Travelling home

Sadly today meant time to return home.

We got a TGV from Marseilles to Paris at 1006 hrs, getting in to Paris Gare de Lyon at 1323.  The journey was uneventful but Gare de Lyon is a really smelly and badly signposted station, as we found was Gare du Nord after a short Regional Train trip to transfer between the two termini.

The Eurostar was on time and staff served a pleasant light meal to us on the way to London.  We got a train to Oxford quite easily and were home by 7pm after a fabulous holiday.

Chateau d'If and Frioul

Today was the last full day of our holiday. We had a fairly early start and got a boat from the old port to the Chateau d’If, only about a 20 minute trip.   It’s a castle on a rock just off the Marseilles coast that has a fascinating history and offers some great views of the City and of the Frioul islands. There was a useful audioguide for the castle that also synchronised with some of the films showing about the castle.

Once we’d fully explored the castle we got another boat to Frioul.  This is an archipelago consisting of two main islands, Rattoneau and Pomegues (it also includes If and Tiboulain). We did a lot of walking around beautiful paths and saw some good views of the area. There was a fantastic display of aeroplanes too, which were apparently practising for a show on Saturday. They are the Patrouille de France, similar to the UK’s red arrows.

We got a boat back to the mainland around 5.30pm and enjoyed a quick drink before choosing our final evening’s dining venue.  On the advice of TripAdvisor we settled on going to a place called La Table a Deniz.  We enjoyed some really excellent food with me having a veal stew and Gordon enjoying rabbit stuffed with tapenade.

We had a few drinks at our favourite bar. Polikarpov, afterwards to mark the end of the holiday.

Returning to Marseilles and a slightly bonkers dinner

Today we got up fairly early and packed everything up after breakfast so we could drive back to Marseilles.  We left around 11.30am and got to Marseilles in time to return the hire car on time.

Once we’d done that we had a pleasant cous-cous lunch in a Tunisian restaurant near the main rail station then walked down to the Old Port again to check into our fourth and final hotel, the Alizé.  It was right on the port so very convenient, although there were a lot of steps up to the first floor where the lift started – not ideal with huge bags!

Once we’d got settled into our room we went to have a look at the Museum of the History of Marseilles.  Unfortunately it was only opening for another 45 minutes and the person on the reception desk didn’t think that would give us time to do it justice.  We had a bit more of an explore instead and then went back to the Hotel for a rest. We also booked some tickets for another boat trip to see the Chateau d’If and the Frioul islands.

Dinner was at a restaurant called “Chez nous” on Place Notre Dame du Mont.  The food was good but the service just a little bonkers! They insisted we used the badly translated English menu even though we were coping just fine with the French one.

Olive mill in VilleVieille, Plage de L'Espiguette and a night market in Sommieres.

Today was Gordon’s birthday.  We started it with a trip to a local olive cooperative in Villevielle where we were shown all the steps of the process for making oil from raw olives brought in by local people, some of whom only had a handful of trees.  It was interesting also to see the different methods of harvesting olives that are in practice, from picking by hand to fully automated tree-shaking and olive-catching.

After this visit we drove down to Plage de l’Espiguette – it is a huge beach and really well kept.  The sand was clean (and hot) and we had a few hours there including several cooling swims in the sea.

As today was our last full day in Sommieres we decided to have dinner at Chez Tybere, a restaurant recommended by the hotel.  It didn’t disappoint us and we enjoyed seeing a friendly cat there too.

A trip to Arles

We got up reasonably early this morning and drove to Arles.  We managed to get parked more easily than yesterday and so started our exploring.

Our fist visit was the Arena, which has been extensively developed and rebuilt over the years, so is still rather impressive.

After a quick lunch from a supermarket we did a bit more of the walking tour around the City, visiting the old Roman baths, then the Eglise St Trophine.  Next we visited the old Roman theatre but couldn't visit Arladen museum as it is closed for refurbishment.

We drove back to the hotel in Sommieres and spent a few hours resting by the pool, swimming, reading and drinking beer.

In the evening we had dinner at Les Korrigans du Vidourle, a Brittany-themes Creperie.  I had a crepe with andouille and cooked onions - the closest I've got yet to an Andouilette on his holiday!  We finished the evening with a drink at a bar on the riverside in Sommieres.

The Grottes de Clamouse and Saint Guilhem le Desert

We drove over to Saint Guilhem today to find limited parking and huge jams so ended up driving back about 4km to the Grottes de Clamouse.  There was a free bus into Saint Guilheme but there were all arriving full so we visited the Grottes (caves) instead.  The tour was about 1.5 hours and was a real treat of stunning natural beauty and a reprise from the 30C+ heat at a steady 15C for the whole tour.

After the caves we did manage to get a bus into Saint Guilhem and enjoyed a pleasant walk around this extremely pretty village and a tour around L'Abbaye de Gellone.

After a rest at the hotel we wandered back into Sommieres for dinner.

Moving on to Sommieres and seeing Les Saintes Maries de la Mer

We had breakfast a bit late today and then left our lodgings in Vergeze to move on to the Hotel Estelou in Sommieres.  We arrived pretty early as it's only a short drive away but our room was ready and the hosts kindly let us move in.  The hotel is a conversion from what used to be the railway line through Sommieres and it has been done sympathetically leaving some railway memorabilia around the building and site.

We left the Hotel fairly promptly and drive to Le Sainte Maries de la Mer where we enjoyed some bull steaks for lunch, very traditional for the area, and then visited the Church and enjoyed some great panoramic views from the roof.  After a wander around the town we returned to the car and did a drive around the Camargue, seeing lots of flamingos and egrits as well as lots of other birds.  We went to a beach called Piémanson and found it to be full of vehicles and caravans that looked very run down.  It was covered in litter and worse and really was not pleasant.  We didn't stay long and then returned to Sommieres.

We enjoyed an evening meal at a restaurant called L'Atelier, in Sommieres.  It was good to be able to walk there and thus enjoy a beer or two!

Sommieres for Breakfast and Aigues-Mortes again

Today our hosts took us to Sommieres to see the Saturday market.  It was incredibly busy.  We enjoyed having breakfast at Les Delices du Liban, run by a friend of one of our hosts.  Places like that are relaxed and we were able to eat croissants, break and galettes from other stalls in the market there,

We visited an Olive Oil cooperative on the way back to Vergeze and enjoyed tasting some different Olive Oils - it's amazing how different they are when you taste carefully.

In the afternoon we went once more to Aigues Mortes and enjoyed the historic walk around the Remparts there.  There were some great views of the town and we enjoyed learning about this history of the place as well as seeing some of the salt harvesting industry that now happens on the flats of the Mediterranean in the area.  We also saw the first rain of the holiday although it wasn't much!

Our evening was spent having another excellent meal with our hosts at La Maison de Pierre and meeting some friends of theirs who had driven from Normandy.  There was some quite heavy rain overnight.

La Source du Perrier and Aigues-Mortes

We had a fairly lazy breakfast with our hosts Fred and Reginaldo this morning and then went for a drive to see La Source du Perrier as it is in the same village as the place we are staying.  We had to book at go back at 4pm.

We went on to Aigues-Mortes, an important inland port town that was founded by Louis IX as a principal gateway to the Mediterranean as Marseilles was not part of France at that time. We had lunch there and explored two churches, Notre Dame Des Sablons and the Churches of the white penitents and of the grey penitents.

Back at La Source du Perrier it was good to learn some history of Perrier and to discover that is it now available in 140 countries worldwide with all of it coming from this same source.

We came back to the B&B for a swim and a shower and then had a delicious evening meal at a restaurant in the next village, Codognan, called Lou Flambadou. It was good that it was only 20 minutes walk away so we could both enjoy the various wines offered with each course.

Montpellier

We got up a bit earlier today to get a local train to Montpellier as it only took 20 minutes and was going to be much easier than driving in.

After arriving we stopped for a coffee in the Place de la Comédie then started the walking tour recommend by the Michelin guide we were using.  We visited the Hotel Particuliers including the museum of Montpellier.  Next we continued the tour to get to the Musée Fabre where we saw lots of art including an excellent temporary exhibition on the golden age of Naples.

We followed this with lunch where we had Raclette with possibly more Reblochon than Tony ever wants to see again.

Following lunch we returned to the Musée Fabre to see the permanent collections then continued the tour, seeing the Cathedral St Pierre and the Medical Faculty (which was sadly closed).  After that we visited the aqueduct and Place Royale du Peyru and then we walked over to the East of the city cente to see Antigone, a modern development of a former army site.

We got a tram back to the rail station and got back to Vergeze around 8.45pm.

A relaxing day at La Maison de Pierre and exploring Vergeze

We didn't do much today but had a lazy day around the pool at our lovely B&B, La Maison de Pierre.

We went for an explore around Vergeze (not a big place!) in the late afternoon, including seeing the cinema/theatre that looks like a church conversion, and had a few beers in a local bar.

We chose a restaurant for the evening then went back to La Maison de Pierre for a rest and a swim again and to get changed for the evening.

Our evening meal was at a local hotel and restaurant called La Passiflore.  It was extremely tasty and we both enjoyed eating in the pleasant courtyard setting.

The Villa Mediterranée, Regards de Provence Museum and Unité de L'Habitation

Today is our last day in Marseilles in this part of the holiday.  We went fairly early to the Villa Mediterranée, an amazing building on the port that I'm not sure has found its purpose in life yet. It is an impressive structure though with a section with windows in the floor.

Following this we went to the Regards de Provence museum where we saw two exhibitions, one called Lights of the South.

Our next port of call was to go and collect the hire car that we had booked so we could do some more exploring.  We got it from the Thrifty depot at the Marseilles main railway station and took the opportunity to go and visit the Unité de L'Habitation - a modernist residential tower block that contains housing, an hotel, shops, a school and roof pool.  It was one of the early tower blocks in Marseilles.

We then went and picked up our suitcases from the hotel and drove to our second booking for the holiday, La Maison de Pierre, in Vergeze.  We received a good welcome there and a pleasant dinner with our hosts Fred and Reginaldo.

A boat trip to the Massif des Calanques

We got up early today and had a quick breakfast at the local bakery as we were booked on a 9.30am boat trip from Marseilles to see lots of Calanques.  These are narrow and steep-sided coastal valleys that create a magical juxtaposition of sea, rock and sky and are extremely beautiful.

We got as far as Cassis and then cruised back to Marseilles for about 1.45pm.  We had lunch at a little restaurant called Smart Cook.

In the afternoon we did some more exploring including visiting the cathédrale notre dame de la garde. It is a big basilica at the highest point in Marseilles so was quite a climb but that was rewarded with some excellent views of the City.

Our evening consisted of dinner at a place called Restaurant Paul then a few beers at Polikarpov!

A day exploring Marseille

We didn't get up very early today but did enjoy a good breakfast at the hotel.  We spend the day exploring Marseilles, seeing the Panier district and the Vielle Charité art museum.  We had a light lunch of quiches and salad and in the afternoon we visited the Cathedral La Mejor then the new Mucem museum.

We went back to the hotel for a rest and then went out for dinner at a small vietnamese restaurant just over the road from the hotel. It was very good but the food was actually more like that you'd find in a Chinese restaurant.  We had a few drinks in our favourite bar, Polikarpov and had a fairly early night ready for a boat trip in the morning.

The start of the summer holiday

As we've already been to Japan and Germany this year we decided just to spend two weeks in France this summer.  Instead of driving and camping we have decided to do the train and hotels.

We left Oxford by train around 10am and got to Paddington in plenty of time to get to St Pancras in time for Eurostar check-in.  It's a good job we did as there were no tubes between Paddington and St Pancras so we had to spend £20 on a taxi.

The Eurostar left on time and we enjoyed a pleasant light lunch on the way to Lille.  The change of train at Lille onto the first class TGV was straightforward and we were soon on our way to Marseilles.

We arrived at Marseilles around 2045 and got a local metro train to the Old Port, from where our hotel, Hotel Hermes, was a short walk.  It has a rather nice roof terrace!  We left our things in our room and went to find dinner at "Au Sanglier"and a couple of drinks before retiring for a good night's sleep.