Exploring

The rest of the choir went north. I caught a bus south to Marseille to meet up with the penfriend I started writing to when we were about 15. Baggage dumped, we walked to the Vieux Port then visited the reproduction of the 'Cosquer grotto' which I'd heard about but hadn't realised was there.

The huge underground cavern where prehistoric people, between 32,500 and 19,000 years ago, drew pictures of horses, bisons, penguins and other animals, and made handprints, is about 12km from Marseille. At the end of the Ice Age, the rising sea levels blocked off the entrance and it wasn't discovered until 1985 - by the diver Henri Cosquer. It is still inaccessible, and seriously at risk from rising sea levels, but the reproduction in Marseille is so meticulous that it's hard to believe it isn't the real thing.

By the time we got out, it was too dark to do much more city-meandering.