Ariel in Paris #9: Sickness by the Sea

Hey everybody! This past weekend I went to the south of France with some friends, and today I wanted to talk to you about it (and include some cool pics of water and fun buildings while I’m at it.)

We went to three different cities in southern France: Aix-en-Provence, Cassis, and Marseille, which was where our Airbnb was but where, unfortunately, we didn’t spend all that much time. Trying to go to three different places over three different days, one of which was only about half a day, and still attempting to see everything there is to offer in said three different places—let’s just say it doesn’t work all that well. I had fun, anyway, though.

It was warm, and there were beautiful plants and ultra-blue waters and rocky beaches (one of which I took a rock from). It wasn’t warm enough to swim—we tried and gave up almost immediately—but just sitting by the water and staring out across endless blue was cool enough.

The problem, however, was that apparently, even though I loved all the beauty that was everywhere in southern France, it appears that that beauty did not love me. I was sick for about the last day and a half of the trip, with what I can only assume was some kind of allergic reaction to the flora and/or weather. Almost as soon as I got back into Paris, I started feeling better. I still have a bit of a stuffy nose, but I definitely don’t feel nearly as bad as I did that last day when we were trying to frantically see as much as we could of Marseille in the little time we had before our train left.

Other than the sickness, though, the trip was a ton of fun.

We spent the first day in Aix-en-Provence, where we did a lot of walking and saw a cool fountain and a library with giant book sculptures out front:

Then the next day, we went to Cassis, where we spent most of the day just hanging out on the beach. Like I said, I didn’t swim, but I did go down near the water and let my foot hang down to dip in it every once in a while.

And, of course, the last day, our train left to go back to Paris at about 1 pm, and we didn’t leave our Airbnb until about 10, so we didn’t have time to see all that much, but we walked around a bit and went up to a beautiful look-out point where we could see all over the city, which was pretty cool.

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That was my trip to the south of France this weekend! I had a lot of fun, even if I wish we could have spent a little more time in all those places.

Thanks for reading, everyone, and I’ll see you next week!

-Ariel