Day 12 - [M]arseilles

Finally, Marseilles

I was up before 6:00 am and straight over to Gare de Lyon and waiting at the platform gate when it opened for boarding. Second class was tolerable, though no service, and quite full. As the sun came up while we were travelling it revealed a heavy fog for a long time, then lovely French countryside. The train sped along at 297 km/h for a lot of the journey.

I arrived at Marseilles just before 10:00 am. The view from the station was quite impressive. I tried to take a photo back up at the station but the staircase was too big (I’d noticed how big it was lugging my bag down it!).

View from Marseilles St Charles

Back up to St Charles station

Google told me that I had a 45 min walk to my AirBNB. It was a lovely day and the walk was right through the city, so I felt it would be a tourist event in itself. And it was. I got a very good impression of the city, I think. Lots of French reinforced concrete building in the classical French style (which I really like), on large boulevards, often tree-lined, with a warren of small streets heading away from the centre, in a typical European town fashion.

Tree-lined boulevards	Grand squares
Unique architecture	Hausmannian buildings (I looked it up)

Marseilles is a port city, of course. Google led me past the main port. The photos don’t really capture the scale of the place – much larger than Circular Quay or Darling Harbour in Sydney – and as the photos indicate, choked with tied up boats. I’ll have to come back here to check it out in more detail.

Marseilles Port (SW)

Marseille Port (SE)

The walk up to the AirBNB was through smaller, steep, back roads (lanes, really). Parking is crazy here and some of the vehicles have apparently been abandoned once they’ve been parked. The view from around the apartment I’m staying in is pretty impressive. The view photos are taken from the end of the Rue du Four A Chaux that can be seen in the ‘view to sea’.

Steep, crammed, lanes	View from the apartment (inland)	View from the apartment (to sea)
View across Marseilles	View across the outer harbour	Looking back to bluff on which Rue du Four A Chaux terminates

Having not eaten since lunchtime the day before, my first order of business was to get some lunch in! I decided that I should have seafood, as I’m in Marseilles and there was a restaurant with high ratings on the harbour edge just below the apartment. I went there.

The restaurant Le Petit Pavillion	The view from lunch
Lunch, fish with meuniere sauce; lovely	Dessert, tart tartin; really lovely

The plan then was to climb up to Musee du Notre Dame de la Garde, which is not far (relatively) from the AirBNB and a famed site. However, on the walk/climb through the streets I suddenly discovered that lunch had disagreed with me. My tourist stroll became an emergency medical march back to the apartment. I shall draw a veil (actually, a lead curtain) over the following developments. Suffice to say, my day ended there.

Cacio e Pepe

After dealing with the trauma of food poisoning, I spent the rest of the afternoon lying around and napping, not really feeling up to much. I went down to another local restaurant that I’d walked past after lunch that looked like a fun place for dinner. It was a fun place and the pizza I had was filling (and stayed down!). Home and to bed. I’ve had a very long sleep since.

Daily facts: Location: Paris, then [M]arseilles) Temp: 25 Weather: Clear and sunny