France 23 March: Arles - Marseille
After a good nights rest at very interesting place, a highway–trucker motel, we headed towards our finishing place of yesterday, the ´Stadium Grand Fournier´, where we met a lady and a man on bike from the ´Sprinter Club Arlesien´.
They were extremely athletic and we had a very nice conversation with them about sports and our equal love of nature. They ran with us for about 16 km until the city of Fontvieille.
In the meantime, a lady from the same running club asked one of her friends in Fontvieille to organize a spontaneous sports event with students from her school. So it happened that we had a wonderful meeting with about 100 enthusiastic children of seven years old, who held the torch and had their own relay with the torch on a big field. Afterwards we sang our World Harmony Run Song to them and we were so happy when they
sang the Marseillaise to us, which is the National Anthem and a very powerful marching song.
As the run went on we came to Martigues. Our French friends Marylene and Marie were running and Annemijn was in a car waiting for them as a radio-interviewer pulled over and asked what was happening with the ladies who were running with the torch along the road. A bit later our French coordinators were giving an interview. An hour later again three of our runners bumped into a journalist who made some shots. We must say that the journalists in this area are really sharp!
We ran on and met some runners from the running club ´Sausset les Pins´ who ran with us towards the start of the Cộte d´Azur, where a big blue ocean appeared before us with the sun shining brightly and some sailing boats crossing the waters. We continued running along the coast for a few kilometers in the direction of Marseille. A little further the landscape transformed into some rocky formation which reminded some of us of a former Harmony Run in Greece .
After some major traffic experience, as in every big city, we came closer to the magic of Marseille. We had a striking view of the Notre Dame de la Garde, a church with a seven ton golden statue on top of it with the virgin Mary holding the child Jesus in her arms. This statue is located on the highest hilltop of a range that surrounds the harbour. Symbolically she is protecting the sailors of the city.
We ran along the coast along the harbour to the Prado beach. On our way we could see a prison, built on a rock in the sea. Alexandre Dumas, who wrote the Count of Monte Christo, got the inspiration for this story from this prison.
Happy with our own freedom we breathed in the fresh ocean air and finished our running under a coconut tree.
Afterwards we were invited for a huge, healthy buffet in the health food store `Strength-Indomitable-Bliss´ in Marseille, which our friend Josianne made for us.
THANK YOU JOSIANNE!!!
Distance: 127km
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