Nearly Blown Away By Marseille

LOCATION:

Marseille, France

 

The last city on the France tour was Marseille. Neither Lauren nor I had been here before, so we had no expectations. The first thing we noticed - while lugging our heavy bags from the train station - were the hills! It felt like ups and downs forever. As soon as we dropped off our bags we headed out to the impressive cathedral on the hill we had seen from the train, the Notre Dame de la Garde. This church looked much newer than any we had seen before, and the inside was very clean with its candy colored stripes and nautical themes.

To give an idea of size, the baby Jesus that Mary is holding has a wrist that is 1.1 meters across!

Very bright inside, and notice the hanging ships and nautical mosaics.

 

The church's hilltop location gave us a good view of the Mediterranean and the Chateau d'If, where Alexander Dumas' Count of Monte Christo was wrongfully held captive. It is on one of the islands, and is similar to Alcatraz in San Francisco.

We thought it was windy on day one... Little did we know what as coming!

 

The next day we did our best to be proper tourists, but cold temps and 50mph wind gusts had us nearly running (and blowing!) from destination to destination. We did see another great church and an incredible photography exhibition featuring ruins from at least a dozen famous sites, but sadly no pictures were taken by me because taking the camera out was too much work for my cold hands. But I did take my gloves off long enough to get some pictures of the waves crashing in the bay!

Water crashing over the walls.

Look at those white caps! No boat tour for us.

 

On our final night in Marseille, Lauren and I bundled up and braved the cold to attend a football match - Marseille against Corsica. My knowledge of European football is far worse than my knowledge of American football, but it was fun to watch both the game and the screaming fans. American football fans can get rowdy, but European fans take it to another level - they were singing and chanting in unison for the entire match. I now know most of the words to a Marseille fight song! "Allez OM..."

 

We had on about six layers each. This is what happens when people from Texas go outside when it is below 40 degrees.

Marseille is the light blue socks. Despite the action here, the final score was 0-0.

French hotdog, served in a baguette of course!

 

This Marseille summary would not be complete without mentioning our awesome hotel, the Mama Shelter. Lauren found it based on a New York Times article, and I am still not sure how we scored such a great deal, but this place was awesome. Super fast wifi, free movies, and an uber-trendy atmosphere provided a much needed respite from the cold and wind we experienced. Overall I am still undecided about Marseille as a destination - parts of it were charming (in a gritty way, if that makes sense) and the up-and-coming art scene was impressive, but perhaps this port city would be better explored in the summer months. We still had a great time though, and I am sad my time with Lauren has come to an end. She returns to Austin tomorrow and my journey continues. Time to ease on down the road - to London!!

 

Lauren modeling one of the masks that was decorating our room.

 

See you later, France! It has been fun!

 

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