As seems to happen more and more these days, I found some time to write, but haven't managed to get around to posting. I've finally taken a moment to do so, so here's the latest:
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September 1st.
I am currently on a train in Outback New South Wales. It’s a considerably rougher journey than the one recently taken through the rural areas of France and significantly slower to boot. It does of course give me a little time to write as its only my second day on the job and you can only achieve so much work on a noisy train without the resources of offices etc. I most definitely don’t have access to the internet.
I think that the last time that I managed to post something I’d managed to track our holiday through to Venice and possibly even back to Switzerland. I’ll have to check before I post this.
After saying farewell to Switzerland, we hopped a train to Marseille. We didn’t know much about Marseille, the fact that we were going at all was something of a stab in the dark. Caroline had mentioned at some stage that we should perhaps look at going somewhere else in the time that we had other than just Paris and Venice and suggested some on the Mediterranean in France. I had a bit of a look and although it apparently had nice beaches, it sounded like it would be overflowing and even the pictures of the beaches seemed crowded beyond belief.
With a little bit of help from the internet, I took a look at some other cities in the region and decided that Marseille with its fortifications and old Port looked considerably more interesting. And so off we went.
The train ride was fun, especially the part where we had to lug our copious amounts of luggage onto the train and then try and find somewhere to store it all whilst we rattled along (rattled isn’t really the right word to describe the pleasant journey, but it is more ‘trainy’ – the trip I am on right now … that’s a rattly ride).
We managed to arrive and get off the train and then we had to manage to get to the hotel. After a little stress and some questions, we made it out of the train station and started to make our way up the road toward where the hotel was supposed to be. Turns out it was about a 100m away and just across the road! Talk about a bonus. We quickly settled in the hotel and then decided to go for a walk and see if we could find somewhere to have some nice French food.
We strolled down to the port, admiring the old French buildings and the port, soaking in the Mediterranean sunshine until it was time to seek some dinner. We found somewhere that looked good, with a waiter who was friendly and willing to speak some English and endeavour to meet our needs. The food was lovely, though Sam wasn’t overly impressed with the calamari that he’d ordered. It came with a risotto, which for some reason turned out to be grey in colour. If you’re going to try and get a kid to do something, serving up grey rice that looks suspiciously like it could have been some sort of brain (my description, not Sam’s) isn’t really the best way to go about it. All in all though we made do and walked away happy … which is more than we could say for our next dinner in Marseille, but I’ll get to that.
On our second day we decided to take a bus trip around town to see the place and although we saw it, there wasn’t really time to get off anywhere along the way, so it was really just a tease of what the city had to offer. Later in the afternoon we took a boat trip out from the old port and visited the fortress where the Count of Monte Cristo was set and then on to one of the other small islands where we found a beach so that the kids could have a swim. It was a lovely day and as the sun started to set we made our way back to the mainland and found ourselves a restaurant.
The waitress who seated us was lovely, but sadly that seemed to be the last contact we’d have with her. A Belgian girl and her Grand Father ended up at the table next to us and were kind enough to translate the menu for us. The whole meal seemed to be a battle for the waiter’s attention and we took to starting a pool on how long it would be before each part of the meal to arrive to try and keep the kids entertained. All in all, our three course meal took two and a half hours, which considering we had the kids with us and that we finished at 10:30pm was just ridiculous. If it hadn’t been for the lovely Belgians next to us who were able to get the waiter’s attention and communicate with them a couple of times, we may have still been sitting there today waiting for the final component of our meals.
We bid farewell to Marseille, sadly with that meal as something of a lasting impression and boarded the train to Paris. Emily was very excited to be going to Paris at last, letting me know that her friends at school had been especially jealous that she was getting to go there to see the Eiffel Tower.
There was also the element that she’d not bought souveneirs at some of our recent stops so that she could save up her funds and buy one in Paris.
The train ride was uneventful once the luggage was again stowed and we arrived in Paris with only the problem of again making our way to our hotel. This time it certainly wasn’t a short stop from the train station. We opted to put as many bags as we could in a taxi and for Emily and I to accompany them and for Caroline and the boys to catch a bus and walk the last bit to the hotel.
Emily was suitably happy at the moment when we were able to glance down one of the streets and see the famed tower and other than arriving to find out that they didn’t seem to have record of our booking, we were all soon safely ensconced in our hotel with the top of the Eiffel Tower visible through the roof-top window.
It had been a wet and drizzly morning when we’d travelled to Paris but we
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