La Marseillaise

On Saturday March 30th, it was time to head back to Narbonne. But not before stopping by Marseille before getting the train! I'd been to Marseille almost exactly six months prior, albeit briefly, on my first day in France this year. I didn't actually go into the city, but took a motorcycle tour of the nearby Calanques, which are small fjords. This day, though I had only a short time in the city, I wanted to catch the highlights of France's second-largest city. It turned out to be a GORGEOUS blue day in Marseille.

I started off in a nearby beach, a bit to the west of Marseille. 

Mediterranean beaches in the southeast of France are often rocky (whereas the beaches on my side, the southwest, are mostly sandy).

And on to actual Marseille... first stop: Notre Dame de la Garde, which stands on a huge hill overlooking the city. You can see the basilica, built in the 19th century, but on the left you can see the tall wall that is what remains of a much older fort on the same site.

Passion of the Christ just outside the church

Marseille as seen from the church - If you look in the water to the left, you can see three islands (two large in the background, one small in the foreground). The smaller one is the Château d'If, the real-life island prison made famous by the Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo.

yet another crazy hair picture... merci le vent

cross/heart/anchor, and look how the railing looks like a boat!

If you look closely, you can see along the right a kind of mobile with models of boats hanging down. The church is seen as the guardian and protector of the city and of the boats who come in and out of the port.

view of the sea from the door of the church, which would be much better without these people, but whatever, you get it

You can see the hills behind the city - the landscape is beautiful in this part of France.

view of some of the city and Vieux Port

Porte d'Aix

in Vieux Port (everything from now the end is Vieux Port)

Hôtel de Ville

Notre Dame de la Garde as seen from Vieux Port

And with the 4:06 train Marseille-Narbonne train, my little mini-vacay to the "other" south of France was over. It was one of my goals for myself to do some travelling on my own this year, and now I've done it! Even if it wasn't really "on my own" because I hung out with friends (Annie & Laura), it was still an adventure I set about on solo, and it was really nice. I went to the movies by myself for the first time ever, I ate at a restaurant by myself for the first time ever, and I just generally moseyed around and did my own thing. I met people I otherwise wouldn't have met. I saw things I otherwise wouldn't have seen. I had a great time, and I highly recommend solo travel in one form or another to anyone! It's a great experience.

Please notice how Monaco's too small to even show up on the map on its own... but it's a little east of Nice.

It's not all the time you get to just up and head on a little spontaneous 5-day adventure in the middle of the week "just because." If I haven't mentioned it before, this year is THE BEST.

from Germany to France

On Tuesday, September 25th, I took a ten-hour train ride from Munich to Marseille. I had a bit of a predicament as my train would not arrive until 9:45 pm and there would be no train out to Narbonne available until the next day. As I hadn't ever been to Marseille and didn't know anyone there, I had two choices: a) sleep in a train station (which is really NOT recommended in Marseille), or b) find my way at night (in a city I don’t know) to a hotel with my GIANT luggage by myself. Neither of these choices sounded that great to me. So, a few weeks ago (when I was still in Texas), I decided to try a third option.

I’ve recently been introduced (by people in my program) to the idea of couchsurfing. Through this method of travel (and the website, www.couchsurfing.org), you, well, couchsurf. The website has a network of people in cities all over the world willing to host surfers, willing to just hang out with new people, or trying to surf themselves. It’s a network built on trust, and there are services such as identity verification, location verification, and references, which you can plainly see on a person’s profile. The idea of staying with someone you’ve never met scares a lot of people, but if you do it the right way and are careful, you can meet a lot of really cool people (who also like to travel). Or so I’ve heard.

I knew I wanted to give couchsurfing a try (I set up a profile in June), but I didn’t think I’d do it so soon. I decided that the best way to go about my Marseille issue was to couchsurf! I put up my “want ad” for a couch for the evening, and I got a lot of offers. I ended up choosing a man, we’ll call him Julien, who has a daughter about my age and had been to Texas. He had all the possible verifications and over 40 positive references from people of all ages, so I decided I felt safest with him.

When I arrived Tuesday night, he welcomed me, helped me with my luggage to my apartment, we shared some tabbouleh to eat and talked a while about my travels in Germany and his recent travels to the States. I then had a bedroom to myself and got a good night's sleep! He gave me the option to sleep in the morning or to take a tour of Marseille by motorcycle before I went to the train station. Guess which option I took?

Like my chubby bunny cheeks?

Motorcycle helmets are obviously NOT my look.*

It was a kind of dreary morning, but I was lucky because it was predicted all week that it would rain that day but it didn't! Here are some picture highlights:

my first look at the Mediterranean :)

Les Goudes, a little fishing village just outside of Marseille

the Île Maire, an island just off the coast

Between the cities of Marseille and Cassis, there are

the Calanques, which are similar to fjords.

Callelongue, a tiny fishing village in a small calanque

(called the "Calanque de Callelongue," love that!)

a little view of Marseille from the gare (train station)

All-in-all, it was a great little visit! We took our tiny tour of the Calanques/fishing villages (he wanted to show me something I wouldn't normally see as a tourist) and stopped to have a coffee (him)/chocolat (me) in a café where he assured me I'd get to hear a native Marseille accent. It was a great first couchsurfing experience - Julien has hosted many, many people from all over and all ages, and he just likes to meet people and share some of his city (he's from Marseille, born and raised). He's a big fan of couchsurfing and is very involved, and he told me some of the "rules" of couchsurfing (such as never, ever to go with someone without lots of references/verification if I go alone). He's already contacted a woman in Perpignan who would love to host me for a weekend. He was very generous and friendly, and I couldn't have gotten from/to the train station without his help. I have no idea how I would have handled my little layover situation without someone friendly to help. I am very thankful to him, and I will definitely be couchsurfing again!

It was also really good to be somewhere where I can use my French! I would also love to go back to Marseille for a day to see the Vieux Port and more of the city; perhaps I'll take a little Marseille/Aix-en-Provence trip sometime during my stay in France!

*Note: I did NOT drive!