were committed to not riding at that point, so we made the best of it.

We saw the Pont d'Avignon (ancient stone bridge that the river Rhone kept eating) and poked around the city some more, including the big-ass kirche next to the Papal Palace, which was surprisingly un-big-ass inside. We got some kebabs for lunch, and ate those with some port on the steps of a smaller kirche in town. Eventually we left the beautiful city of Avignon and hopped a train to Marseille.

The new plan had been to train to Aix-en-Provence, then bike tomorrow to Marseille, where we're meeting Ben, the 3rd member of out troupe. But it turns out that we could train from Avignon to Marseille, but would have to bus from Marseille to Aix. And the bus would be unreliable on whether they would take our bikes. (We'd find out the next day that the train doesn't go to Aix because they're fixing the tracks.) So we decided to just go to Marseille a day early, grab a hotel, and do a day trip on Sat before meeting Ben at the airport.

The train to Marseille was another local one, but it was awesome. Super spacious, two stories, and pleeeenty of room for our bikes. And it was a gorgeous view of the countryside, esp given how nice the day turned out. But when we got to Marseille... omg, I've decided that this city is a net generator of chaos in the world. It is so teeming with people, and so generally chaotic... it's nuts! Dan assures me cities in Asia are worse (Bangkok, for example), but for Europe it's likely 2nd only to Rome for being insane. Marseille actually has a bad reputation for being dirty and crime-ridden and wild... which I remember from when I was here in 98. But to be fair, since our arrival it's actually turned out to be a pretty nice city, though my chaos assessment still stands.

We found a hotel in the south part of the city, in Le Pharoh. It's far from the main section, but was like the only place we could get 3 people and 3 bikes for 3 nights. Many thanks to the Tourism Office again for their help finding it. It's actually a very cute hotel, and we have a great room (very red this time), and we store our bikes in the basement, where the ceiling is like 5 feet tall. After settling in, we walked around a bit... mostly to buy more port (we're kind of obsessed with the stuff) and then to grab dinner (at a Vietnamese restaurant, which was disappointing). Then we grabbed a Guinness at an Irish Pub with al fresco seating (yeah, I wanted a Guinness... weird, huh?!). By then it was like 1 am and we needed to sleep for our day trip the next day. One weird thing we saw was the bouncers at our pub attack these waify kids for apparently no reason. It was like watching Shrek beat up Donkey... it was totally a mis-matched fight that mostly consisted of the kids covering themselves from the raining blows. God knows what they did... but I can't imagine they deserved it. Poor weird Euro-waifs.

Oh... 12 year olds everywhere at the pub drinking. And apparently people still pop their collars here, though not ironically as I would. And lots of people tie sweaters around their necks, in the 80s-tennis-club fashion. It's hard to watch. But other than that, tons of cute guys, and Dan's certainly been pleased with the hot chicas. =P