Today we took a day trip to Marseille on a city bus that took us there direct, in under an hour. Marseille is the second largest city in France, and being that it’s on the sea it had lots of people (and seafood) and a whole different vibe then any of the other cities we’d been to so far.
We first walked around the harbor admiring the boats and enjoying the fish market that was there.
Then we took a city bus (along with 100 other people) to the Notre Dame, which sits above the city. The church was beautiful inside, with more references to the sea then any other church we’d seen. The view from the top were breathtaking. We even saw the famous Château d’If. Originally built as a fortress or protect the city in the 1500’s, it was used as a prison form the 1600-1800’s, and it’s also made famous by Alexander Dumas whose book The Count of Monte Cristo’s character was imprisoned there.
Once we took the bus back down to the harbor, we found a seafood restaurant. Ravi ordered sea urchins for the first time, we had a platter of seafood, fresh fish and a carafe of rosè wine all for under $50. It was delicious.
After lunch we walked up to the Palais Longchamp, which was originally built as an aqueduct for the city in the early 1800’s. The statues around it were added in the late 1800’s and now there are 2 museums on either side and a botanical garden in the back.
We then walked back to the bus station to go back to Aix-en-Provence. Marseille was a very crowded city, there was a lot of graffiti and vert diverse with a huge mix of people from all over the world living there. It was also beautiful by the water and the fresh seafood was some of the best we’d ever had.
