Monday October 15th - Marseille

I was very nearly there. I left the hotel at sunrise in the hope of getting away before the traffic started up. It was still heavy but much better than it had been the previous afternoon.

Heading into the city, the suburbs reminded me of parts of North London, lots of immigrants in headscarfs (presumably mostly from North Africa), and streets of shabby looking buildings housing dodgy kebab shops and pizzerias.

It should have been a straight down-the-road kind of deal but somehow I must have veered off in the wrong direction as I ended up quite lost and going round in circles. A nice chappy in a car stopped to offer help, and we decided that I was way too far east of where I should have been. After that, I started relying on compass direction only, and soon was following signs to le Vieux Port.

I was there before I knew it. It took a while to sink in that I'd finally reached the Mediterranean, and was staring in the face a whole different sea from the one I'd started on.

I'd arrived at about 10am, and with several hours to kill before the ferry left, I took a bit of a wander around. The port was packed full of fishing boats, yachts and small ferries. There was a fresh fish market featuring all kinds of delightful wiggly tentacled things and ugly monkfish. North Africans were selling sunglasses and hideous blingy watches.

I went for a citron crepe which was disappointingly sugary and not nearly citronny enough.

I was just about to get some lunch when I was approached by a young couple, Eva and Julien. They were fellow travellers, French and Canadian, and had recently completed a bicycle trip from Vietnam to France, making my just-completed journey across France seem puny by comparison. They were very friendly and it was a real pleasure to meet them. We exchanged details and I have heard from them since, they are now planning a ride across Canada. You can read more about their travels and see some fantastic photographs on Eva's Myspace page.

During lunch, hundreds of people in white coats rode past on bicycles in some kind of a protest march. I later learned that they were protesting about proposed restrictions on where doctors are able to set up practice, and that they ended up getting what they wanted. A busker sang and played his guitar outside the restaurant - he went around asking for money afterwards. I gave him a euro because, unlike my lunch, he was quite good.

I had a bit of a look around the Old Port area, which was pretty cool but it's hard to do much in a big city with a bikefull of stuff in tow so I was quite glad when it was time to go to the ferry. I had one hell of a time trying to find the right bit of the Gare Maritime, they seem to have rebuilt, moved things around and forgotten to signpost it all. I found a French chap who was also looking for the SNCM terminal, as he was headed for Sardinia. He said that Sardinia was much less touristy and less hilly than Corsica.

As I sat and waited for the ferry at the terminal, a succession of different characters stopped by to share my bench.

First up was the slightly creepy young Corsican bloke who called me "tu" and wanted to know whether I was alone and whether I had a boyfriend. He told me I was very beautiful and wanted to know whether I found him attractive too. I was too polite to say "well actually I think you're a bit creepy" but I think the bewildered look on my face was enough to scare him off. Fortunately he got a different ferry.

The next guest was far more welcome, a nice middle-aged lady from Normandy, whose husband had recently died, and she was visiting her mother-in-law in Corsica. She helped me to pronounce "Cherbourg" correctly (the "bourg" part is a deep sound, and very pronounced). I like it when French people talk nice and clearly in their own language, rather than speaking too quickly, assuming you don't understand any French, and resorting to English.

Next up was a lean older gentleman who told me I had a nice bike, before promptly departing for his ferry. That't the kind of compliment I can take.

I was loaded onto the ferry with the foot passengers, via a minibus onto which they insisted loading my heavy bike. Marseille port is huge, and it was a ten-minute drive from the terminal to the ferry, so I was quite glad of this.

The ferry was pretty cool. The Monte Cinto is a small boat, only carrying about 100 people maximum, and on this crossing there were only about 20, so there was a nice friendly atmosphere. The chaps on reception were evidently a little wounded about France's crushing rugby defeat as, when they had trouble figuring out how to put my credit card through the machine, there were mutterings and shakings of heads about "les Anglais... nothing but trouble...".

I was invited to join three friendly French truckers for dinner, they seemed to make the crossing quite frequently and as far as I could tell they were transporting bales of hay over to the island. Dinner was good, but the best bit about the ferry was the wine tap in the canteen - a huge wine machine lined up alongside the orange juice and coffee machines, and offering a choice of red or rose. I thoroughly approve of such things, but I'm not sure it'd work so well on an English ferry.

Sunday October 14th - shouting at cars

Going south from St. Remy, there were some lovely views of the Alpilles, a small mountain range.

I started to cross the mountains. I wasn't having the best of days, despite having taken a day off. It felt like I'd accidentally hitched up to somebody's caravan when I left the campsite. There were fewer cars and I was passed by a lot of cyclists on skinny road bikes. I politely said bonjour to each and every one but really wished they'd all go away and leave me the road to myself - I was missing the space and emptier roads of earlier regions.

Near Aix-en-Provence I was pleasantly surprised to find another fabulous aqueduct, the Aqueduc de Roquefavour. It was bigger than the Pont-du-Gard and much newer (mid-19th century) and very impressive, although the setting was not as nice.

Shortly thereafter, I rode under the TGV Mediterranean line which would be carrying me home in a week's time.

Close to Calas, I was approached by an elderly cyclist in lycra, who talked incomprehensibly at me and tried to ride two abreast with me on a busy narrow road whilst swerving violently and being honked at by cars. I managed to pedal sufficiently slowly that I eventually lost him.

I found hell at Plan-de-Campagne, a huge business park just outside Marseille, which is apparently where all the French go on their Sunday afternoons. It was absolutely jammed up with traffic, English-style, at a huge intersection of motorways, other large roads and roundabouts. I had just navigated my way through a couple of junctions and was headed towards the road to Septemes-les-Vallons, when I looked over my shoulder and perceived the twin shining beacons of Formule 1 and Buffalo Grill. Wanting to stay somewhere cheap and not get too far into the city, this was exactly what I was looking for.

I didn't want to figure my way back around the labyrinth of junctions so I dismounted and headed as-the-crow-flies straight for it across roads and verges, before I realised I would have to cross a motorway with a small wall on the opposite side, and goodness-knows-what on the other side of the wall... not such a great idea after all. I headed back down to the road and spent about ten minutes trying to join the constant stream of traffic - there may have been some shouting at traffic, most of it unrepeatable yet also highly original.

I found my way into the hotel, dumped everything in the room and headed straight for the restaurant where I stuffed myself silly on a huge burger. Back in the room I flopped on the bed and watched lots of TV, including the American Office dubbed into French (it's much less irritating that way) and footage of French people crying after Saturday's Rugby World Cup defeat by the English. It had been one of those days when even Formule 1 can feel like luxury!

Saturday October 13th - St. Remy

I didn't go anywhere on Saturday. It felt like a good time to have a break, take a day off, get some stuff washed and use the campsite's internet facilities.

Being about a day's ride away from Marseille, it seemed like a good time to book some ferry tickets. At the start of the trip I was hoping that maybe there would be time to see both Corsica and Sardinia, but with only one week left before I needed to be back in Normandy, it wasn't going to happen, and Sardinia would have to wait until another time. So I booked a Monday night journey to Ile-Rousse, with a Saturday night return from Ajaccio. That would give me five days to cycle 120 miles down the coast - fairly easy going, but not too much so, given the mountainous nature of Corsica.

I spent a few hours in town in the morning. In 1503, Nostradamus was born in a small house in the back streets of St. Remy - it still stands today, but like Descartes' house, it wasn't much to look at! Van Gogh spent a couple of years at a mental hospital nearby, where he painted 150 of his works and, looking at the surrounding landscapes full of vivid colours and cypress trees, it is easy to imagine this.

I found a lovely creperie (La Celtie - 29, rue du 8 Mai 1945) and had a spinach crepe followed by a citron, with a hot chocolate. There were a few Italian restaurant/cafes serving what looked suspiciously like great big tubs of Italian icecreams. I confirmed my suspicions by ordering the standard lemon flavour, and am pleased to report that it was of a suitable Italian standard.

In the afternoon I returned to the campsite and attended to all those little tasks like washing my clothes, myself, pots and pans, pumping up the tyres and untangling my hair (Never tour with long hair).

Whereas it was good to find somewhere with both good Italian icecream and lovely crepes, over the last couple of days things had got more touristy, and the traffic heavier. Saint Remy, beyond its old town centre, had a lot of traffic. Affluence was visible all around in the form of big expensive-looking cars and well-dressed people with lots of blingy jewellery. In one of Josie Dew's early adventures, she sailed from Marseille to Tunis (or was it the other way around?) and was shocked by the contrast between the affluence in Marseille and the poverty of Tunis. In a way, I was sorry not to be making that journey. But I was looking forward to Corsica.

Friday October 12th - Pont du Gard

At 7:30am, the Pont du Gard was deserted and bathed in golden sunrise light. The occasional walker or jogger went by but apart from that I had a Roman aqueduct to myself for an hour.



I consulted my leaflet as to where to go next and decided upon the Abbaye de Saint-Roman, the remains of a 5th-century troglodytic abbey. It was quite a long climb up to the abbey site, at which I found that the abbey itself wouldn't open for another three hours. I decided to walk up to the hermitage instead, since that can be visited at any time. I bumped into a group of joggers, one of whom recommended riding my bike up the hill as it would be easier. He obviously hadn't taken into account the difficulties of riding a fully loaded touring bike up cobbles, steps and gravel paths! I locked up at the first opportunity and walked the rest of the way.

The hermitage was pretty cool, a set of rocky caverns and tunnels at the very top of the hill, inhabited by a couple of hermit goats, and with marvellous views over the river Rhone and the surrounding countryside.

I came back down, crossed the Rhone and entered Bouche-du-Rhone. I was finally in the same departement as Marseille!

I stopped at the Intermarche in St. Etienne and came away weighed down with herrings, cheese, olives, snacky cakes, dried fruit, rice, etc. The road to St. Remy de Provence was horrible but fortunately there was a separate cycle path for most of the way, upon which I stopped for lunch and overdosed on herrings. After that, I didn't feel like going far so stopped in St. Remy at a well-equipped campsite populated mostly by Dutch caravanners. Once again, the ground was incredibly hard to pitch onto.