Many miles, several huge days of walking and two awesome areas later and I am at Marseille. This is the end of a strange part of the trip for me as I have to admit, when I planned the trip, I wrote a list of places to see and it started with the Canal du Midi and then the next thing on the list was the Calanques which are to the east of Marseille. In between I just drew a 200 mile line with nothing really on my to-do list. However, I did always say that I wanted to see 'the bits in between' and I have been rewarded for using this tactic by discovering the Alpilles - my favourite part of the trip so far. I am sure when I get into the real mountains this may drop down the list but the Alpilles are a wonderful place to visit and a great place to get into some proper walking. For an experienced walker it is a wonderful playground where you can rack up miles with ease. In two days I did 57 miles, though the walking isn't what you would call easy by any stretch. The place just invites you to keep going and to find out what view is going to be around the next corner.
I lucked out as I had perfect weather and I was helped by the fact that there is a lot of shade to be found if you suffer a little bit from overheating. The pine trees are wonderful and give such a beautiful smell to the area that reminds me of camping trips with my parents, grandparents and sisters when I was younger. On top of the stunning scenery, the main route through the Alpilles, the GR6, takes you from one goregeous town to the next. These towns have a slight countryside feel to them compared to some of the coastal towns that I have been in and what really struck me was the range of different restaurants and small shops that they seemed to have. What was lovely was that they didn't feel too touristy as there were lots of locals out enjoying them. Annoyingly I never seem to remember to take many photos when I am in towns but if you look up Fontvielle, Saint-Remy-De-Provence, Eygalieres and Eyguieres then you will see what I mean. They are also very nicely spaced so that you could easily do a walking holiday at a more leisurely pace than I am doing, with 8-10miles stretches between each town.
Another incredible place that I only actually saw from a distance was Les Baux-de-Provence (pictured above). From a distance this looked like a single building on top of a peak but the closer you got the more parts magically seemed to appear. It is incredibly majestic sat up on the hillside with the large area of relatively flat land around Marseille behind it. Surprises like this just kept coming in the Alpilles so I would strongly recommend them to anyone for some walking/sightseeing.
After the Alpilles I was expecting a bit of an anti-climax heading into Marseille. I decided to walk around the little lake and then go into Marseille.
The little lake being the Berre-l'Etang. Which took me two more big days just to walk half-way around! It looked like the sea and many of the towns around it's outside were the small seaside type towns that I am expecting to see when I walk along the Mediterranean during the next part of my trip. The views were simply stunning and I walked past more small, secluded almost tropical type beaches than I can remember. I was sort of joking to myself by saying, 'Oh look, yet another perfect postcardesque viewpoint. Boring!'
The last day was, however, hard work as I had a slightly upset stomach, a bit of a headache, another wobbly moment and I think the heat just started to wear me down a little.
I thought that it was sensible to take a bus for the last few miles to save myself for another day...
It is far better to save your health now so that you can keep on going later...
If I let my feet heal a little then that will only help later on in the walk...
Then I realised just how dull, boring and sensible that all sounded so I put my boots on and walked it anyway! After all, you only live once.
I am afraid that I am however going to be taking a short break from my travels as I am heading back to England for a week. I have a few family things going on at home which has been making me feel a little guilty as I always want to help out where I can so being away and not able to do much has been hard for the last month. Due to a few changes, I also need to move my belongings again so I am taking this opportunity to pop back home, sort my stuff out, hopefully do several months worth of good deeds and give my family members a big hug before coming back out to France in 10 days time. Expect to hear from me again in about a fortnight when I will hopefully have some beautiful pictures of the Calanques ready to share.
STATS:
Miles walked so far = 518 (833km)
Longest walk in a single day = 29.1 miles (46.8km)
Steps Walked = Roughly 1,087,800
Chocolate bars eaten = see the 'steps walked' section above - the numbers are similar...