Cycle Marseille To Barcelona

Our trip starts in Marseille. An exuberant multicultural port city in southern France with a mix of grit and grandeur, Marseille was originally founded by the Greeks in the 6th century BC and has been a crossroads of immigration and trade ever since. The Tour Leader plans to meet you in the hotel reception at 7pm for the welcome meeting and, slightly later, our first group dinner to get to know your fellow travellers. If you would like to receive a complimentary airport transfer today, you will need to arrive into Marseille Provence Airport (MRS), which is a 30-minute drive from the hotel. There are no included excursions today and if you miss the briefing, your Tour Leader will inform you of any essential information as soon as you catch up. No cycling today.

After breakfast we plan an orientation walk around old Marseille - including the old port, Place de Lenche, Place de Moulin, Notre-Dame de la Garde Basilica and the historic Panier district. Later this morning we leave the city in our bus and drive for just over an hour to Porte-Saint-Luis-du-Rhone where we take a short Rhone river ferry crossing. It is here that we commence our first cycle ride into the protected lowlands of the Rhone delta alongside dikes and saltwater lakes, always close to the sea until we reach Saintes Maries de la Mer where we spend the night in the heart of the Camargue. All the cycling today is on good gravel roads. Our support vehicle has limited access to us today due to the cycle route. Strong Mistral winds can affect the region we are cycling in today and tomorrow. Please note that it may therefore be necessary to adjust, shorten or change the rides if the weather is bad. Our total cycling distance today is approximately 31 kilometres on the flat.

Today we continue cycling on a mixture of paved and unpaved roads through the rivers, lagoons and canals of the Camargue and Rhone Delta. The area has rich birding opportunities and we will keep our eyes peeled for wildlife including the evocative white horses and Flamingos (seasonal). On our route we will visit the fortified medieval town of Aigues Mortes. Finally we reach Villeneuve-les-Maguelone where we end our ride today. We continue by train to Sete where we check into our hotel in the new part of town and you have a chance to swim in the Med. Sete is an ancient port and the old part of town is just 20-30 minutes away by foot. Our support vehicle has limited access to us today as cannot access our cycle route. Our total cycling distance today is approximately 75 kilometres (300 metres total accumulated ascent and descent).