The route between Paris and Naples came to be very well trodden in the years from 1266 to 1305. Long-distance travel in the middle ages was never comfortable nor particularly safe; brigandage by land and piracy by sea always threatened. But this was not, by contemporary standards, a difficult journey. That Charles of Anjou had already been count of Provence for twenty years before he became king of the Regno was the crucial fact in easing the traveller's way. After 1271 (the date of the death of Alphonse of Poitiers), a Parisian might travel through land belonging either to the king of France or to the count of Anjou (Charles) until he got to the Italian border. This route would take him through northern France, then across the Loire at Tours and then south to Languedoc. The alternative way, taken by Gui de Dampierre in 1270, was through Burgundy and then down the Rhône to Provence. Each of these was well protected and provided with inns; royal coinage was accepted everywhere. The traveller probably entered Provençal territory at Avignon, or perhaps Tarascon. Here he would have to exchange his gold or his livres parisis for Count Charles's money, which he might well be unwilling to do, especially when the effects of debasement were clearly felt on the coinage of Provence. But he would still be protected by comital officials on his path to Marseilles (or just occasionally Nice), and there were comital stables at which he could rest his horses.