In order not to miss Marseille Thomas sets the alarm clock, and being the cautious person he is he does a test run first. And - it fails. Our only alarm clock's not working. Being afraid we could oversleep, he writes a note for the conductor, but that's rather useless since the train dos not stop at a station between Nancy (about 22.00) and Marseille, so the conductor has no urge to go through the waggons because he already checked the tickets.
As it shows out, it's not easy for three persons to get some sleep in a compartment for six, because the seats are arranged in two rows of three. Thomas and I try to share one of these rows as a couch, but at some time I throw in the towel, put my insulation mat on the floor and lie down there. I don't sleep much on the carpet either, since without any padding you feel each little jerk of the train, and it's of course not very comfortable.
The train goes at a rather slow pace on the first part of the journey and stops often at stations and stays there for up to one hour. It even stops outside stations for up to half an hour. I don't know the cause because the window of the air-conditioned compartment can't be opened, but I've seen several red signals and I assume that freight traffic has priority at night, as it is the case with the Bundesbahn, the German federal railroad company.
However, we arrive at Marseille at 05.15 just seven minutes late, but that's already part of Day 1.