We arrived about 6pm and it was already dark. Walking through the city down to the waterfront and our hotel was cool. It’s a busy and multicultural place. Quite different to Nice, more interesting perhaps. It definitely has its grungy side but I’m sorry to say we mostly stuck to the touristy bits.
This is the street we were staying in, near the waterfront and the Opera. It was a great location, lots of apartments, restaurants, mini supermarkets, bakeries. You could live here easily.Our apartment was lovely. It’s great to have a kitchen when you’re travelling. There was even a washing machine/drier.We were very comfortable here.A lot of the locals ride motorcycles or scooters, they were all parked outside their apartments up and down the streets.Some quite styley bikes we don’t see in NZ like this Mondial.There were quite a few of these big electric BMW scooters about, which surprised me because they’re very expensive in NZ at least.The Opera.
Notre-Dame de la Guarde is a basilica built on top of an old fort and is the city’s best known symbol probably because it stands out so much wherever you are in the city.
Notre-Dame de la Guarde from the port. It’s an imposing sight. We took a hop on hop off bus and hopped off about here.It’s beautiful inside the Basilica.The ceiling. The outside has some history. Views are spectacular. You can see the forts at the entrance to the harbour here.
We enjoyed the hop on hop off bus which gave us some ideas of things we’d like to go and see. The rest of this day was fairly relaxed.
We went out for dinner at a reasonably traditional place, they served us bread and these dips with our drinks which was very civilized. The chick pea dip was quite spicy, as was that large chilli you can see there!Bouillabaisse is a traditional Marseille dish, one of the traditions is they cut up the fish at your table and add the fish and soup to your dish. Note the waiter’s stripey top.There was quite a lot of it! It was nice but not my favourite. Pauline had Gambas and pasta, I probs would have liked that better. Still, when in Marseille!
The next day we took the ferry across the harbour and walked to one of the forts and the MUCEM museum.
View of the fort on the other side of the entrance, from the fort on this side.There are various towers.View out to sea from the fort.Inside the walls.The modern part of MUCEM to the left, the Cosquer in the middle and another very flash church in the background.
“The Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations is a national museum located in Marseille, France. It was inaugurated on 7 June 2013 as part of Marseille-Provence 2013, a year when Marseille was designated as the European Capital of Culture. In 2015, it won the Council of Europe Museum Prize.” (Wikipedia)
There were a number of exhibitions in the museum, including “Paradis naturistes” which was a history of nudism, and “Méditerranées” about Mediterranean culture. Interesting museum, worth a visit if you’re hungry and looking for the toilet!
On the way back we found a shop that sold stripey French tops. I’d noticed that some people in Marseille actually do wear these and this one is made in France so it’s even more french!
That was a good day out and we certainly had some exercise.
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