Today, I woke up in the port of Marseille in France, ready to go on a trip to Aix de Provence.
When I woke up in my cabin, I took a shower, but the water pressure was very low. It was so low that it wasn't strong enough to stand under, and I had to hold the shower head away from the wall to use it at all. After going to the buffet breakfast and settling for a cheese and ham omelette, some fried bacon (American-style bacon, shrivelled and dry), and some tasteless melon, I went for a coffee at the atrium bar. On the way there, I made a complaint about the shower in my cabin to the English host on board the Costa Diadema. She told me she would get someone to fix it ASAP.
When I got back to my cabin last night, a note had been left on my bed telling me that my scenic tour of the Aix de Provence had been cancelled, so after having my coffee, I went to the MyTours desk onboard the ship. They offered me a shuttle bus trip to Aix de Provence. It would be just a bus there and back, but two guides from the ship would be going along and would point out places to look at during the two hours of free time that we would have there. At around 1:45 pm, I joined the bus but had to wait until around 2:20 pm before all the passengers got on the bus to leave. It was supposed to leave at 2 pm, and I got very fed up waiting for people who turned up late.
The drive to Aix de Provence included some lovely countryside, and I enjoyed looking at the scenery there. When we got there, we were dropped off by the coach and then led by the two guides from MyTours on a very circuitous walk to a square that we seemed to walk around to get to. When we arrived, the only thing the guide pointed out was the tourist office. He also told us that he would stay precisely at that point in case we needed anything, as he was going to have a coffee.
The group all dispersed on their own, and I walked to the tourist office. It looked very familiar, but I couldn't think why. Unfortunately, the tourist office had no local maps and very little of anything but bus trips for sale or tourist souvenirs. I decided that as I had Google Maps on my phone, I couldn't get lost and went exploring on my own.
The town centre had a few places roped off to prevent access due to an Iron Man competition that finished in the town centre. This made walking around more difficult, but with only a couple of hours of free time, I did my best to explore. As I walked around, I came across a restaurant that felt familiar. After a while, I remembered sitting there with my mum, eating a meal on a previous visit. I hadn't remembered coming here before, but I soon recognised other places and realised that I had stayed here overnight on the journey through Spain and France back to my mum's home in the UK many years ago. As I walked through the back streets, taking photos of the narrow alleyways and streets, I even came across the hotel that we stayed in and the car park opposite where I parked the car overnight. The visit to Aix de Provence would have been very ordinary but for the memories that it brought back to me of my mum and our stay together on my last visit. Much like today, I found the prices here relatively high on that visit, and the weather had not been great.
I wanted to stop for a drink in a local cafe, but I refused to pay more than €8 for a coffee and eventually stopped in a health food store and got myself a bottle of lemon ginger beer to drink. I sat down where we were meeting to walk back to the coach and saw a few people from the coach. They were all looking for the guide who had said he would not move from the spot but who was now nowhere to be seen. I went to open my bottle of ginger beer and then realised it was not a twist top and that I had no way of opening it. It would have to go in my suitcase and travel back to Los Alcazares with me. The people on the coach all slowly gathered with the last people back, the two guides, who were late. We walked the same circuitous route back to the coach, where we all reboarded the coach and travelled back to the ship in Marseille. The trip was okay because it brought back memories of my visit with my mum, but other than that, it was a waste of money.
Once back on board the ship, I had a shower in the repaired shower in my cabin and then got myself a beer before going to the Fiorentino restaurant for my dinner. Yesterday, I had been on my own at a table for six, but just after sitting down today, an English lady from Albir in Spain asked if she could join me. Her name was Gail, and she proved to be excellent company. We sat chatting throughout dinner, and she told me about another lady she had met called Val, who she was meeting later and asked me to join them. For my meal tonight, I had Onion soup, Sea bass stuffed with seafood served with zucchini and a piece of fudge chocolate cake. The soup was okay, the bass was okay, and the cake was okay, but it wasn't a fudge chocolate cake. You can see today's full menu here.
When we left the restaurant, Gail and I went to the Teadora lounge bar to meet Val. We all sat chatting and drinking cocktails whilst we listened to the music before going to the Emerald Theatre to see tonight's show, Christi Nistor. He was a singer, and the show was advertised as a full, energetic and vibrant show. Both Val and Gail seemed to enjoy it, but it wasn't to my taste. It didn't help that we were seated on the 5th floor looking down on the stage with a slightly obscured view, in seating that was very cramped and made my legs very stiff.
When the show finished, we went to the Country Rock bar to watch the end of the show. The band was quite good, and while Gail got up to dance with other people, Val and I sat and chatted. Incredibly, it turned out that Val and I had a friend in common in Spain, the sister of some friends of mine in England, who runs a bar near where Val runs a bar in Spain. The saying says that you are only separated from everybody else on earth by six degrees of separation. This seems to be true for Val and me. When the band finished, we went back to the Teadora lounge bar for more cocktails. Gail started dancing while Val and I listened to the music. When the band finished, we moved on to the Orlav Grand bar again for more cocktails and to listen to the music there. In the early hours of the morning, Gail left us to retire to her room, but Val twisted my arm, and I stayed for a couple more cocktails before I also retired, leaving Val with the cocktail waiter.