Day 9 - Coulliere / Marseille, France - June 19th

Today was a long day and our first day in France. We left the hotel at 8:30 and drove out of Spain. Our first stop was at a coastal city called Coulliere. We stopped here for about 1.5 hours for lunch. There was a small beach, but we didn’t have time to swim and it was rocky anyway. We walked along the water edge and there was a castle on the coast that we walked around. It was a nice pretty town. We then drove for about 5 hours to Marseille. We had a couple 20-30 minute breaks at roadside cafes along the way. When we got into Marseille it was so full of traffic! It was a beautiful city but packed with people and traffic. It took us over an hour to get to the Notre dame cathedral on top of the hill. It was open to visit inside, but since it was on a hill overlooking the city, there were amazing views. One really cool thing that I didn’t realize was real is that there really is a Chateau Dif, from the Count of Monte Cristo. There are several nearby islands and one of them has a fortress built on it that they used for many years as a prison. Now it is a prison. I would have loved to taken a boat out there to see it if only we had more time in that city. After we left the church we headed for our restaurant on the waterfront. It was a perfect area on the coast under a Ferris wheel and main walkway on the beach. They served grilled white fish for dinner, and Megan and I don’t really care for fish, but were so hungry because it was almost 9:00 p.m. by the time we were served, that we ate it all. And it really wasn’t that bad. We arrived at our hotel about 10:00 p.m. and just went right to bed.