Eating our Way Home from Europe

Sadly our trip had to come to an end. Due to Covid restrictions and prices of flights when we booked, it took us three days to get home. This sounds bad if we were in a hurry to get back but, in our case it was just another chance for a gastronomical tour.

Friday morning started as every day at Le Mas des Herbes Blanches with a beautiful breakfast on the patio. After extended goodbyes to our friends we boarded the bus to the Avignon TGV station and returned to Marseille.

We recommend the Holiday Inn Express at the Saint Charles for anyone using Marseille as a hub to Provence. It is very comfortable with a great breakfast. Best of all it is across the street from the Saint Charles Gare where you can catch a metro to anywhere in Marseille or a train to anywhere in Europe.

There is a train to the airport as well. We didn't know that on the way in and paid 70 Euro's for a taxi ride. The train cost 10.8 Euro's plus a 5 minute ride on City Bus #13 to the airport. The bus ride cost is 1.20 Euro per person. It's very easy and comfortable.

We were pretty exhausted after all the activities and meetings in Joucas but we did take the opportunity to walk down to an art district called Le Panier de Marseille for dinner.

We were after moules (mussels) but they were out of season. We had to settle for Oysters, Crab, Clams and Whelks at a wonderful restaurant on the street called Entre Terre et Mer (Between Land & Sea). We sat next to a couple from the UK that were slightly older but with many similar life experiences. Patrick and Debbie were fun to talk to and we were matching stories like it was a sports event.

Patrick played music for Tom Jones but we played music for Joe Cocker which quite impressed them. They fact that we stayed in the childhood home of George Best was also well appreciated. Patrick is Irish and George was his childhood hero and he was for many people apparently.

The next morning we had a relaxed breakfast and left the hotel at 9:30 to go to the Marseille Airport.

We were kind of surprised at how many of these places featured for Provence that we have visited over the years. We always stop to remind ourselves how fortunate we are to be able to do this.

The flight to Munich was delayed but we had a seven hour layover so again no stress. However once we arrived we caused ourselves some stress trying to find the beer garden to have schnitzel. There are two terminals and two zones within the very large Munchen Airport. I think we have four stamps in our passports from moving back and forth between the Euro Zone and the International Zone to properly exit the airport where the Beer Garden is located. We were ultimately successful.

Finally it was time to board our flight to Bangkok. It's a long 10 hour overnight flight and that plane was completely full (good for Thailand tourism). Thailand was pretty efficient processing us and we were in our hotel room by 4pm.

Between the time we booked this trip and travelled, Thailand changed the rules so we weren't actually required to stay overnight in Bangkok when we returned. Before the rule change on the first of May we would have had to have a Covid test and wait in our room until the results came back negative. The room we booked was highly recommended by our friend and neighbor Mike. It was a good value but non-refundable. We decided to stay and rest up at the Novotel so we will be able to go home tomorrow and have energy to play with our pets.

This was a great suggestion because not only is the Novotel a great place to stay at the airport, it has an excellent restaurant. After two weeks without Thai food it was a real treat. In fact this restaurant is so good it would be worth coming over if we're just connecting through domestically.

We will sleep very well tonight and we look forward to being home tomorrow. It's been another wonderful trip and so appreciated following the three years of not travelling internationally during the pandemic.