Good Company Visits
by Vincent | April 19–23
In April, our two good friends came to visit us in Aix. We tour Aix, visit Marseille, hike the calanques, and finally end with our bag being mistaken for a bomb.
Our friends first came by train from Paris to Aix. I wrote up a guide for them, including how to read the train tickets, what specific phrases meant, and how the trains are laid out. They are smart guys so they didn’t have any trouble navigating CDG and finding the train station. They made it here and took the shuttle from the Aix TGV to the Gare Routiere (bus station), which is where we met them.
Day 1: Rest and Food
They arrived around 2pm and were super tired having not slept well on the plane ride, so we had a quick lunch at Snack Samos. Afterwards, we went back to the apartment so they could rest.
In the evening we ate at Tapas Cafe, which we all enjoyed. All of the restaurants we went to are in our Aix Restaurant Post. After that we grabbed some wine and went back to the apartment, to drink it all (this is a recurring theme).
Day 2: Marseille
The next day we decided we should show them Marseille since it’s nearby and the second largest city in France. We hopped onto the 50 and took the metro to the Vieux Port. We walked to the fort, saw the sights, and I actually got new photos since I had my Nokia this time and we went up one of the towers we forgot to visit last time.
We then headed to lunch and decided on La Cigalon. Two of us had pizza, Celeste had salmon which she enjoyed and another friend had rumsteak. The pizza was satisfactory — nothing amazing. It was tougher to find a place in Marseille to eat since we haven’t really found anything memorable there (and most places by the port are just too expensive).
After lunch we went to Abbaye Sainte-Victoire which houses ancient crypts (like, from the year 500AD). Celeste and I had previously been there the last time we visited France (when I proposed to her in Marseille) but visiting the Abbaye again still was new as they had redone a lot of the crypt. Our friends were suitably in awe and we took some funny pictures.
From the Abbaye we headed northeast to bring them to Parc la Pharo, which we had enjoyed and wrote about before. It was beautiful out so we sat in the shade for awhile and just hung out.
To cap our day off we proceeded up the avenue near the entrance to the park and stopped by the beach. We had packed swimwear just in case but the water was still too cold — that didn’t stop some kids from enjoying the water though. We laid on the beach people-watching for a bit before deciding to end our day in Marseille and head back to Aix for dinner.
We ate dinner at Dal Gladiatore, one of the only [good] places open for dinner on Mondays. This was our first time going after our French friend recommended it and it was glorious. The lasagna was cooked to perfection and Celeste loved her gnocci. A+. We finished off the night with another bottle of wine.
Day 3: Aix
We thought it would be good to give them a tour of Aix on day 3 since it was a Tuesday which means: le marché! We walked around the old town, bought produce at the markets, walked down the Cours Mirabeau, and ate lunch at Aux Petits Oignons. The food was transcendent, as always. Then we headed to Mt. Sainte-Victoire where we did some hiking along the Bibemus trail. It was a bust though — the dam was under construction and they wouldn’t let anyone on it so we had to turn back. We sat at some picnic tables and had some snacks though, which was fun.
When we got back to Aix, we grabbed some gelato from the awesome Amarino Gelato Shop. They made Celeste’s cone into a flower!
Since seeing the mountain up close was a bust, we walked up to Terrain des peintres so they could see Mt. Sainte-Victoire in all its glory from afar. They enjoyed the view and we walked around a bit in the neighborhood before heading back into town.
We made ratatouille for dinner together using the produce we got at the market. It turned out alright, we ate it all but I don’t think we sliced the veggies thin enough. Still, it was fun to try something new, especially a dish from Southern France!
Day 4: Cassis
You can’t visit Provence without seeing les calanques. Since we still hadn’t been to Cassis yet, we thought it would be good to not only cross a place off our list but also bring our friends so they can experience the calanques.
We took Cartreize 72 to Aubagne (Pole d’Echanges) and then the 68 to Cassis (Belsunce). It was pretty easy and took about an hour and a half.
From the Belsunce stop, you can follow the roads down into the city until you get to Avenue de l’Amiral Ganteaume and then head west on it. We stopped by another beach (again, too cold!). The views were pretty nice!
We then kept heading toward Avenue des Calanques which marks the start of the hiking paths across the calanques.
Once you get to the first calanque, Calanque de Port Miou, you’ll see everyone on the trails and it’s your decision from there. We walked along Port Miou and headed towards another calanque, Port Pin. The views are tremendously awesome — again, this is why you visit Provence!
Once we got to Port Pin, we followed a trail that looked like fun and ended up on Pointe de la Cacau (we didn’t know this at the time). The views were excellent as you could see one of the other calanques across the way.
There was an abandoned decrepit house and we explored it a bit. It appeared to be a late night hangout for some youth, judging by the alcohol bottles. It was pretty creepy.
We wanted to catch the bus home in time for dinner so we had to head back (it was about a 2 hour hike to Port Pin from the bus stop) even though we would have liked to explore the myriad other trails.
We headed back to the Belsunce stop but we didn’t see a bus stop for the reverse direction (back to Aubagne). We didn’t want to take a chance so we headed to the next stop, Les Hauts Cepages. This one had a stop for the right direction. Maybe Belsunce would have worked out but it would have been a long wait if we were wrong. The bus arrived a bit late which wasn’t a good sign, and the transfer to the 72 back to Aix was only a 10 minute layover. Sure enough, as soon as we pulled into the bus station in Aubagne, we saw the 72 leaving — damn it! Now we had to wait another hour for the next bus. It wasn’t fun.
Exhausted and tired, we all took some naps when we got back to Aix. For dinner we went to one of our favorite places, Nirvana. I had the chicken vindaloo (of course) and the others tried some other dishes including the Pho. It was all delicious, the owner regaled us with some stories again, and they even brought us some sake at the end, on the house. We love Nirvana.
Day 5: Worst Day Ever
Since this was our friends’ first time in France they couldn’t just visit Provence, they had to see Paris too. Looking for an opportunity to accompany them while also managing to get some more traveling done, we decided we’d head back with them to Paris and the next day, start our tour of western France— heading to Rennes, Nantes, and Bordeaux.
Before they arrived, I booked the Ouigo from Aix to Paris, the same way we did our last trip to Paris. Since our friends were heading back home to Minneapolis, we also asked if they could take one of our big checked bags. They agreed and we hauled it onto the Ouigo, making sure to register it for myself (an extra 5 euros). I put a tag with my name and number on it, a formality since we had never run into issues with baggage on the train.
This was supposed to be an easy trip, nothing interesting. Instead, it turned out to be one of the worst days of our stay in France.
Everything was going well, and we boarded the train in Aix (we were first in line since we knew where the line began from last time). I put our checked bag on the same level as us, in the baggage area. We rested or read or listened to music for the ride and then something happened after we left the station in Lyon. Celeste was taking a nap so everything was in French without our translator, but I heard the conductor say something over the speaker — nothing new, they do it all the time. Then I get a call on my phone, my French phone number. Who could it be? I don’t speak French, the number is nothing I recognize, Celeste is sleeping — they’ll leave a message if it’s important. I do see afterwards they left a message so I dial 123 to try and hear it. It’s all in French and I can’t figure out what it’s saying so I give up, I’ll have Celeste try later when she wakes up. Then after a few minutes some Ouigo people come through the cabin and are asking something in French. I get a weird feeling so I wake Celeste up and she says they’re asking if anyone has a black bag. Well, we have a black bag but it’s right here in the train so we don’t say anything. Suddenly I have a bad feeling and need to check just in case — what if it is our bag? I go back to the baggage area and… nothing. It’s gone. Our bag with all our stuff is gone. Shit.
I hurry and catch the Ouigo folks up in the next car. I ask if they speak English and they do and I tell them we had a black bag and it’s not in the train anymore. I bring them back to my seat and show them my tickets and passport. Sure enough, it appears somebody mistakenly took our bag off in Lyon and left it on the platform. Let me repeat that: they left it on the platform. That isn’t good — because you know what they do with unknown baggage left alone? They treat it like a bomb and blow it sky high. We discover the police took it and they have it at the airport (attached to the train station) — they didn’t blow it up, thank God. We have to go back to Lyon now, once we arrive in Paris. Celeste is beside herself and I’m frustrated because they said we have to pay (again) for something we didn’t do? Uh-uh. Seeing Celeste crying must have triggered some sympathy because the Ouigo man said we could just ride back with him to Lyon on the same train. We were pretty sure this was unauthorized but we didn’t complain — we thanked him profusely; it wasn’t his fault our bag was taken and he didn’t have to do that.
We arrived back in Lyon after playing musical chairs, ending up sitting away from each other since we didn’t have assigned seats. We went to the airport, they brought our bag out and… it was ripped apart. I had put a TSA lock on it and instead of just breaking it, they sliced open the bag. I don’t think not having a lock would have made a difference but it was devastating to see it.
They had gone through everything and we were assured it was all still there but they had just put three wraps of plastic tape around it to keep it together. We could still haul it around and the wheels worked but it just looked terrible. We then proceeded to wait at the train station until the next Ouigo train, of which the previous conductor had told we could speak to someone and they could get us back to Paris. All of this was arranged by Good Guy Ouigo.
We made it onto the train back to Paris but even though the gentleman we spoke to said he gave us seats it turned out those seats were taken — we couldn’t just kick them out, we had no proof those were our seats, only the word of the one guy. There were no other seats open and the train was full, so we ended up sitting in the entryway of the coach on the steps near the door. Talk about true third-class travel. Still, even though our butts hurt, we had our suitcase with all our stuff — we just had to get to Paris.
A Tale of a Bathroom Door
Having nothing much to do, we sat and watched people enter and exit the bathroom. Since I’m a designer, I was intrigued by the utter fail of the door design. It had two buttons and an indicator, seen below:
The same buttons were also inside the bathroom.
The majority of adults thought the middle indicator was actually a button, as it said “Toilettes” on it. Furthermore, even when the indicator was “lit” with a red border to indicate occupancy, nobody understood it — they kept asking us and they didn’t try pressing the Open (Ouvrir) button, we told them to press Open and then they did (and they were always surprised). They also tried the door handle, instead of pressing the Open button. Kids would press the Open button right away, not even thinking if the bathroom was vacant or occupied.
I think adults didn’t press Open right away because they were worried it would open when someone was inside and that would be embarrassing. It could also be the Open button looks like an indicator, not a button you can press. It could even be a subconcious confusion between the door being “open” and the bathroom being “open” (vacant). Kids didn’t care, saw a green button, and pressed it.
The other confusing part is that there are only two states of the door, open and closed (fermer). Why are there two buttons? You can’t close a closed door and you can’t open an open door. There should have only been ONE button that opened the door if it was closed and closed it if it was open — it even auto-closed after a certain amount of time. Furthermore, the indicator was poor and didn’t readily tell people that the bathroom was vacant or occupied. When people tried to press Open, it wouldn’t open because it was occupied but they couldn’t easily tell. Then they tried pressing the indicator, itself looking like another button. It should have been put above the buttons (or better yet, on the door) with a green and red background to make it easy to see.
It was fascinating to watch poor design in action and it kept me occupied most of the time on the floor of that train.
Before we left for Lyon, we sent our two friends off in Paris to our AirBNB apartment. We didn’t want them coming back with us and wasting time. They came to see Paris and we knew they were big boys and could get around without us. I had been texting them throughout this ordeal and they had made it to the apartment, went to a few places, and were enjoying themselves.
Finally, we made it to the Euro Disneyland station around 7pm. It took another hour for us to reach the apartment in the Latin Quarter, so we finally got to Paris 12 hours after we left Aix. An entire day gone, our baggage wrecked. Before dinner and before everything closed we needed to find a new bag since we would leave Paris 6am tomorrow — we were worried we wouldn’t be able to find a place open that had some. Thank the Baggage Gods, Monoprix had some bags and so we picked a duffle-suitcase that was a good price.
Our minds at ease, we had dinner with our friends nearby the apartment at a place called Bistro 1. We had some wine to bury the day and we had a good time just being with our friends. They talked about what they did and we related the story of our baggage, something we hope to never relive. Next time, we’re putting pink ribbons on our bags so they’re unmistakably ours.
Exhausted by the events of the day, we fell asleep instantly. We needed some rest before we left Paris and started on our tour of the west of France, which you can read about next.
