12 Days in Europe - Marseille (day two)

Today I wentured out on my own to explore this fine city. Some people recommended taking a hop-on/hop-off bus or trolley tour, but instead I decided to grab an all-day transportation pass and a transportation map at the information booth inside the Vieux Port metro station. I jumped on the bus and did my own hop-on/hop-off tour of the southern shore from where I could see the Chateau d’If (made famous by Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo). Unfortunately, both days the wind was pretty high and the boat tours that normally take people to the island were not running.

After enjoying the seaside views I decided to track up to the Notre Dame de la Garde. It was pretty cool walking around the winding streets of the old town. Finally, I made it up there and the view of the city and everything around it was just amazing, well worth the hike. By then it was lunch time already and I caught a bus back to the Vieux Port area for a taste of Bouillabaisse, a traditional fish soup of local fishermen. It was not that great, but I am sure the restaurant choice was the main culprit here.

While having lunch, I got a call from Joe, a guy from California who was studying in Marseille. I talked to him on couchsurfing and he was willing to meet up and hang out so I jumped on the metro and then caught a bus to Lumigny in the heart of Calanques.  We hiked all the way down to the sea (and it really was a hike for the most part) and enjoyed the salty breeze at a rocky beach before going back.

Afterwards, I retraced my steps to get back to my hostel, changed, and packed up to be ready to leave early next morning. In the evening I met up with Joe, Nat and Claire (from the night before) and another half a dozen of English-speaking couchsurfers at Bar du Marche. It was their semi-regular meet up and I just happened to be in town for that. We had a good time while downing Pastis (the drink of Provance) and getting to know each other.

The rest of my 12 Days in Europe posts:

This entry was posted on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 1:26 amand is filed under Calanques, Couchsurfing, France, Marseille, 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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