Saturday July 20

Bike Tour of Calanques and Beach

Before a start on today, a further note about last night!  It was kind of fun as we came to realize there is a huge African ex-pat community in this city.  Algeria won the African Cup in soccer last night, and we certainly knew exactly when it happened!  There were horns, yells, and fireworks for about an hour.  We were really tired or we might have waded out to join in a pub somewhere.  We realized we had seen a fellow swimming around at the beach wearing a Cameroon flag earlier, and felt sorry for him as his team lost.
 
This morning we got up, and headed down to the bus.  We thought we knew what bus to take, but the one we planned was just a night bus.  I was able to use the free wifi from the grocery store we use right next to the bus stop (Carrefour) and we figured out which bus and double checked the address of the place we were going.

Old Fishing Village Down Below

We arrived and it was time to go on our Electric Assist bike tour around some of the Parc National des Calanques just south of Marseille.  Both Megan and I had moments where our electric assistance wasn't working quite right, but then figured out the right gears and buttons to get things going.  It was still quite a workout, and I'm pretty stiff.  It was a bit disheartening as I worked hard to get up a really steep hill, and came next to the tour guide who I realized wasn't using the assist at all.  He admitted he's a professional who gets his workout running the tours.

After the tour, we headed across the street to have lunch, and then swim at  Pointe Rouge.  This is an infinitely nicer beach than the one by our apartment we've been going to.  We plan on doing something tomorrow morning, then heading out on the bus to spend the rest of the day there.  We'll return by bus tomorrow too, but today we decided the challenge of walking along the seawall that comes most of the way back into the core of Marseille couldn't be resisted.  I think it's about 8km from there to home, and we walked it.  We both needed a cool-down when we got home from that as it is another scorcher here.

Today's Total-16.79 km

Seawall-About 7 km