In which the socks come off (Marseille part II)

The next morning we took a long time to wake up, but finally did and got ready, then went downstairs to enjoy our free breakfast, which basically consisted of bread, butter, and coffee. We left right after this to go downtown and catch a bus that would take us, we hoped, up to Notre Dame de la Garde, because walking up there probably would've taken all day. The bus surpassed our wildest dreams, delivering us right to the parking lot of the church after much navigating of very narrow, twisty streets. We spent about an hour walking around the outside of the church and taking pictures of the amazing view we got of the city from up there, but we didn't go in due to the busy-ness.

After capturing the cathedral from every possible angle, we walked back to the parking lot just in time to catch the bus going down to Vieux Port, where we caught another bus to a different church we'd noticed while up at Notre Dame, la Cathédral de la Major. Designed by the same architect, actually. But seriously. This church was absolutely beautiful. We probably spent another hour there, just walking around inside and gaping at the sheer scale of it. I especially enjoyed all the mosaics, which gave almost a moorish feeling to the architecture.

We decided to walk back instead of taking the bus, stopping for a rather expensive lunch on the way, and then browsing through a bunch of street vendors' wares set up along the quay. When we got back to downtown, it was high time to go to the beach, so we went to what was advertised as a sandy beach, but was really just a rocky coastline for the most part, with one small pocket of sand. Once there, Sophie long hair, Nicole and I were the only ones insane enough to want to go swimming, so we hurried into our swimsuits and went even more quickly into the water, which was actually warmer than the air. The real test was getting out, as we were almost instantly numbed by the wind. We had to recuperate afterward with hot drinks from a nearby café, but at least now I can say I have swum in the Mediterranean. I'd love to go back when it's actually warm outside...

For you, Mom. Your favorite color :)

We didn't do much more that day, just walked back through the park near the hostel, looked at its rose garden because the botanical garden was closed, discovered a cave behind a waterfall, and (some of us) reverted back briefly to childhood and played on the teeter-totter in the playground. We also got pizza from a place that was miraculously open (miraculous because it was a Sunday in France- things aren't open on Sundays, ever...), and spent the rest of the night eating pizza and playing Egyptian Rat Screw (a card game of the slapping variety, for those who don't know), and decorating Nicole's and Sophie long hair's tattoos.

The next morning we had planned to go out to l'Estaque, this little suburb of Marseille that the tourist brochure recommended, but when we got there nearly everything was closed despite it being a Monday morning, and there was practically nobody around. So we sat on the quay for a while, and then walked along the shop fronts to the bus stop and went back into town. We had a lot of time we hadn't planned on, so we ended up going to see the Palais de Longchamps which houses the Museum of Fine Arts and the Natural History Museum. This was also very beautiful, and we all took many many pictures.

We even bought sandwiches and had a picnic lunch there, after which we walked down once more to Vieux Port, on the way having a strange interaction with a waitress at a café that, luckily, I was in the bathroom for and thus missed sharing in the awkwardness, and briefly visiting another church (this one gothic and rather sparse), and sat for a while on the harbor edge. I attempted to do some homework, and then we headed up to the train station to catch the bus to take us to the airport. We got through security and everything with no problems, and the flight was smooth, with a lovely fanfare to announce our successful arrival back in Nantes. However, our fears were confirmed when we got back that the bus that it would have cost us nothing to take was done running for the day, so we had to pay 7 euro for the Airporter to take us to Commerce where we could catch a tram. As we were pulling up to the stop, we saw that the tram we wanted was at the station, which meant that we couldn't get to it in time and would have to wait for the next one a half hour later. But, we scrambled off the bus the second it stopped and made a mad dash for the tram which was still there, and flung ourselves on. It was a very triumphant moment, as well as a great relief for us all, who had been mentally preparing ourselves as we hurtled toward the tram to wait another half an hour to be home. But there we were, and that was the end of our journey to Marseille. Quite a wonderful trip!