Toulon vs Clermont at Le Nouveau Stade Velodrome

Rugby day - yay - but not until this afternoon.

In the morning we headed off to the Mucem -

Suspended between sky and water, floating at the entrance to the Vieux Port in Marseille, the MuCEM is building new bridges. In its very location, facing the open sea, this museum is a major project for the Mediterranean, reshaping its future and forming a meeting point for its two shores.

This is the first time that a museum has been devoted to the cultures of the Mediterranean: the MuCEM is unique in that it retraces, analyses and sheds light on, in a single dynamic and a single place, the ancient foundations of this fertile cradle of civilization, as well as the tensions that have been a feature right up to the present day. It is a place of knowledge and exchange centred on the issues of the past, the present and the future.

The mucem is located to the left and its architecture is really unique -
 

The bridge over is unique on its own - we chose to go today as the first Sunday of every month all museums in Marseille are free to go into - makes it very busy but cheap - we all really enjoyed our experience of exploring.

Then it was time to head to the rugby 

Gettng to the stadium - Nonu is certainly a drawcard - other players of note were Mathieu Bastareaud (who was the French player who went AWOL in Wellington), Juan Martin Fernandez-Lobbe (the Argentine captain who was pretty cute and still is), Bryan Habana, Drew Mitchell, James O'Connor and Tom Taylor.  Clemont has Benson Stanley and Isaia Toeava.  

Nonu is on the field - yay - and he was easy to spot with his bandage on his arm! 

The crowd is building up as the players warm up - the stadium holds 67,000 and at todays game there was 57,886 people - it was huge and it was loud........great atmosphere in an amazing stadium.  Getting to the metro was chaos after the game - we went for dinner first to let the crowds go..........

Wahoo - so cool to be here! 

Even the beer cups pictured Nonu - no this is not Lachlan's beer - and beer prices are similar to our stadiums 8 euro per beer! We were just drinking to get the cups!!!!!!

Me and my hunny!!!!!!!

The crowd! Toulon is black and red and was pretty dominant! Unfortunately Toulon lost in the last minutes of the game when Clermont scored a converted try.  Toulon lost 18-17. 

Here are a couple of videos - the first one is of the crowd and us; the second one is of the crowd (and us) doing the mexican wave and then you can here the Toulon chant as we kick for goal......................hopefully they give some idea of the atmosphere! You have to keep the videos at little size otherwise they are super blury!