Marseille, France

I have to begin this post with the shock and wonder that I ever even made it to Marseille in the first place. I know I spent pages and pages describing it yesterday, but it still comes as a shock to me that I was allowed to sleep here.

Marseille was another one of those cities that reminded me tremendously of Montreal. The street signs are in French and the roads are all paved similarly. I imagine that Montreal was modeled to look like it to a certain degree. If I were kidnapped, drugged and brought to Marseille against my will without any notice, I’d probably think I was in Montreal for the first half hour or so. Marseille even has their own “Vieux Port,” actually:

The only easily discernible difference between the two cities is the smell. Marseille’s old port smells like an old port. Sorry, but I can’t link to that on this page, so just take my word for it.

I was really only staying in Marseille as a stopover to Nice, but one of the people in my hostel convinced me to get out and see some of the city. She convinced me to finally rent a bixi-bike! Marseille’s system is much more tourist friendly, in that you can just get a weeklong account immediately without any hassle. (If I’m not mistaken, in Montreal they have to send you something in the mail first…) It only cost me 1 euro for a day’s use!

Along with the people working in the hostel, she planned out a short itinerary that hugs the coast. Yea, coast. As in beaches: 

I didn’t go swimming though, but I love that all it takes is 1 euro and a 15 minute bike ride to get to a public beach in these cities!

You see really amazing things along the coast:

By the old port near our hostel, you can see the famous Château d'If from “the Count of Monte Cristo”:
You can also take a ferry across to visit it, but I didn’t feel like it. (I haven’t actually read the book, admittedly, so I couldn’t care less to go.)

Marsisms

-Come eat at my nads!

-The parking meters in Marseille say “payant” on the road. Notice how the car is parked on the sidewalk, and how similar the parking meter (behind the VW) is to the ones in Montreal:

-The French thing of sitting in cafes and watching people walk by:

-Really interesting stairs that are accessible to people in wheelchairs:

-VLC media player:
The program was designed by a bunch of French kids, which is why the pylon in the logo has white horizontal stripes.

-A Lamborghini beside a Ferrari. Just, you know, waiting in traffic: You can see that the Lamborghini was in the middle of putting its top up.