12 Days in Europe - Marseille (day one)

Jonathan graciously dropped me off at Charles de Gaulle in the morning and I was on my way. Contrary to some of the reviews I have read on the net, I did not find CDG to be a confusing airport to get around. The only complaint I had is that they did not have any departure/arrival monitors anywhere in the gate area and since I had checked in the day before, I had to track someone down to ask where exactly my flight was leaving from. I was still very tired after spending almost entire 36 hours awake, eight of them tracking around Paris with my backpack, so as soon as we took off, I passed out.

I woke up just as we were descending off the coast of Marseille and the view was amazing. I grabbed my camera and started taking pictures of Calanques, Vieux port, and everything else. The airport was nice and spacious and the lady at the info desk was pretty helpfull getting me a bunch of brochures and telling me where to catch the bus to town. The bus cost 8 euros and took me to the central train station. My hostel was supposedly right next to it, but it still took me a good half hour to find it because of the confusing street layout… The Vertigo hostel itself was not bad with a couple (paid) computers and a nice kitchenette including a couple small fridges, dishes, pots, etc. Once I got into my six person room, I met my first roommate - an elderly woman from Oregon. She gave me some pointers on what to do and what to see and so off I went.

The weather was beautiful with a rare cloud overhead. I walked down to the visitor information place next to the Vieux port and grabbed some maps. I spent the rest of the time walking around the port, the fortress, and the old neighborhood before returning to the hostel. By that time everyone else was back. My other roommates were a guy from Colorado, an Italian guy that did not speak much English, another girl from US, and Lucy from Prague. Me and Lucy hit it off right away and decided to go to a grocery store to grab some stuff for dinner and breakfast next morning. Afterwards we met up with Nat and Claire from couchsurfing who took us to a bar on the north side of the Vieux port. We were sitting upstairs sipping beer while the breeze was blowing throw the window with the port and the Notre Dame de la Garde lit up in front of us. It was simply an amazing moment. Afterwards Nat and Claire dropped us off at the hostel and we had another round of Heineken before hitting the sack.

 

marseille approach calanques and chateu dif 150x112 12 Days in Europe Marseille (day one)
marseille approach east side 150x112 12 Days in Europe Marseille (day one)
marseille approach vieux port 150x112 12 Days in Europe Marseille (day one)
marseille approach houses 150x112 12 Days in Europe Marseille (day one)

marseille train station notre dame de la garde 150x112 12 Days in Europe Marseille (day one)
marseille train station big street 150x112 12 Days in Europe Marseille (day one)
marseille vieux port 150x112 12 Days in Europe Marseille (day one)
marseille vieux port from fortress 150x112 12 Days in Europe Marseille (day one)


The rest of my 12 Days in Europe posts:

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 at 1:17 amand is filed under Calanques, Couchsurfing, France, Marseille, Marseille Provence, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Vieux Port. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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