7th Oct – 1th Oct 2023
We had nearly a week to kill before our next date with family and rugby games in Marseille, so we donated some more money to the French pèage (motorway toll) system and headed to a pretty, old and pretty old place, Avignon. Past home to popes who built a big palace, an intact city wall and a bridge that no longer fullfills its primary role of completely crossing a river, this was a place that we had visited in the summer of last year in our tent and we returned to the same campsite. This was a leafy, shady place just across the Rhône, an easy 1km cycle to the city walls. Unfortunately, despite the ongoing beautiful weather and warm temperatures in the late 20s, the pool had shut for the season, as had the campsite’s poolside bar/restaurant. A lot of France decides that September 30th is the end of summer, whatever the weather, and the rest of us can just lump it. Paff.
We had five nights here. After we had set up we realised that our site was under a tree that was dropping small seeds constantly, so the soundtrack of our stay was that akin to a squirrel playing a gentle, irregular, mono-noted glockenspeil as they hit the roof. Not annoying enough to move, but just a bit irritating. We had a day or two doing hardly anything, except that quietly productive pottering around that classifies things like laundry, cutting fingernails, and re-organising cupboards as achievements. Our biggest activity day had us breaking out the bikes and cycling out to Châteauneuf-Du-Pape. Here we visited the town cave of a winery called Famille Perin, a place we had been with friends Dean & Lori about 7 yeas ago. Our shopping spree was curtailed by pannier space, which put us on a four bottle limit, but somehow it feels right to be cruising around the French countryside on bikes, loaded up with as many wine bottles as one can carry. (Yes, it was all delicious, thank you for asking.)
We had several forays into the city itself. One was to find a bar in which to watch some rugby games on the Saturday evening. We found one that entirely fulfilled the remit and spent the evening chatting to an English chap in his 30s and a Welsh couple in their 70s. The food was mediocre, but the beer was ok, the company was good and the results expected. We also spent more than several hours aimlessly wandering the streets of this beautifully preserved, ancient but vibrant city. We had visited the Papal Palace last time so didn’t re-visit that, but saw lots of parts that were familiar from last year. We perused the cheese and meat in Les Halles, the indoor market hall, and ate a lunch of steak and salmon tartares served in little jars in a pavement café – very chic! We climbed the hill in the city to get the view from the small, elevated park and walked along the river to get a view of the city at sunset, and we watched the river cruise boats sail by. Avignon is a charming place and was a very fine place to spend a few days to gather our strength prior to our Marseille extravaganza.
And so to Marseille! France’s oldest city, it’s third most populous metroplitan area (after Paris and Lyon), one of Europe’s oldest continously inhabited settlements and host of half of the quarter final matches of the rugby. We had four tickets to each of the two games, and had a posse of six of us between which to distribute them. Our gang was us, Jon & Fran again, other brother Martin, and his bestie, Jamie, who is practically family as we’ve known him since he was 14. Fran had sorted out an Air Bnb in a suburb called L’Estaque where we had three nights. Marseille is not camper van friendly. There are neither any campsites anywhere near town, nor anywhere safe to park without risking a break in. So we had sorted out a site on an aire campsite about 30km away in a place called Sausset-Les-Pins that had a train station which took us both to L’Estaque, and also into Marseille centre. Sausset-Les-Pins is along the coast to the west of Marseille and once we had arrived and installed ourselves we walked the 1km down to the sea. This was our first encounter with the Mediterrean this trip and we were prepared, with swimsuits and towels packed and ready to go! The weather continues to be gorgeous and warm and the Med, although a bit rocky underfoot here, was also a fine place for a dip. Not very autumnal, not yet anyway. After our dip we looked for a beach shower for a rinse off so we could avoid needing a shower ‘in rig’. What we found was a waist height ‘beach tap’ which made for an amusing spectacle of contorsions as we endeavoured to de-saltify ourselves. Well we were amused, anyway.
Friday came and we packed up and packed out, walking the 1km to the station. L’Estaque was a short 23 minutes away on a very scenic train journey along the rocky coastline with a 10 minute stroll at the other end to our apartment. The suburb, as Fran succintly put it, was like ‘Aberdare-Sur-Mer’: the french coastal version of the (not so affluent) Welsh town of her origin. If L’Estaque wasn’t winning any prizes for being chic or fancy, our accommodation was doing better. Again, this seemed to be a home that was being let out short-term and was again full of personal effects. It was a converted loft space with one enormous room that encompassed a kitchen area, a dining area, a lounge area and a small ballroom/art exhibition area. The three bedrooms were all open mezzanines, giving this the familiar air of a boarding school dormitory to most of us, and each sleeping area had its own, uniquely designed version of a perilous staircase. With both toilets downstairs, most of us needing a nocturnal visit to the loo, and plans for a reasonable alcohol intake, if we all survived the weekend with limbs and spinal columns intact it would be a miracle.
Jon and Fran arrived soon after us in the latter part of the afternoon having taken the very civilised TGV down from Paris, but Martin and Jamie would be travelling in the less civilised manner of flying, and arriving much later than planned, courtesy of the French air traffic controllers going on strike. Of course! The four of us filled the evening with a (fairly long) walk out to find a restaurant for what turned out to be a very satifactory seafood dinner and then, having worked out how to work the projector and large screen, we waited up for Martin and Jamie whilst watching multiple episodes of Hawai’i Five O – the only show we could could find in ‘version originale’. The hour got late, Fran and I bailed, and Nick and Jon slept on the sofa waiting to let the latecomers in. One would think that on their arrival at 1am that all would go to bed, but No! Martin had brought a bottle of whisky that saw considerable damage done to it before the four of them tackled the various stairs of doom at about 2.30am. Late, boozy night number one.
The next morning was predictably slow and much coffee and carbohydrate calories of baguettes, croissants and pains-au-chocolate were needed to kickstart the day. The day’s match was kicking off at 5pm, and we had booked a restaurant for lunch in the Old Port area of Marseille at 12.30pm to give us plenty of time. I was in charge of public transport and mustered everyone to walk up to the train station to catch the train that would get us there on time, but No! That train had been cancelled and the next one was not for ages. We fell back on the Uber option, but we needed two. One came quickly, but Jon and Nick had to wait ages for theirs. This was a busy town today. The Old Port area was heaving and we were glad for our lunch booking at a restaurant just off the main area of craziness. This was Marseille and the assembled had wanted to sample Bouillabaisse, or similar, so this is what they had. Washed down with several bottles of rosé. I had garlic snails. A fabulous vehicle for garlic butter! Whilst lunching we were joined by an old friend of ours from NZ, Rob, who was also in town for the games and whom we hadn’t seen for four years. He was on great form and it was as if it had only been last week when we last saw him. We made plans to catch up again later.
The time came for four of us to head off to the game, Wales vs Argentina. This was Fran and I and Martin and Jamie. The stadium in Marseille is much closer to the city centre and much easier to get to than in Lyon. We walked to a nearby metro station and had a sardine-esque experience in a jammed packed carriage to get up to the ground. The Welsh were in good spirits and good voice again, hoping to progress to the semi-finals. We had seats quite high up, in the nosebleed rows, and had some interesting Franglais chats with a bunch of French guys sat behind us who were supporting Argentina. The native Argentinian fans could not be mistaken as they all did a very particular type of supporting and cheering that involved synchronised jumping/fist pumping/chanting in Spanish and latterly, when they got very excited, twirling of their shirts over their heads, bare chested by default. Wales had a chance but Argentina were the victors, leaving a lot of disappointed Welsh, including our Fran. After the game we decided to join the throng walking the 4km back to the city centre rather than cramming onto public transport again. 55 minutes later we caught up with Nick and Jon who had secured a spot for all of us in a bar called Propoganda that was on the front by the Old Port.
They had been here all afternoon, holding court and making friends and by the time we arrived it was only an hour to wait until the second big game of the night, the quarter final between NZ and Ireland that was being played up in Paris. These were our boys! Our group swelled to 10 as Rob and his brothers and a friend joined us and we were set.
It was a titanic battle worthy of a final and the All Blacks were victorious. We had our flag and we were waving it! The long day and the fairly considerable alcohol intake meant that most were on the ‘leathered’ side of merry and that made my next job more interesting. Being the (self appointed) Public Transport Officer for the weekend, and being reasonably sober, I had discovered that there was a night bus that would get us home, if only I could get everyone to the bus stop on time. I managed to eventually extract everyone from the bar, with bills paid and bladders emptied, and then marched my little band of drunken ducks 750m through the busiest part of town to the bus stop without losing anyone or anyone getting run over. We made it with a minute to spare and the night bus took us to within 50m of the front door of our apartment. How fabulous! I was forgiven for my earlier train failure.
Once home, wine was opened and cheese and bread was eaten. Stairs’O’Death were not mounted until 2am. Late, boozy, night number two. No casualties.
Another day, another late morning, more baked goods and lots of coffee. We took a bus to town today. This involved a brisk walk over a hill which prompted some whining from those feeling a bit fuzzy, and then the bus was late, but eventually we arrived and strolled back towards the Old Port, via the handsome Cathédrale de la Major. Again we were looking for a lunch spot before the 5pm game, England vs Fiji, but this time we hadn’t booked anywhere. Our meanderings brought us to a small square that was full of tables belonging to the various restaurants surrounding it. It was buzzing and we found space in a restaurant selected as it had entrecôte et frites on the menu, the meal that most had decided they wanted/needed. We sat next to a large table of England fans, all decked out in white shirts and berets and we waited. Monsieur le garçon was a one-man-band and service was slow but we were just pleased to have found somewhere to eat.
By the time he arrived to take our order, Monsieur advised us that the entrecôte was all gone. Rats. We all revised our orders to the burger et frites and the boys braved a beer. Then we waited some more. A samba band set up and the square was suddenly full of loud music and acrobats flick-flacking up and down. It was very entertaining. Something hit me on the back, I turned…
Then, an explosion.
A bright, football sized flash went off under the English table next to us. A massive bang followed, filling the whole area with smoke and then followed by an earie silence-our eardrums assaulted. The moments immediately afterwards were a blur, a confusion and a high pitched hiss filled the space where sound should be. Some people left straight away, needing to feel safer, or perhaps realising that lunch was going to be delayed. The samba band moved on swiftly too.
After several minutes of chaos it became obvious what had happened. Someone had lobbed a lit thunderflash-type firework into the busy dining area in the square. It had bounced off my back and landed on the floor under the table next to us where it had exploded right next to the foot of a woman in their group. Miraculously, she was the only person who was injured, suffering bruising and a laceration to her foot. Her state of shock was complicated by being about 16 week pregnant and Fran, a registered doctor (unlike me-a very much unregistered doctor) sat with her and reassured her whilst waiting for the paramedics. She had a check up in the back of an ambulance and apart from a sore foot, seemed fine afterwards. We debriefed by discussing how much worse it could have been. It could have exploded in the air, on my back, in someone’s face. About half an hour later a couple of gendarmes came and looked around, but otherwise nothing else happened. It was hard to believe that no-one had seen anything. Had it been kids? Someone hoping to create some chaos in a jumpy city full of revellers? Or retrospectively, someone creating a diversion and hoping to steal some valuables? Jon’s sunglasses mysteriously disappeared from our table…The dust settled, our food was served, we ate, another beer was needed and we left. A very surreal interlude and a very small insight into what it’s like getting caught up in the unforsean traumatic events that many people all around the world have to deal with on a much, much larger scale every day. It is humbling.
This time the boys all headed off to the stadium and Fran and I had some hours to kill. We shopped a bit, although bought very little. Fran was disappointed that the belted cape that she tried on didn’t fit. It was a shame as it was very classy! I resisted bying a framed skeleton of a small bat. I didn’t think that it would survive the day and I knew that Davide really didn’t have any wall space for its display. Such are the downsides of life on the road. Fran then humoured me and agreed to walk up to the other impressive church in Marseille, Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde, the one at the top of the hill. Interestly our walk up was practically deserted and then when we got up there it was packed. How did everyone else get there?? There was a magnificent view from the top including of the stadium, and the wind wreaked havoc with our hair.
Once back in town we headed back to the familiar territory of Propaganda bar and settled in at the same table to watch the game. An aperol spritz and a couple of jugs of Sangria went down quite nicely and history tells us that England beat Fiji. The second game of the night was a big one. France vs South Africa. We had reserved a table upstairs and the bar went to town with its red, white and blue decorations, novelty French headgear and face paints.
The boys made it back from the stadium and we installed ourselves in our prime spot infront of the big screen. Rob and Co. joined us again and spirits were high. We were all supporting France, Allez Les Bleus! The tournament needed them to stay in the competion to keep the excitement levels high amongst the home fans. It was another epic showdown and very sadly, France lost by a whisker. We were all gutted. Soon it was time to round everyone up and we made a successful move to catch the magic night bus again. How was it that getting home at 11.30pm was easier than getting into town during the day?? The evening was rounded off yet again with red wine and whisky meaning a third consecutive boozy, late night.
The late-40 year old/early-50 year old bodies are no longer able to take this abuse. Martin and Jamie crawled out of the apartment and headed to the airport at 8am. Lord knows how they managed that. The rest of us surfaced at 9am and headed up to the station at 10.30 am where we said our goodbyes and got on trains headed in opposite directions. We were back in Davide by 12pm and the rest of the day was a write off. We had a sofa each and did nothing. Our co-campers had had a big night too, having had a big party in the campsite until 3am. Half the residents had been involved, the other half had hated them. I wonder which camp we would have been in if we had been here?!
So our long planned Rugby World Cup experience: getting tickets to some of the games, staying in Lyon and Marseille and sharing that with our rugby-obsessed families had come to an end. It had been epic, we had loved every minute of it and it had been worth every penny. Now we had to hope that France could keep up the enthusiasm for the tournament now that they were out of it and that we could find fun places to watch the rest of the games…
The next day we continued along the coast and headed to the Camargue, planning for a few days of biking and walking. The best laid plans…..