Marseille, France is a gritty port town with a few interesting walking spots and the Notre Dame de la Garde, which sits atop a hill and has a 360 degree view of the city.
Side thought-I just realized I had a dream last night where I adopted an attack bird of some kind from someone and it helped me to learn to fly. Sorry, this belongs in the “dream diary” blog.
Disembarking and simply getting into the town is a bit of a task due to distance.
We had the option of taking a paid cruise shuttle at €16 pp, walk 1000 km to the free shuttle or hop aboard a taxi. Since there were 7 us, we hopped into a large cab and got an abrupt drop off in “old town.” I think our cabby wasnt too happy that we didn’t want to take him up on his €260 3 hour tour package. Not my fault you’re a poor salesman.
Since today was Joel’s first attempt off the boat, we went in search of medicine at a farmacia. We ended up at a minute clinic where he got prescribed some sea sickness medicine before heading back to the ship on his own. The cost was €50 for the visit which I thought was reasonable, but on the other hand I’m from the States. I don’t think we really thought CBD baked goods were going to heal someone who was throwing up every hour for the past week, but hey why not? The vendor offered me a whiff of a glass jar of their legal base product and it was-well dank and skunky. Can you even get high off of CBD? Not that I care. #ahem
We meandered our way through the streets on foot to the African market, which mainly sold fruits and vegetables. Was expecting different.
Then we unsuccessfully tried to get June a birthday overseas haircut.
It says “feminin.” Oh well.
I also checked out a few hat shops along the way, and we made it to the narrow graffiti lined streets of Le Panier.
I found a cool curio shop selling small animal skeletons and various vintage items. This is the curio part of the shop.
We went back down to the waterside and had a fine meal of mussels, cod aioli, bouillabaisse and the local drink pastis which is a liquorice appertif much like absinthe or ouzo.
We then headed up to the top of the hill to see the Notre Dame de la Garde basilica.
We Ubered back down to town to make our 530 all aboard time. I tried to order a drink for myself and a mocktail for Hud at the stateroom using the app but it was a failure. I went to my trusty spiritual advisors-Christian and Dhan at Bellini’s.
It’s cool when you walk up to a bar and the bartender calls you by name. Technology or good bartending? Don’t care. Pictured is a Dahlwinnie scotch and Grolsch beer-which I haven’t seen in the islands for awhile. Anyway, not exactly Marseille related.
Next we go to…
The WOO family page 