After a short drive we arrived in Marseille.
Like many of the places we have stayed at parking wasn’t in the hotel so finding somewhere to park and drop our luggage was often a bit tricky. Today the parking gods were on our side! There was a spot out the front and a bonus of our room being ready.
The room was very nice and on the top floor. It had and an amazing view of the marina and Notre Dame de la Garde.
We headed off for a seafood lunch. Being back on the coast we were hoping for some good seafood. I’m hoping for lobster! No lobster today but I had some lovely grilled prawns with some aioli on the side. The aioli is something I’ve been waiting for too. We’d been watching Rick Stein’s food trip through France and aioli was one of the things he mentioned. It’s basically a garlic paste, a very garlicky paste and it was very good!
After lunch we went for a walk to the other side of the marina to find somewhere (a bar);) to chill for the afternoon. I was thinking I might check out the cute market along the edge of the marina but I settled in for the afternoon of chilling. In our travels I had seen everyone drinking a green drink. I thought it was green sparkling water. I finally saw where the green came from. They got something that looked like GI green cordial in the bottom of the glass with a a bottle of perrier on the side. I asked the waiter and and he brought me a treat (His words). The green stuff was menthe but the waiter added Ricard a very potent French liqueur which was the treat. After a couple it was time to go home.
That night we could hear lots of chanting and singing across the marina that sounded like a crowd at a soccer match. It was Tottenham versing Marseille playing in the Champions League. The next morning there was rubbish everywhere. It didn’t end well for Marseille. We read there were also some arrests. Seems like it was pretty wild after the game. I think it was good we had an early night.
The next day was an all day tour of Provence. We started with a visit to Chateaux des Baux which is a fortified castle built in the 10th century. It’s located in Les Baux des Provence which is a big olive farming area. There’s not much left of the castle but the village below is lovely and is a popular place to visit for tourists so it has a lot of shops and restaurants.
While we were there we tried a callissone cake. They are a traditional French candy made of a smooth, pale yellow paste of candied fruit and ground almonds and topped with a thin layer of royal icing. We bought a sample box but not sure if I like them.
After the castle we made our way to Pont du Gard. Pont du Gard is an ancient Roman aqueduct. It was built to carry water to Nimes over 50kms away. We walked across the middle level but you weren’t allowed to walk across the top. You could go up to have a look and it was a great viewpoint.
It was time for lunch so we made our way to Avignon. On the way we passed through Tarascon. The guide told us about a mythical monster, The Tarasque, that was said to live in the Rhône River and it would attack the villagers when they crossed the river. It was described as having the face of a lion, a body similar to a dragon with an amoured shell on its back like a turtle and legs as thick as elephants. It was apparently tamed by Martha, a nun, using the sign of the cross.
In Avignon we had free time to explore and have lunch. We were in the old part of the city which was another medieval walled labyrinth of streets which have been restored and is now a big tourist spot. It is known for the period when the Popes lived there in the 1300’s instead of Rome in the Palais des Papes. The city also has a cathedral, Notre Dame des Dom which is famous for the guilded statue of the Virgin Mary. It had great views from the walls of the surrounding area, the river and the Pont d’Avignon famous for a French song about dancing on the bridge of Avignon.
On our way back to Marseille we went for some wine tasting in the Chateau neuf du Pape wine region. The wine tasting was at Chateau Fortia which is the property of baron Le Roy de Boiseaumarie the founding father of the French wine making AOC system. Nice (expensive) wines and a beautiful chateau and property.
The next day we had a cruise on a catamaran out to the Calanques National Park which is a very rugged and beautiful part of the coastline spanning 20kms in length. We didn’t go out very far because we could still see the town of Marseille. The view back was very nice. We stopped to have a swim, some lunch and relaxed out the front of the boat with a wine.
Where we caught the boat from there were activities going on to promote the 2023 Rugby World Cup which will be in France. They let us in to have a look and there were lots stalls and one had games. We played a reflex game where you were given a colour and you had to touch your colour as many times as possible in 1 minute. Steve beat me but only just! Steve played another game where he had to throw a football at lights. It was fun! The guy cheekily offered me a face paint stick with the French colours and I politely declined.
That night we had a really good seafood dinner and met a nice French couple and their dog Roger.
On our last day we went the museum. It had a great exhibition about the Pharaoh’s. Everything was in French but luckily I could listen via the museum’s website. (Which sucked up all my data for the day!) The museum was linked to Fort Saint-Jean which had an exhibition about the history of Marseille and the fort.
After the Pharaoh’s exhibition we went to two other exhibits. One was about the history of the Mediterranean diet. It also covered the history of the Mediterranean foods and how they were produced. The second one was about the history of Europe and how the borders changed often over time.
After the museum we had planned to go on the little white train up to Notre Dame de la Garde but the line was way too long so we went back to organise our bags and then went out for our last dinner in Marseille.
We really enjoyed Marseilles liveliness and it’s beautiful harbour.