We drove from our motel to downtown Marseille. This is where the famous old port is located. The old port is a wonderful, large basin surrounded by a wide plaza lined with residential apartment buildings. The basin opens to the Mediterranean Sea and is protected on each side by a fort. Apparently Marseille had a reputation of being unruly. During the Napoleonic period, the guns on the forts faced the city!
We hopped onto a open topped tour bus for a road tour of the major sites in the downtown. The weather was perfect - sunny, breezy, and just a tad cool. The sky was amazing - bright and a deeper shade of blue. It reminded me of southern Florida on the ocean. There were lots of people milling about seeing the sights. I can't imagine this place in the summer - hot and crowded. Apparently Marseille gets 300 days of sun a year. I looked on the web and found a climate map for Europe. This part of France is the warmest part of the country, similar to central Italy. Who would have thought.
We climbed off the buss at the relatively modern Basilique Notre Dame de la Garde. This church is built on the highest point of land in the city. There are quite a few steps to the top. The statue of the Madonna on the top of the bell tower is 30 feet tall. In her arms is the baby Christ.
These are the views out to the Sea from the plaza of the church. The image below shows 2 fortified islands that protect the access to Marseille's harbour. We took the ferry to the larger of these two islands.
Back in the downtown, above and below.
In the old port, they have erected this large structure with a reflective under-surface. Kids really seemed to enjoy watching themselves jumping and running around under this thing. There were also lots of people taking photographs.
After lunch Cathy and Elaine thought it would be nice to take a 3 hour catamaran trip on the sea. I decided 3 hours may be too long for my sea legs. While they lined up for their tour, I went to purchase a ticket for a ferry ride to the 2 islands protecting the harbour. I had 15 minutes to buy the ticket and board the boat. The line for tickets was perhaps six groups when I arrived. That seemed not too long. But, each purchase seemed to take three minutes. Time was getting very close! Then it was my turn, and I am about to step up to the window, and a lady buts-in the line talking very dramatically in french about having to immediately buy a ticket. What am I to do? How could I even talk to her as she likely did not speak english, or would be unlikely to engage in english if she did know it. Anyway, I let her go in front of me and she was the last allowed to board. The next trip was an hour and a half later. Well, I was disappointed and I decided I would walk back to Cathy and Elaine and see them off on the catamaran. To my surprise, they were standing by the ticket booth which was not open. What was happening? Calls to three different phone numbers listed on the brochure revealed that during the fall season the sailing schedule is intermittant - but there is no word of this at the ticket booth. We have come to discover that this is not uncommon. During the off season, many vendors do not update their times of service.
This dual failure in scheduling was quite the coincidence. If I had not let the lady bump me in line, and if I had not gone back to see Cathy and Elaine off, then the three of us would not have been able to spend the afternoon together. Somehow I think there is a little life lesson here - something like events that create disappointment may be part of a larger event that turns out unexpectedly well.
We then decided to go back to the ferry I first went to and take a trip to the outer island named Frioul. We were too late in the day to visit the island Chateau d'If as well.
The image above is of the small fortified island Chateau d'If.
The harbour of Frioul, above.
The island seems to have a few condo style buildings next to the harbour. The rest of the island seems barren and very windswept. Outside of the harbour, I did not see any trees. We found a trail that took us to the south side of the island. Along the way we walked by a sheltered bay with moored sailboats.
The walk took us past several coastal gun sites from the Second World War. They appeared to be of German origin. They were all sealed from access and in a poor condition of repair. The trail ended at a centuries old fort that had been modified in WWII with then modern coastal defence guns. There was no access to this site. There were several other forts on the island. It seems like every commanding piece of ground had some type of fortification on it.
We stayed downtown for dinner and ate at a second floor restaurant overlooking the old harbour. The image above was taken from the balcony looking to Notre Dame. We picked the restaurant because it was to have a jazz band playing from 8 o'clock on. Well, even though that's what the sign said, they actually were to start at 9. We decided it would be best to get back to the motel, so off we went.
We have been using Elaine's car that she rented for the duration of the 3 month stay in France. She wisely purchased a Garmin GPS unit keep her on track. For some reason this night, the Garmin decided not to work correctly - we got horribly lost - in the dark - all the stores were closed. It was very concerning as we did not have a paper map as back-up. When everything seemed the darkest, the Garmin then began to work. In twenty minutes we were back to the motel, and ready for a good night's sleep.
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