Thursday in Marseille

It is Thursday, so it must be Marseille. We had breakfast in our room after getting up at 5:30 AM. The bus was departing at 7:30 AM and we had to be in the Princess Theater by 7:00 AM to get our tickets. We marched out to our bus with the rest of the herd and found a seat. The drive to the National Park in Provence took about 1 ½ hours. The scenery was probably very beautiful, but the rain and low clouds made it difficult to tell. Once we left the main highway the roads became very narrow. Passing through some of the towns was a challenge in the big bus we were in. “ Mexican standoffs” occurred more than once and we had small cars come to a screeching halt on curves and back up so we could make the turns.



The tour actually was good, despite the bad weather at the start. The sun came out later in the day and it became quite nice up in the mountains. We passed constant vineyards and orchards of various kinds. i.e. Olive, Cherry and Peach.

We visited the Chateau de Lourmarin, which was first built in the 15th century as a fortress. Then in the 17th century a family purchased it and added a Renaissance style wing of living quarters. Inside is an unusual style stair case with the stair treads and the banister all of one piece of marble. The rooms had lots of antiques and art, both from times before Christ to the Renaissance period and one tapestry was from 70 BC. Some of the Renaissance sculptures and paintings cannot be described in a “PG” blog. The view of the Durance valley, from the Chateau was quite beautiful. The area and the Chateau have been the destination of artist for years and many famous artists have painted here. It is now owned by Universities and has a grant that provides for 12 scholarships to stay there and perfect there art.

We drove back down the mountain and stopped in the village of Roussillon. The village is famous for the old, orcher-colored stone houses. The area once had 12 factories that produced dye made from the different colored clays in the area. Due to artificial colors being produced it now only has 2 left.The village is very pretty and the old homes, church and fortress were interesting. They had a street market going when we got there and we purchased some pastries from a stand. The tour allowed us some time to wander around and then provided lunch at David’s restaurant. The food was good and they kept bringing bottles of wine. We tried our best but could not drink them all. I probably did drink a little too much. But, hey, I was not driving. There were several outdoor cafes around, and they all advertised themselves in English, but when you looked at the menu it was in French.

After leaving Roussillon, we stopped at a bridge built by the Romans’ over 2,000 years ago. It is still in perfect condition and a credit to Roman engineering. We are learning more about the influence of the Romans on this part of the world as we continue are trip.

As we were driving back to the ship we passed a French airfield, where the French Air Force Demonstration team was putting on a show. So we were able to watch some maneuvers as we drove past.


Returning to the ship we collapsed, and we both took a nap on the deck. Mine was longer than Judi’s. I had more wine than she did I guess. We stayed in tonight and just had a sandwich.


We have decided that we are going to stay onboard the ship Friday in Florence. We will be back here in 3 days and have a tour set up then.