Marseille

I’ve always wanted to go to Marseille, even though most people don’t seem to have a very high opinion of it. Yeah, it’s a port city and it’s not pretty with flowers and parks everywhere like other French cities, but there’s lots to do and see and I loved it. It’s great for walking around and exploring, there are plenty of beaches to visit, the food was great, the people friendly, and is reasonably priced (except for taxis).

The original plan was to spend 5 days in Marseille doing a little site seeing and then spending the rest of our time in the gym and spa or lying by the pool. Unfortunately the weather didn’t co-operate, and we were both quite sick, so we just stuck to site seeing and searching for nice places to eat.

The Vieux Port and Le Panier was our first stop. This is definitely the most touristy part of Marseille and only really worth a quick visit. You can see the Hotel de Ville, Cathedrale de la Major, and the Vieille Charite, a beautiful 17th century building set up to help (hide?) the poor. There are lots of cute little streets to explore here but after a couple of hours we were done.

Every day at the port, you can visit the fish market. They sell all kinds of local fish, crayfish, and crabs, which were caught that day. The fish is so fresh that some of them were still moving. If we had stayed in an apartment hotel, we definitely would have been getting fish from here every day.

Next up was Le Pharo, a nice little park which overlooks the port and the islands out to see. This was right next to our hotel so we made a couple of visits, just to sit and relax and watch the boats go by.

The last major site is Notre Dame de la Garde. This basilica is high up on the hill overlooking Marseille. It’s a tough walk up the hill (especially when sick) and I noticed we were the only ones to walk up. The walk was worth it because the views are fantastic.

We spent the rest of the time visiting the beaches, exploring the markets and shops, and just relaxing.

On our last day heading to the train station, F, who knows no more than 5 people in all of France, ran into a former co-worker of his. They worked together here in Paris about 3 years ago and they never saw each after he left the job. She has recently moved to Marseille and completely by chance, both were walking down a little side street in Marseille on the same day at the same time. Comme le monde est petit!