After a long, cold, rainy winter, there comes a time when you can no longer stand the sound of your slippers flip-flopping around the house. It's time to put your boots back on and go outside!
Time to get back on the trail! With the intention of picking up the GR653 where I left off in October, I set out with my faithful hiking companion Mariella to get the bus to Montpellier. The trip turned out to be a bit of a marathon - literally!
Unbeknownst to us, it was the day of the Genova marathon! This meant that the city centre was closed to traffic and the bus could not travel its usual route. The bus stop had been moved - just for today; pity the bus company hadn't thought to tell us! So after getting up in the wee hours in order to catch the early morning bus and be able to get in half a day's hiking in the afternoon, we ended up sitting around in Genoa until the ten o'clock bus, which of course didn't get in until eleven o'clock because of the roadblocks and consequent traffic snarls...
Once we did get on the road, however, the trip went seamlessly, and our driver was very friendly and couteous (in three languages). Arriving in Montpellier at dusk, we gave up on the idea of walking the 10 km from the flixbus stop to our airbnb and took the tram. Our hostess met us at the nearest tram stop and accompanied us the rest of the way to our studio apartment, on the northwestern edge of the city so that we can set off straight into the countryside in the morning and pick up the GR653 in the village of Grabels.
All's well that ends well... even the Flixbus Marathon!
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