Arrived in Marseille... warm, glorious sunshine... took the express bus from the airport to St Charles station... there is graffiti everywhere, including in some quite astonishing places which people must have risked their lives to reach...
Metro from St Charles to hotel... checked in, dumped stuff and straight back out to catch the last practice of the day - senior men.
20 minute walk to the arena... Yes, you do have to watch out for "dog bombs" on the pavement... construction everywhere... cars parked on pavements everywhere... no trouble reaching the arena though.
A
lot of Japanese fans were there! :-D
The seats are as expected, not very comfortable LOL. Top of the railings in front of Cat1 area are eye level, not good -_- Certain parts of 1st/2nd row "gold" seating may have view partially obstructed by a camera and/or its operator (it's possibly the tech panel's camera).
There's a café in the building, and I saw a small kiosk in the arena area. Not sure if there are any more facilities than that. I'm planning to buy baguettes, fruit, snacks, water on the way to the rink tomorrow...!
Not much to say about men's practice... there seem to be videos appearing so people can see for themselves...
A bit chilly going back, after sun went down, but not too cold... arena itself was not cold either, I was down to t-shirt most of the time I was there, but that
was just after a 20 minute walk...
