Day 73: Salon to Marseille

November 18, 2022

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Our bikes had been stored in a garage three blocks away, and it fell to me to go retrieve them. It took two tries, because I forgot where the place was. But once a bike was in my hands, it was not that easy to return to the hotel with it. It seems that in the morning the narrow streets are clogged with cars trundling their way presumably to work.

On the way out of town we passed some more statues and fountains, but one was rather unique. It was a large Christmas type tree with an interesting back story. After WWI, villages in southern France were invited to adopt ones on the north that had been devastated in the war. Salon contributed to the reconstruction of the village of Blanzy. In gratitude, the village renamed itself Blanzy-la-Salonnaise, and presumably planted this tree here at some point in remembrance of what had been done.

As we negotiated the roads outside of town, we continued to appreciate the unique Provence-ness of the landscape. That would include grape vines, Cypress trees, olives, low mountains, and earth toned houses, at least. In the photo below, all five of these can be seen, although I would not claim that they are arranged as artfully as in the region around Saint Remy.

We no longer had the advantage of managed and/or signed bike routes, but there was no shortage of roads that would generally tend to be quiet. A rapidly developing theme for the day, though, was that the relatively few drivers on the roads made up for it with excessive speed and minimized passing clearances. It was ok, but had us wondering about how unpleasant it might be to cycle much further into southeastern France.

The road was ok, but it makes you nervous to have a high speed car bearing down on you from the rear, with no shoulder or even much of a white line.

We had not been appreciating the Provence-ness of everything for long when we (Dodie!) realized that things had changed. Quite suddenly, really, we were surrounded by shrubby Mediterranean herbs like rosemary and thyme. Not only that, the vines were gone, the olives were gone, the Cypress was gone. We got off our bikes and walked into the scrub. Aromatic herbs were everywhere, and some plants were sporting thorns.

Dodie pedals on. The road remains shoulderless, and has been climbing.

We knew the road had been climbing, of course, but were still surprised to come to an overlook where we could look down on a village and actually over to the sea. (Ok, fine, our geography stickler department points put this was nothing but the Berre Etang, 10 km from the actual sea.).

What happened next was that the road took a dive, curving down and down and around steep bends. Drivers responded to this by rocketing up and down, cutting the corners as much as possible. If they came upon two hapless cyclists in the way, they were annoyed. There was some hand waving, to indicate "Why are you in my race track?".

See that little yellow figure blocking up the race track?

We thought the guard wall a little skimpy.

Above the town, the Canal de Marseille curves along. "How do they get the water way up here?" says the thoughtless Steve. (He is used to canals sedately passing through basically flat landscapes.) "It's not coming up, it's going down", is Dodie's patient reply. She did not say "dummy" (this time).

Look, the water - sea, etang, or whatever.

We thought we might look for a sandwich in Coudoux, but a detour took us away from the town. The only business we saw was this one. It's safe to say one would never see a sign like this in Canada.

By Velaux we have picked up a shoulder, and more or less shoulders accompanied us all the way to the airport. Unlike Frankfurt or even Paris, there was never a problem of giant controlled access freeways blocking our way or endangering our route.

In Velaux we took a break, sending Dodie into an Aldi market while I as usual was left out with the bikes. Usually this becomes the occasion for a French lesson, as someone will approach me with the Usual Questions. This time someone did have questions, but they were addressed in very good English. They came from Vincent, who lives in Velaux, but who has a sister in San Diego. Vincent started out as a mountain biker but has now included road biking. The natural progression for him could be to cycle touring. That was the basis for many of his questions, and hopefully we are on the way to having another Cycleblazer.

A selfie taken by Vincent in front of the Aldi.

Also in Velaux we ran into not one but two small olive oil mills. We stopped in to the one on our side of the road, and were pleased that the workers were willing to show us what they were doing. We also liked the fact that the lawyers had not yet gotten to them, and they were fine with us walking in and around the dangerous looking machinery.

The olives go first through a de-littering and washing step. This is de-littering, I think.

Washing. At this point I asked if there was a special reason that the olives were so small. The man did not know, so clearly these are not special AOC small olives!

After the washer (right) the olives go up to the grinder (left).

The ground pomace goes to this gizmo, which seems to be a centrifugal separator. Its output is the oil, water, and pomace.

The oil goes to these storage tanks. Perhaps it settles and it siphoned off? Perhaps it is filtered? The pomace seems to go just to a giant waste trailer. I asked about any second or third extractions. Frankly, I could not understand a single word the man said. Probably the Marseille accent. But Dodie was ok with it, and reports that this place only does pure virgin oil.

Yesterday's cat from Salon won a lot of likes from readers. So here we have the oil press dog. He is old and resting, but did get up to say goodbye to us very sweetly.

In our next stage, we see a line of cliffs that proved to extend all the way to the airport. Some towns or individual houses are perched on the cliffs, over looking the water, about 10 km distant.

Down below, we started to mix it up with a little bit heavier traffic, with less attractive roadways, some broken glass, roundabouts, and such.

Shockingly, (to us!), Salon is apparently only 11 minutes away, on the A7. We have just finished cycling four hours to cover the distance!

Waves on the blue water! We have definitely made it to "somewhere".

We are close but not quite there. However building design no longer appears very Provencal.

Just by the airport, there is still something natural to look at.

We had decided to go with Ibis Budget at the airport (for the uninitiated, that's pronounced Eeebee Boodjet out here), but were concerned that they had failed to answer our inquiry about secure space to store the bicycles. Sure enough, when we got there, bicycle storage was a mystery. But the lady came up with the idea of upgrading our room to something big enough to also hold the bikes. Would that be ok? Would that be OK!

We have been in our upgraded room a few hours now. Dodie has been busy downgrading it. Or at least covering it with gear in the process of being reconfigured from riding to flying mode. We want to finish that tonight, so that tomorrow we can shuttle in to Marseille and check out - the museum - no, the cathedral - maybe - but mainly the market!

Here is where we are at. Do we have a chance?

That sheet of paper is our memo to ourselves about how to do this!

Today's ride: 40 km (25 miles)
Total: 3,408 km (2,116 miles)

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Comment on this entry	Comment	6

Scott AndersonGlad to see you made it in safely. We’ve never biked into Marseilles, but you at least don’t make it sound terrible. Good luck with the flight home!
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1 year ago

Keith KleinHi,
Bon voyage! I hope all went well on your flights home. Take care, and come back soon!
Cheers,
Keith
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1 year ago

Keith KleinTo Scott AndersonHi Scott,
They are not really in Marseille. The airport is actually closer to Aix than to the city. Getting from there to Marseille from the west involves a longish ride along the coast, very beautiful but with a few climbs of the short steep variety. Marseille is entered through a « quartier populaire » or low income neighborhood with all the smells and sounds that implies. I don’t think I would go that way anymore, as with age I feel vulnerable, but you might not mind. Not a place to flash your big camera, at any rate. There is good service on the railway line from Martigues, so one can hop on a train and get downtown without the hassle of cramped city streets. If you are going to the city, and I highly recommended it, the easiest cycling route in is from the east, from Cassis. This also involves some climbing, but you end up coming off the hills , which are a military reservation, into the city quite abruptly and right on the beach. I tend to favor this route, because of the scenery.
I’ve only ever been to the airport, which is small, to pick up or drop off clients, so not by bike. Thanks to Steve and Dodie for showing that it’s relatively easy.
Cheers,
Keith
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1 year ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Keith KleinDon't give up on us quite yet, we only fly out on Monday and will still put in a final summary page soon after arriving home. Again-It was such a delight to meet up with you and Sue, hopefully to be repeated another time also.
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1 year ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Keith KleinAs Keith pointed out we did not really bike into Marseille but rather to the airport. Getting to Marseille was not hard (shuttle) and getting around Marseille (metro and bus) was easy and so very worth while.
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1 year ago

Joni MillerOh thank goodness you didn’t crash on the exciting downhill looping road. I was just dreading that.
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1 year ago