Xi'an's Og

For the May-8-plus-Ascension extended French bank holiday, we went “down” to Marseilles to visit our daughter, who is spending one year and a ha;f of her medical residency there. More precisely, we stayed in a village called Les Goudes, which stands at the most easternly part of the sprawling metropolis, right on the boundary of the Parc National des Calanques, at the end of the coastal road, a place I had never visited but that proved a great location for hiking [a sketch of the GR⁵¹ trail that continues towards Morgiou, Sugiton, and Cassis], [cold sea] swimming, [road] running, [basic] cooking, and relaxing, alas missing time for climbing, but correlatively less practical for accessing other places, as driving around downtown is a pain, in part due to the local habit of temporarily parking without properly parking!, as well as an inappropriate number of cars for the town capacity, and the more because our visit coincided with the much hyped arrival of the Olympics torch in the city, since several sections of the old town were closed to cars. The plans to visit Van Gogh’s Arles and the pretty island of Porquerolle then lead to hours being wasted in traffic jams as traffic regulation is inexistent in these über-touristy places, despite limited access and parking facilities. Methinks they should take example on places like Lake Louise where a capped number of cars is permitted access every day and shuttles bus the other visitors there, with an obvious positive impact of the maximum volume. Another issue I have with Porquerolle is… the huge number of both bikes and nikers! Indeed, while the island is blissfully car-free and cris-Xed by paths, a whole industry of bike rentals has taken over the landing area and as a result these paths are full of speeding e-bikes driven by neophytes, quite annoyingly and somewhat dangerously. Fortunately, enough of the paths remain off-access to bikes, if often more strenuous (although my 84 year old aunt who lives in the vicinity beautifully managed her 10k hike with us!). Obviously, I quite enjoyed the time with my children, running and swimming with them being a rare opportunity! The sea was at most 14⁰ but I only got hypothermia once (!) and the road to the endpoint village of Callelongue was not too busy in the early morning to impact my training. We further avoided the huge crowds in Marseilles by staying away from the pre-Olympics frenzy, a strategy we plan to repeat over the summer! Besides, we enjoyed a very nice Mediterranean-inspired lunch in a 14th Century hostel, [formerly property of the counts of] l’Arlatan and a pleasant final diner together in Les Goudes, where half of the price was probably due to the unbeatable sunset.