Sunday, 6 November 2016

Adventures in Europe: Marseille, France

This morning I returned to the Nice Ville railway station to catch the train to Marseille.

First, I ate breakfast at the same cafe I had yesterday, on a patio across from the train station.  The breakfast is good, which is why I returned, but it does strike me as odd that the default breakfast at cafes in France seems to include two drinks and one piece of bread or pastry.  In this case my two drinks were fresh grapefruit juice and a cappuccino, so basically wonderful, but they still don't fill me up like food does.

The train route went through Cannes and along the Mediterranean, but unfortunately the windows were literally so dirty that the view was badly obscured.  Generally the entire train was quite dirty and tired looking, with desperate need of re-upholstery.  Obviously it is still vastly better than our passenger rail system in Canada--which in the vast majority of the country is nonexistent--but I was thinking how the trains I rode in Malaysia and China were exponentially nicer.

The train took about two and a half hours, and I got to Marseille at 13:00.


The only reason I was coming to Marseille at all was to catch my flight this evening to Fes, Morocco, but, since that was what I had to do anyway, I decided to come early and tour the city in the afternoon.

The Gare de Marseille-Saint-Charles has excellent, albeit expensive, luggage store, so I put my bag in a locker (the smallest one, which cost €5.50) and headed outside unencumbered.

Unlike yesterday, there was lots of sun, but it was actually colder, and there was an even colder wind blowing.  Immediately upon going outside I could see the Notre Dame de la Garde church way up above the city (you can see it sticking up from the hill more or less in the middle of the picture).


I was pretty surprised to be able to see it from so far away.

This church was one of two things I planned to see, and I decided to go there first.  I thought about just walking, but it look so far away that I decided to take the metro most of the way.  Anyway, I like to try out transit systems, so it was a good excuse.  I descended to the Metro 1 (Marseille has two lines) and took it a few stops.

From there I still had about a kilometre, almost entirely up hill, to go.


By European standards the cathedral is not all that special in terms of its size, architecture and so on. 


One thing that is interesting is that the sanctuary is full of ex-votos from sailors, including many model ships.  I have never seen this before.


But certainly I think the best part about the church is where it is located, because it provides tremendous views of the city and the sea.


From the church I walked down to the old port, the second site I wanted to see.  I stopped for lunch and coffee at two different places and walked around the port, taking it all in.  


There was lots happening down at the port, mostly people enjoying a relaxing Sunday afternoon, but there was also this man hard at work!


Eventually I made my way back to the train station on foot, passing some interesting buildings (and even Roman era ruins).


Back at the train station I retrieved my bag and caught the shuttle to the Marseille airport, where I am now awaiting my $29 Ryanair flight to Fes.

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