It was a late start after a very sleepless night. My dorm room which I am sharing with a Japanese guy is next to the central heating room. I don't know what was wrong with the system but there was a noise like a door slamming followed by a whoosh of steam that slowly died away and then repeated itself every 20 secs. At 1am I dug my inflatable mattress out of my pannier, grabbed my sleeping bag and went and lay down in a corridor on the floor above. Peace at last. No, not so. At 3am alarms started to go off in all the rooms along the corridor. and all these kids started to emerge. I have picked a corridor housing a school trip! I just played dead to the world on the floor thinking it would all be over in 30 minutes. No chance; they must have had an early breakfast arranged because it almost went quiet and then they all flooded back and started banging suitcases past me. I expect they thought I was a drunk. It finally went quiet at 5am. If my tent had hot running water I'd sleep in it every time.
So, I felt washed out today but thanks to a fresh tailwind and a clear blue sky I managed a respectable 75km ending up about 50km north of Marseille. I now have a GPS track that works and says I have about 250km to go through Cannes, Nice and Monaco to the Italian border. This will be the same coastal route that I took on my trip to Rome last year. I expect to hit some hills tomorrow so the plan is for an early night and an early start.
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| Typical lunch spot. Topped up with water from that fountain on the far side. The locals (if you can find any) are not very chatty. |
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