Marseille France Day 14

Today our stop was Marseille, France. From the looks of it, when we pulled into its port, is a much larger city than I was expecting. I had already Googled it with our precious Ship wifi minutes and found there was a hop on hop of bus. It made 13 stops and we could explore the city at our leisure. We could disembark at 12:20 and we had to pay 16 euros each to ride the bus into town. The ride was about 20 minutes and we were to get on the bus where it dropped us of. When it stopped and it was time to get off, the building out my window had trash all out front as well as an old mattress just laying on the steps. It looks as if it had been there a while. I asked Guy if we were supposed to get off and he said "yep". There were other buses stopped, so even tho the area looked a bit sketchy, you only had to walk one block before you could look down and see the marina.

Guess what? Civilization! Ahoy mateys ... Starbucks ahead! I can now add a France mug to my collection of Starbucks mugs. I'm having trouble snagging an Italy one...but I'm hoping the Rome airport will have one. We'll see. I'm only collecting the countries instead of each town because that could get overwhelming (and expensive) and I only have so much space in my cabinets at home. However, part of the fun is the illusive mugs I can't find. Like Italy! Ha Ha. I didn't find one last year either. Challenge accepted. I'll just have to come back. I didn't get the mug when we first passed because it is just off the bus stop and I didn't want to carry it around.

Approaching the marina area (which is beautiful) I see a market! Yippee! It looked to be the kind I like - hand made goodies made by the locals - linens and other types of things, but at least half were hand made. Guy dropped me there as he went to scout out the hop on hop off bus. It only took me about 20 minutes to see everything and I was wishing I had made the meet-up time sooner, but I figured I could waste another 30 minutes reviewing the goods. However, Guy found me early and said the hop on hop off said CLOSED! What? However, he did find a local tram that took you up to the huge church on the hill and it did narrate along the way. It didn't make 13 stops, but was still better than catching a cab.

After purchasing a few tea towels at the market, we hopped the tram and began our journey around Marseille. I'm sure the port area is the dirtiest area and it is Sunday and most of the shops are closed - which makes an area look run down, but it is one of the dirtier places we've been on the trip. Lots of trash in the streets and sidewalks. I saw a big dead bird just lying by a parked car and the area is covered with graffiti.  First impressions. I apologize for my less than spectacular review to my French expert, Amanda Hickman, as I'm sure you've been here and know the beautiful spots. The marina, however, is quite spectacular - as was our view from the cathedral that was built on the site of a Roman temple and dates back to at least the 13th century.

Perched high on a hill, this magnificent church had the most amazing mosaics. I took several photos, but it more amazing to see in person. We walked through the different areas of the property, including one section that was actually hot inside from all the burning candles. For 1euro you could purchase and light one for whatever issue you need to pray for. There were lots of needs as the room was quite warm. Guy located some post cards in the gift shop and they had stamps as well!  We also took lots of photos of the port and the city from our birds eye view. It was worth the ride up on our little tourist train.

Back down into the marina again, we went in a few gift shops, but not really much to buy. We did want to find a bakery and there was one along the side road we had come down on from the bus. We went in and to buy a beautiful baguette was less than a dollar. So we asked the gentleman for a baguette, a coke and a water. The poor feller was suffering from some kind of rash on his neck and arms. My official germ flag has been raised. But then the baguette. He picked it up with his hands and touched it from top to bottom as he put a small piece of paper in the middle and closed it with a piece of tape. We paid our bill and thanked him. No words needed to be spoken, the bread would not be eaten. So as I took a photo of it to remember how beautiful it looked, there was a homeless old man begging on a corner. Success. I handed the baguette to him, he took it, then mumbled a few words. As we walked away (the Starbucks was just ahead) we saw him walking away from his spot. He was going towards the dumpster. As I looked at him and he looked at me, he just stood there for a second and Guy told me to stop looking. I didn't care what he did with it, it was just curiosity if he was going to throw it away, or if he was going to look for something to eat with it. I did as Guy said and went into the Starbucks, bought my mug and a chocolate chip cookie and sat at a table while filling out my post cards. I tried to log into the wifi to upload some photos, and it was free, but they wanted my name, address, mobile phone number, and I had to click a button that said I agreed to let them give my info to a third party. Shame on you Starbucks! You can do better than that! So needless to say, no upload.

Guy asked the Starbucks girl if there was a nice bakery nearby and she said yes just down the road. She said it was new and would be open (at first she said lots were open all around, but Guy reminded her it was Sunday and everything was closed). So we ventured down to the bakery and it was quite nice. Part of a bigger store and had everything from cheeses, breads, meat, fish, etc. Almost like a small Eataly. So I bought a baguette for Guy, a different kind of roll for myself and some brie cheese to put on our bread. The guy at the counter was really helpful and explained the different kinds of cheeses by making the sound of a goat so I'd know which cheese came from a goat or cow. LOL! We sat outside the store at a table and ate our snack. It was nice.

Back to the bus and back to the ship we did go through a very industrial area with old rail road tracks. Looked like a good place to make a movie. You know the scene where some kind of deal goes down at night in a part of town that the cops won't even go to. There I saw two guys. A white guy with dreads yelling another guy that was scooting along the ground quickly enough to be stirring up some dust with his hands and feet, the guy on the ground obviously afraid of the guy with the dreads. We had already passed before I could point it out to Guy. Odd scene and my last sight in Marseille. This big world is an interesting place.

Back on the ship we grabbed some snacks and we were really tired, so we showered (it was another hot one today) and crawled under the covers for a quick nap. By the time we woke up, it was about 8:30 and it was hard to have to put my face on and do my hair just for dinner. And it was fancy night. So I just pulled my hair up and put on a black dress I bought at the market in Luino. Didn't bring many dressy items on this trip. But as usual, the crowd had on everything from tuxedos to blue jeans...so we fit in just fine. Dinner was nice. I forgot to take my phone to take pictures, so I'll just have to explain. :) Our starter was a little piece of pruscitto with a little melon ball. Next we had pasta that was made on the ship. It looked like large ravioli and it was stuffed with ricotta and asparagus. The sauce was a very light cream sauce. It was probably the best pasta we had on the trip. Next came a small filet of fish with some mashed potatoes. Then came the sorbet to clear the palate. It came in a tiny silver cup, and is usually served with a spoon. But when he sat it down there was no spoon and it was melted. So we sat for a minute to see what the French couple next to us would do. I think they were waiting for us. But next thing I knew, the French guy was sipping his like a drink, then his date did the same. So salute! Guy and I clinked our tiny little silver cups together and down the hatch. Guy laughed and said the staff was probably doing an experiment to see what people would do when served sorbet without a spoon. - After the "experiment" came our beef dish. It was served with roasted potatoes (about 3 little pieces) and I asked for mine medium well. It was so cooked it was difficult to cut. So I took one bite and already full from all the other courses I ate my potatoes and was happy to be done. Plus, I knew the dessert was a coconut pistachio cake and even tho I didn't have room, I did manage to eat it. It was nice.

After dinner it is now 11pm. We have to go online and select a showtime we want to attend. I had selected the 9:45 yesterday, but not knowing there would be such a long nap and such a long dinner, we obviously missed it. But we got out of dinner just at the 11pm show was starting. When we went in, they scanned our cards and it beeped at her. She said to follow her we had to register. I told her we had chosen the 9:45 but dinner ran late. She said "ah - go inside". So we aren't sure why they are requiring people to choose a particular show. We've never experienced this before. But I told Guy maybe they are doing it to get an idea of the demographics attending. Who knows...

The show tonight was called Cleopatra. It was mostly dancing, but there was a singer (she was amazing) and a contortionist (I had to look away a few times...it was just painful to watch) and then two guys that did some amazing things. They were ripped and their muscles even had muscles, but they did some balancing things together that was just amazing. At one point the one guy was standing on the other guy's head - the guy on the bottom then stood up and I again had to look away. I could just see his neck muscles giving out and his neck snapping. Tonight they also introduced the senior staff of the ship, from the kitchen to the captain. They also gave a certificate to the employee of the month. He was a cook and seemed pretty excited! Then the captain thanked the audience and repeated his speech in six languages. Impressive.

Tomorrow...the island of Palma De Mallorca off the coast of Spain.