Early this morning, we said ‘adios’ to Barcelona and got on the bus towards Marseille (and eventually Aix-en-Provence). As we made our way along the Mediterranean coast, we had stiff gales to go with our stiff legs. Taking a break at a rest stop somewhere in the Languedoc region of France, the bus driver warned us (in Spanish) to tie ourselves to the bus before getting off just to be sure we wouldn’t blow away. And he was definitely right. Back on the road, we all were a little concerned by the way the bus swerved and swayed on the highway because of the high winds. But the bus driver seemed to know what he was doing and we were soon making our way (safely) through Languedoc and on into Provence.

We passed through French wine country (although pretty much the whole country is wine country) and stopped in the towns of Narbonne, Avignon and Montpellier en route to Marseille.

Slightly behind schedule, we finally got to Marseille and it was a bit underwhelming. It’s the second largest city in France, but definitely not a place anybody would want to visit. Confirming this, neither Rick Steves’ or Frommer’s guidebooks had any mention of the city. To us, it seemed like the Detroit of France—there are a couple nice places, but mostly you want to get the hell out of there. Needless to say, that’s what we did.

Once we got off the commuter bus in Aix-en-Provence, we followed Geraldine’s detailed directions to her apartment and had a warm welcome. She shares a bi-level place just outside the city center. Sally and Marianne were nice enough to put up with us while we stayed up late visiting with Geraldine over dinner and a bottle of wine.