France - Marseille

A short drive from Lezignan to Narbonne to meet the train for Marseille was a good early start to our Monday morning.  The train got into Marseille at around lunchtime.  The train station was big and a bit confusing, it took a little time to find the right exit door, once we did we had many steps to carry our packs down – yeeks!, then go down a hill until we found the hotel, which wasn't far.  The city was a busy one, with people on the streets and traffic tearing around.  We could smell that sea air again, and we had to go and find it! And we did.  Another city central marina/port, with yachts and motorboats of all shapes and sizes.

Steps at the Main station - too many !

A real cappuccino

Typical apartment block

We managed to get a cheap hop on hop off ticket as it was late in the afternoon, which turned out to be a great thing.  It was a really good circuit and the commentary was good, even though it was an Aussie accent.   We were truly on the Mediterranean  blue skies, calm sea as far as you could see and white wash and cream coloured houses, with bright shutters and would have once been only a month or so ago beautiful gardens.  There were little boat harbour tucked in everywhere they could squeeze one.  It was really interesting landscape as it was gentle rolling country so things were built on the side of hills and added to the character of the city.  We saw the sunset over the Med and the city, it was beautiful, our photos haven’t really done it justice I’m afraid.  We had a nice dinner at a waterfront pub, that served traditional foods, Murray had scallops with pasta and myself pork hock with potatoes and onions.  Both very nice, the hock was massive and so we took it away for tomorrows lunch.  No deserts were required as we had eaten our quota – the walk back to the hotel was good to shake down all the food!   On the way we stopped at the supermarket and picked up some supplies to have for breakfast.

Little boat harbours tucked in everywhere

The gorgeous Med.

Next morning we woke to sunny skies, and cool sea breezes.  We headed off in the general direction of the Notre Dame de la Garde, but we did get side tracked a little.  We found some interesting streets with a huge African influence.  We had noticed there were many dark skinned people, and they certainly added colour to the city.  I am not meaning this in a racist way, more that they actually do add colour.  Often their clothes are bright colours, there big smiles and cheerfulness was bright and then their graffiti and artwork on the buildings were bright.  We came across a street market. Brought a pair of jeans, which I had to climb in the back of a van to try on – by the time I had tried on 3 pairs I was sweating like a piglet!  Nice jeans though.  We brought some other bits too, started our xmas shopping even!  We continued on head in the general direction, brought some buns and cheese to go with our bacon hock and tomato and arvo and went and sat in a park with the homeless!  H hmm slightly depressing, as we left two people quickly rushed over to see if we had left anything behind and we saw them walk away shaking their heads.  Two, too tidy kiwi’s I guess.

The walk up to the cathedral was a steep one, but it was worth it.  The view was fantastic.  The wind was bloody horrible though.  You could see for miles out to sea and then along the coast and back into the country to the east of the city.  Huge limestone hills in the distance stood out, would be nice to get up on one of those hills and look back towards the city.  The Cathedral itself was beautiful,  in cream probably limestone bricks, the towers were 41m and then the statue of Mary and Jesus and its platform  was 24m and it weighed 9796 kg.  The circumference of the baby Jesus wrist is 1.10m, so it was pretty big really.  The statue was all in gold and stood out for miles.  Originally this hill provided a good place for a lookout, then in the 15th century someone built a fort and in 1853 this basilica was built.  It was not the first church built on this sight though. 

After some time spent looking at the landscape of the city, we headed down for a snack and another look around the city harbour.  Marseilles sure is a pretty place.  I think it would be frantically busy in the high summer months.  The next day we were back on the train heading north for Lyon our last stop in France.