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| Author : GEORDIEandVIRGINIA | Diary name : Gullibles_Travels | ||
| 25 May 2004 : Marseille - France | |||
| France | |||
| Marseille - The city that thinks it’s the capital of Paris. We hadn’t booked any accommodation because of our quick exit from the wet sack that was Sete. We had checked out 3 hotels that you wouldn’t kennel dogs (contact details of which were proudly given by the tourist information center) and was looking for our 4th hotel when we got caught in a rainstorm with all our gear. Excellent. Now we were on the run. Managed to find the 4th place which was full. I kindly got the translation of the sign from 2 old biddies in the reception area. The 5th place was located and rooms thankfully were available and not flea ridden. We had managed to avoid all the muggers and gangsters in the first few hours only to get ripped off by the hotel instead. On the positive side it was located overlooking the port and Geordie discovered the joys of wireless technology. So what does one do in Marseille? Shop of course. Lovely hours were spent wandering the streets looking at all the different clothes/shoes/bags/accessories/cosmetics on sale. Every chocolate shop tempted Geordie. For every store visited by Virginia, 3 food stores were visited by Geordie. Bags of chocolate and pastries were lugged home to be devoured I n front of the French tellie. I guess having your mouth and belly full of delicious chocolate helps you forget the fact that you can’t understand a word of what you are watching. A small art gallery containing Leger’s works was visited as well as the Fashion Museum, which I must day was surprising bland. Basically the exhibition (called ‘Glossy’) consisted of loads of various ‘glossy’ fashion magazine covers and pages posted to the wall in no particular order. There were a few examples of clothes on display and a small slide show. Luckily the price of the ticket reflected the quality of the exhibition. We decided to play good tourists and take the bus ride to see the sights of the city. All the other tourists must have taken the day off as we were the only ones on the bus apart from a French speaking Muslim couple. As we effectively had the run of the place we sat in the very front seats on the top level of the bus. We were oblivious to the fact that we had signed up to the bus ride with the learner driver. Or he was mad. Or possibly very bored. The bus, from our vantage point went far too close to the edge of cliffs, tree tops and he narrowly missed many of the parked cars in the city. To be fair to the driver, most of the roads he went down were tiny and I’m sure not built for maneuvers by a double decker monstrosity. Apart from my white knuckles and wet pants the ride was an excellent way to soak up the place in our short time there. Commentary in English was a bonus. As it is handily located at the top of a massive hill, we took the easy option and jumped on the tourist train to get us up to the Notre Dame cathedral. Unfortunately someone must have forgotten about the previous 3 train loads of people deposited in the same place because on our arrival we were completely mobbed before the train came to a stand still. Train loads of hot, camera holding, view loving foreigners had been deserted for god knows how long so that they became something close to animals when our little chug chug pulled up. In his bid to secure a seat for his family I got jumped on by, I think, a large German man. Even when the train came to a stand still it was impossible for the occupants of our train to disembark due to the hordes of people climbing in. After clambering out the side of the train with no door we made our way to the massive monument. About 20 people were left behind when the train pulled away. The music had stopped and they were the ones who had not been fast enough to get a seat. Funnily enough, another train pulled up about 5 minutes later, empty, but these traumatised people still rushed for it. That’s what traveling can do to you on a bad day. Well the Notre Dame lived up to the brochures and more. Wow is a word that comes to mind. The wall behind the main alter was literally dripping with gold. And the roof and walls! Such decoration! Check out the photos that does not do the place justice. Sithee won’t be impressed, but it’s the first time I have been to church in ages (not counting the Palace of the Popes in Avignon). Geordie and I did sit and just soak the place up for quite awhile. Then we took in the sights from outside. Another trip was made out to the Island of ‘If’ – this is the place where the book ‘The Count of Monte Christo’ was based. Basically it’s a big jail for naughty people - not any more though. Although I did enquire as to whether I could hire one of the cells for Geordie. It was quite mind boggling to be strolling through cells where prisoners were held last century and too see their acts of boredom, or graffiti, on the walls. These carvings would have taken months of effort for them to do with what ever they could find. The cells were very small and the ones we saw were the “executive” cells for the important prisoners. The cells below in the dungeons must have been tiny. I’m glad I wasn’t around to offend Napoleon. We were very lucky to have great weather on the trip out, they only do the trip in fine weather and another couple we met on the boat had been waiting 3 days to go out. Marseille was pretty cool but it was time to move on and catch up with some friends in Spain. We planned to spend a night in Perpignan first, but on the train west we decided to just go all the way through to Spain. Hence we arrived in Barcelona quite late with no accommodation for the night, no map and no little ‘How to speak Spanish’ book. Trudging around Marseille with our luggage was all to fresh in our minds. We found the cheapest cleanest place we could find and bunked down for the night until we could move onto our pre booked apartment the next day. Geordie will be regaling you with the tales from Spain as soon as I can wake him up and get him typing. Until then – Ginnie | |||