Marseilles

Today we arrived in Marseilles the 2nd largest city in France and the busiest port on the Mediterranean. However our tour took us out into the countryside of Provincial France to see Avignon and Les Baus-de-Provence. Our guide Catherine found the 8 of us that were on the tour (Katie and I, Dick and Lucille, Herb and Janet, and Linda and John) right away and we were off.

We got to hear about the history of the region and made our way to Avignon to see the Palace of the Popes. The palace was home to 9 popes during the Great Schism during the 14th century. This was one of the few stops that I had pushed for on the trip and I'm glad that we got to visit. So far the theme from what we've seen both today and in Barcelona has been just how many things have been lost to time due to destruction, either accidental or intentional which is pretty sad. We walked around the city for a little while before stopping for lunch at St Remy, seeing quite a few vinyards and olive orchards along the way.

After lunch we headed out to Le Baux-de-Province a small hilltop village that was given to the Grimaldi family a long time ago (in a country far-far-away). The hillside is dominated by the ruins of a castle and prison that should be in the pictures from the area.

After the ride back we crashed again before the ship departed at 6:30.