Getting Away

Thanks to a killer offer from Ryan Air and my desire to be anywhere on the Mediterranean coast, Anders and I took a mini-vacation in Marseille. We had only five days and I was determined not to stress on this vacation, so for better or for worse, we decided to stay in Marseille and not trek around the whole of Provence. In all honesty, I wanted my biggest concerns to be where we would nosh and which beach we would to go to. Marseille provided just that.


Let me start off by saying that I knew absolutely nothing about Marseille or Southern France when I booked the tickets. Sure, you can prattle on about Nice and the Riviera, but I figured I'd need more money than I had to find decent accommodations in those places. Always one for adventure, I booked the tickets first and read up on Marseille afterwards. It all worked out very, very nicely. Case in point: check the view from our hotel->

Marseille is, in fact, a 2,500 year old port city. It's dirty, got a prominent working class and centuries of blended cultures give the city its distinctive air. The churches, for example, have details of Syrian ablaq, Catholic imagery, Greek/Byzantine mosaic decorations and text in both Latin and Greek. The medieval cathedrals of Northern France have had less of an impact than you'd expect. We spent most of our time in the old city, where there was only one example of church architecture from Northern France. The weather was perfect, so lazing our way through the streets was truly relaxing. The architectural styles we saw reminded me of Cairo: the balconies, high ceilings, the big windows and the wrought iron detailing everywhere. (I know that Cairo adopted the style from France, but since I was there first, yanni.) Hell, even the ugly modern concrete high-rises reminded me of Cairo.

(<- Here's some of the cityscape I'm talking about.) Of course, a trip to France would be nothing if you didn't go crazy for the food. Restaurant fare was tasty and I recommend trying the bouillabaisse, which is Marseille's specialty. The greatest thing was popping into a grocery store or into the myriad of small boutiques to buy fresh baguettes, goat cheese, sausages and fruits that would have cost a fortune in Norway , if they would have been possible to find at all. Honestly, we had a divine lunch of goat cheese, chorizo, blood oranges and Orangina that we bought at the local stores. I had almost forgotten the delights of well-made white bread, since almost all of the Norwegian breads are some kind of blend of healthy whole wheat, oat, rye, or you-name-it whole grain.


And if you are lucky enough to get out of the city, the Canalques provides some spectacular sites. We didn't get to the Canalques proper, mostly because I was tired and ill-prepared. (Read: this girl had on impractical foot ware.) The white stones were covered in poppies in bloom, hearty scrub pines and the succulent plants typical of the region. Anders scouted around after we made camp at this little inlet and said the landscape only got better. I'll have to take his word on that, since I was too busy loading up on vitamin D and UV rays. As pretty as Canalques was, there was very little that was going to distract me from my mission of sun, surf and pure relaxation.

So despite having the worst reputation of all the cities on the southern coast of France, Marseille was still a great place to visit. We had a lovely trip and managed to thoroughly decompress and unwind. For that, I tip my hat to the last place anyone would ever want to visit in Southern France.