Walking Marseilles

We awoke a little late on our first morning in Marseilles, then headed out to find breakfast. Sunday morning turned out to be very quiet, but we browsed around and decided to buy some pastries and panaches (small round puff pastries with a spot of olive, anchovy, marinara, or fruit on top) from a patisserie. We then walked around the area with the open air restaurants we had seen the evening before and found a restaurant / crepérie and sat down.

The crepérie had some egg breakfasts, so I tried the Aux Pais de Vikings which was a great egg and salty salmon omelette. Jeanette had a three cheese crépe that was delicious as well. We took our time, enjoyed our breakfast, and I was happy to be able to finally order some tea with milk and be well understood (and to even find tea), rather than be stuck with espresso or coffee. The waitress was very nice and patient with my French, but the most amusing thing was watching several members of the wait staff, including our server, devour plates of sandwiches and french fries. Jeanette is still amazed that they weren't all fat!

We finished up and headed out to explore the city. We made our way down to the harbor entrance. We strolled around the palace that overlooks the harbor entrance and has great views of the marina, the cathedral across the water, and Notre Dame de La Guarde high on the hill overlooking the city.  We also met a nice kitty at the palace. We continued our tour down the road and found a small beach where we sat for a while, then decided to walk to the Notre Dame church.

We strolled for a while through the city, wending our way toward the church and made the climb up the stairs to the top. The gilded statue is impressive and the church close-up has very interesting architecture and stone work. The inside is a pilgrimage point for both the many who revere the statue and others who wish to visit the grave of a saint whose name we could not figure out. I bought granny a small medallion from the church.

We left the church heading north, deeper into the city. Along the way we stopped at a smoky café where there were all men all concerned with the horses and other games on which they were betting. We continued on and found a cheap bottle of champagne at a grocery plus some small sandwiches and pizza slices at a small shop to go with our panaches, which we had continued to carry all day.

Jeanette and I wandered around a bit, getting somewhat conflicted over which way was back to the port.  When we finally decided on the way, it turned out that we were finally at the time of the afternoon when people begin venturing out on Sundays and we discovered an open air 'farmers market' that extended for several blocks. We bought some Turkish delight and other candy and checked out the variety of spices and veggies that were available. It looked good!

After strolling all the way back to the port and around it to the opposite side from the Hotel Tonic, we found a park where we finally were able to rest our tired feet. It turned out to be the couples area and we found ourselves between one couple who were lip-locked for hours and another who had the idea of a picnic like ourselves. The park offered a beautiful view across the harbor of La Belle Mère (as they call the Notre Dame statue, I believe we learned later from Marie) and views behind of some great twisted trees and some of the older buildings in the city. We ate our panaches, pizza, and sandwiches and, for lack of a glass, drank our champagne straight from the bottle.

After a bit, we decided to walk a bit more, so we continued around the port to the Cathedral. The Cathedral has similar banded-stone architecture as La Belle Mère, and has a beautiful set of grand doors at the entrance. We entered and discovered that a choral group was singing Latin vespers. We sat, listened for a while to the beautiful music, then headed out to find Jeanette a bathroom!

We returned to the hotel for a rest, then headed back to La Rue Sainte to look for a restaurant for dinner. We decided on a wine bar that was well attended by locals and had a good meal of beef and lamb... very rustic and hearty! It was not as good as Chez Loo the evening before, but it was fantastic by Spanish standards!

Looking back, our tired feet had walked probably about 7 miles that day. After dinner, we returned to the hotel, packed, and retired so that we could wake up early to leave France in the morning.