My husband and I took a cruise to the Mediterranean. What a wonderful trip. We started in Rome, sailed to Florence, to Marseille and Sete and ended in Barcelona.

What a beautiful part of the world!

We had a coffee at a coffee shop in Aix en Provence. There are coffee shops everywhere. People eat outside even when the temperature is in the fifties.

Behind the coffee drinkers, one can see white huts. There was a Christmas fair going on, each hut a different vendor.

We went to Marseille but I took no pictures. WE weren’t allowed to leave the bus and had to take a different route because of the yellow jackets (or yellow vests). Outside of Marseille, however, we stopped at Sete, a small fishing village. It is called little Venice because of the number of canals.

As the sun was setting, we walked along the coast of the town. A truly beautiful place.

We did see some of the protests and the protesters, not in Sete, but on excursions to the countryside. Traffic was frequently diverted and, in some cases, stopped, and smoke from burning tires filled the air. Graffitti criticizing Macros was scribbled at toll stops and on walls (my French is not up to the task of translation) and there were a lot of people wearing the yellow vests. I never felt unsafe and I thought the discussions added a depth to the visit it might not have otherwise had. It certainly made the visit memorable.