My night in the Marseille train station

My night in the Marseille train station

It's true. I spent a night in the Marseille train station. I didn't intend to do it, it just happened.

I spent my junior year of college in Madrid, Spain. A couple of friends and I planned a train trip to see other parts of Europe during our Christmas break. How hard could this be after all? We were about to find out. We decided to not lose time by travelling long distances during the day and took the overnight train from Madrid to Barcelona. This was in the dark ages, before the high speed trains that are now the norm in Europe. Our next stop was Carcassonne, France, an ancient walled city not too far from the Spain/France border. I don't remember much about it other than I had a fabulous lamb meal. I believe we only spent one night there and we were on our way to Italy the next morning.

We were about to learn that you must make sure you sit in the right car as parts of the train do not continue to travel on to your desired destination. I can't remember how we figured it out but I do remember a little boy laughing at us when we discovered we were in the wrong car. This part of the train was not going on to Italy, it stopped in Marseille, France. And there were no other trains to Italy until the following morning. Okay, don't panic, we thought. This will work out. We'll get a room for the night and head out to Italy the next morning. Oh, the best laid plans of mice and men.

Our worst fears were about to come true. We walked around town to find a room for the night only to see the word "Complet" (full in French) on every hotel door we happened upon. We had no choice but to spend the night in the train station. I had never felt so frightened in all my life! Thoughts of what might happen to us kept creeping into my mind. We found some chairs and decided to take turns "keeping watch", meaning one of us would stay awake while the other two would try to snooze. I don't know about my two friends but I did no snoozing that night!

Finally the hour came for us to board our train to Florence and at that point in my life I had never felt such relief as I felt that day. I had planned on viewing and photographing the French Riviera on my way to Italy. Alas, it was not meant to be as I could not stay awake. I recall waking up at one point, looking out the window at the beautiful blue sea and thinking "I wish I could stay awake for this" and then putting my head back down and sleeping through the entire trip.

The rest of our trip was uneventful, thank goodness. We have fond memories of Florence, Venice, Pisa, Vienna and Munich. Some day I will go back to southern France and capture the beautiful Riviera in photographs. That was quite the lesson for 20 year old college students. We had no choice but to be brave that night in the Marseille train station but I don't think I will be going back to Marseille any time soon.