KEY POINTS:
This tour is beginning to get a distinctly "If it's Tuesday, this must be..." feel to it.
Actually it is Tuesday and this is Aix-en-Provence, or a Novotel on the outskirts of Aix at least. Since I was last here on Friday I have taken a slow train
across the south of France to Toulouse, a fast train northwest to Bordeaux, another one northeast to Paris, several metro rides across that fantastic city and, finally, a fast train back to the south of France. Forget planes, trains and automobiles, this has been trains, trains and locomotives.
The best journey was the one across the bottom of France. From Marseille the train trundled west, uneventfully at first, until reaching Montpellier. After Montpellier it rolled though towns like Sete, Beziers, Narbonne and Carcassonne. This might sound stupid, but it felt like rugby country. As we passed through Beziers you could see Association Sportive Béziers Hérault's ground on a hill at the top of the town.
Men like Alain Esteve, Armand Vaquerin, Michel Palmie, Alain Paco and Pierre Lacans called this home and bled buckets for the village. They are a faded force now but have 12 French Championships in total, most of them won in the 1970s and 80s when they were the most ruthless and feared club side in the world.
Narbonne is next, home to Racing Club de Narbonne Méditerannée, which has two French championships to cherish. Like Beziers, they too find themselves in the second division now, a fact that would have been unpalatable in the days of Walter Spanghero and Didier Cordoniou. Current France reserve hooker Dimitri Szarzewski is from Narbonne, though played for Beziers.
Carcassonne came into view and it is an imposing looking walled town with a rich rugby league history.
Finally Toulouse. If towns like Beziers and Narbonne are the heart of French rugby then Toulouse is the muscle and sinew.
It now has a moderately successful football team but Toulouse is unquestionably a rugby town. Stade Toulousain has won three European championships and the French championship 16 times. It is the club of Jean-Pierre Rives, of Claude Skrela, of Pierre Villepreaux. Most of its current squad, including Byron Kelleher and Finau Maka, are playing at this World Cup.
The All Blacks played the following day and it seems a crying shame that Toulouse is getting any of the knockout games because the rugby folk here deserve it. It's not a pleasant city. A journalist told me it had taken him two days to realise there was more to Toulouse "than dog-shit and tramps", but it is rugby heartland.
Bordeaux was just a whistlestop en route to Paris but I was pleased to see miles and miles of vineyards so I could keep that clichéd picture of the area in my head.
A colleague and I arrived at Paris Montparnasse, got ourselves across town to our hotel at Gare de Lyon, and then back across to Parc des Princes for the pivotal Argentina-Ireland match, a game that would decide the All Blacks opponents in the quarterfinal.
I missed out on accreditation for this match but put myself on the waitlist. It's a brutal process where you're given a number (I was 25) and wait until the last-minute to see if 25 other muppets haven't turned up. I managed to get in and, to my accredited colleague's chagrin, got a prime tabled position on the halfway line while he slummed it up on a tiny seat at the back of the stand.
I'm glad I took the chance. In terms of atmosphere the more intimate Parc des Princes beats Stade de France hands down. It was a magic day for Argentina and a tragic day for Ireland. There were some great post-match touches though. Agustin Pichot's kids ran riot in the press conference and mixed zone and Argentinians, more used to getting in fervour over football, were literally bouncing off the walls. The noise was deafening.
The Irish? Well their fans just confirmed they're the best losers in the business. It was a terrific evening.
Now it's Aix, where I'm based for the two Marseille quarterfinals.
Let's put it this way: there are worse places to be.
