Wednesday 29 August 2007. The Island Star has docked in Marseilles and having walked around the Old Port on last year's cruise, we have opted for an excursion to nearby Cassis.
However, our tour guide asked the driver of the coach to stop near the Old Port so that she could point out something and that turned out to be long enough for the French Transport Ministry officials to board and decide they were going to do a spot check of the coach's condition. This would take half an hour.
The tour guide explained that there had recently been an accident resulting in many deaths due to a coach having faulty brakes and therefore there was currently something of a crackdown. I can remember a similar period in the UK when coaches were being randomly stopped and checked and so we were just unlucky.
We spent the half hour walking around a corner of the Fort St Jean on the eastern side of the port entrance. The guide was trying to juggle between pointing out the sights and talking on her phone to the driver to see if the inspection was finished and to the ship to keep them informed. The ship had just insisted that another coach be sent to pick us up when the driver appeared around the corner with the good news that his brakes worked and we could carry on!
Thankfully we clambered back onto the coach and resumed the journey to Cassis. And that's where we will be for the next thrilling instalment!
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