We made a point of visiting Marseille on our trip because we thought it would be really nice, but it turned out to be less impressive than we had expected. It fit in with Milan as a big city without a distinguishable character. Don't get us wrong--even though we weren't exactly blown away by the city we still had an enjoyable four days. If we weren't staying with our CouchSurfing host Sebastien, who was a great host and with whom we got along really well, Marseille would have been a skippable city.
A building we passed on the way from the train station to the port. Very cool!
A shot of some sailboats on the harbour.
Around the harbour were a few of these sculptures. Sort of like the moose sculptures in Canada! As you can see here each globe had something different on it.
Cliff during the morning when we were waiting to meet up with our CouchSurfing host. While we were both sitting there we had the pleasure of the company of an older street gentleman with a lot of character (i.e. beer in hand, not enough shower time, etc.) chitchatted us up about Canada, and went on a bit of a rant when we told him we liked Marseille...apparently he had some negative feelings for the city!
Above and below are three shots of Marseille's port.
Dinner time! It took us quite a long time to find a restaurant to eat at, but finally we found a decent-looking place with a menu that had something for the both of us. Cliff's meal: a salad with tomatoes and eggplant, topped with ham and fried cheese. Not bad!
Stefan's dinner...at first, it looked no better than penne pasta we make at home, and it tasted like that as well. Good, but you know how you always expect (or hope!) that food at a restaurant will be better than you can make?! Well, as I got further into it, it was one of those meals that gets better and better! By the end, it was pretty darn tasty! It was pretty simple, penne pasta, chicken, tomato, pesto, and some other yummy things!
Our host Sebastien took us to a market the next day to buy some groceries, and on our way there we walked through some very cool alleyways! The graffiti, which wasn't particularly interesting on its own, gave these otherwise grungy alleyways an artsy, comforting feel.
At the market we shopped for ingredients for ratatouille!
Musical accompaniment to your grocery shopping!
Cool cathedral close to the centre of town. It looks like it's at the end of a main road but the road actually forks around it.
A fountain with no water and a mermaid! She's gonna dry up!
Joining Padova and Nice, Marseille's tram transport, as you can see, is fairly new. We found this city's trams extra cool because they were so futuristic! It looks like something out of Wall-e or 2001: A Space Odyssey!
A not-very-pretty shopping street... :P This photo should give you an idea of what the downtown core looks like.
Some government building... If we had kept up on the blog better we'd probably be able to tell you what building this was!
This is a really nice looking building, although you can't see much of it! The fountain to the right, you can see just below and behind the tree was really cool...but you'll have to go to Marseille to get a better look at it! :P
We went to visit this church on a hilltop which gave you a very good panoramic view of Marseille. The church sis directly behind us in this photo.
Voilà!
Interesting architecture...kinda has a slight look of a castle! The black painted stones used in the tower give it a unique, almost pirate look to it.
Views from the top!
Inside the church. The red-and-white striping is pretty unusual and reminded us of the churches back in Monterosso!
A square with lots of outdoor seating for its restaurants.
Another photo of the harbour.
A nice big roundabout down by the waterfront.
Here you can see the church we visited earlier.
The first building we encountered when entering the old town.
Cool street shots in old town Marseille!
The Hospice de la Charité, which was an orphanage.
Inside the gates of the hospice, surround the building in the first photo, are these arcades.
Not the nicest looking alleyway but there is something about its character that we like a lot.
A very nice residential area at the top of the old town that seemed a bit out of place, given how the rest of the old town looked!
When in France, buy a baguette!
Our host Sebastien asked us what we wanted to make for dinner, and if there was something French we hadn't tried. We decided that ratatouille was the winner!
Ratatouille, with two slices of the baguette Cliff was holding! We totally forgot the onions! But it was still awesome! Amazing how simple a dish ratatouille is, but it's so tasty! Sebastien is a great cook! Of course, cooking this French dish in France with a Frenchman probably didn't hurt either! :)
The Marseille train station. Magnificent staircase!
An obelisk in some square in Marseille. We came across this round about on our way to the coast outside of the city. We never got to the cliff on the coast due to some transit confusion...
...but we did end up getting to this beach. But because we hadn't planned on going to the beach, we didn't have any swimwear with us. So we were relegated to people-watching. To the left outside this photo there was a topless woman playing catch with a friend...bouncy bouncy bouncy. Maybe not the most appetizing sight to two gays trying to eat lunch on a beach! It wasn't a nude beach but of course in France it's not uncommon to find nudity on any beach.
Just behind the beach there was a big park, with this random building in the middle of it! No idea what it was, but here is a photo of it :P It was a nice day in the city but for whatever reason over by the beach and this park it was soooooo hot!
Here's Sebastien preparing our second meal together...
Tomatoes stuffed with veggies and finely chopped chicken breast, and scallop potatoes (or gratin dauphinoise in French)! Bon appetit! Another amazingly tasty homemade meal courtesy of Sebastien! :)
Us and Sebastien! We even match! :P
Like we said, we didn't find Marseille particularly interesting, but we are so thankful we had the pleasure of meeting Sebastien through CouchSurfing. He made Marseille fun and really because we enjoyed hanging out with him. The city itself was okay, nothing to go back to or make a detour for, but our host made it worthwhile!
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