Day 8
Day 8. Avignon and "Why Marseille hates us and the feeling is kinda mutual"
September 13 Avignon / Marseille
Oh my, another early morning. Cris cruelly set the alarm on both the travel clock AND the tv for 5am. Although this was a surefire way of waking me up, I still managed to sleep until 5:30 while he showered etc. So, it was my fault when we were walking out of the hotel 10 minutes late. Luckily we made the train station just fine.
We both slept a good portion of the way to Avignon. I woke up in enough time to see the last hour or so of the journey the charming countryside of Provence. Lavender fields, the rhone, tres charmante!
The walled city was much as you would expect it to be quaint and romantic and lots of fun. Having been the seat of the Catholic church for while, there were some pretty nice papal digs as well as a large public square and parks. We climbed to the park behind the palace and waited for this shot for quite a while (we tried to coax the swans into cooperating, but eventually just gave up and waited):
Here are a few other shots of Avignon, including the medieval bridge that is only partially still there:
the city had walls! :)
Nothing says "South of France" like foam lizards
Part of the bridge was washed away in the 1600s
Us with the papal palace in the background
The only negative thing I would say about the city is that there were lots of beggars: both from the hey, you are making me uncomfortable" standpoint and from the how sad there must not be jobs for these people" standpoint (that first part sounds terrible, I know, but I'm just being honest :/ )
We spent about four hours there which was just about perfect time to see all of the major sites but not so long that we got bored. We made it back to the station in perfect time for our train and next started off for Marseille.
Lets see? What can I say about Marseille? Other than the fact that it sucked? Not much. Oh, well, we did have a really good meal there. But let me give you the cliffs notes version:
- we only had 5 hours and the public transportation system was terrible so we spent a good portion of our time walking
- the above is normally not a problem, except that it was not a very pleasant walk lots of traffic, tiny sidewalks, nothing to look at..
- It took us almost an hour to walk to the beach. We got there and it was not much bigger than our backyard. Disappointing, but well make the best of it. Even if we can just dip our toes in the Mediterranean.
- The beach, it turns out, is closed.
- So we decide to cut our losses and walk back to the old port to get some seafood.
- None of the seafood restaurants were serving food. The would be opening at 7 or after but unfortunately, we had a train to catch and could not wait that long.
- We walked for blocks looking for a restaurant that was serving food only to end up tired and frustrated at an Italian restaurant. Cris even tried to order Salmon carpaccio there but again, Marseille foiled our plans as we are pretty sure he was served beef carpaccio instead. Other than that, the meal was wonderful.
- Lets recap go to the south of France to walk along the beach and have a seafood dinner. The beach is closed and no one would serve us seafood.
The other part that we were looking forward to was the multiculturalism of the city it has a hugh population of North African and Vietnamese residents. But the lively part of town was also warned in the guidebook as dangerous after dark. By the time our beach fiasco was over, we really didnt care and just wanted to see something worthwhile. At that point, however, we didnt really have time to go wandering around.
Well, the glass half-full outlook is that at least we can now rule that out of the vacation well take someday to the rest of the South! It also made us appreciate Paris all the more as it is quieter, more quaint, friendlier, etc.
Here are a few shots of the town:
