The 10-day forecast is for sun with temperatures in the 80s every day.😊
Marseille is the 2nd largest city in France and its history goes back over 2500 years to its settlement/conquest by the Greeks. This was followed by the Romans, Saracens and numerous other groups. It was severely damaged by the Germans in 1943 and liberated by the French army in 1944. Many of the buildings were rebuilt after WWII although they were designed to look like the buildings from the late 1800s.
After coffee and breakfast in the hotel, the first order of business was to visit the tourist office to find out about transit passes and get city maps. There is a 24-hour pass that is good on the metro, trams and buses. It is always interesting to navigate transit systems in new cities, especially foreign ones. The city buses are all electric!
We took the bus to the top of the mountain to the Notre Dame de la Garde. It was busy with tourists when we arrived but a madhouse by the time we left with many tour buses from the huge cruise ships in the new harbor. Although there has been a religious presence on the mountain since the 13th century, the current cathedral dates to the late 19th century, the earlier ones being demolished to make room for the later ones. The architecture is intended to reflect the architecture of the Byzantine era and is very elaborate. The photo below is from inside.
From outside the cathedral there is quite an expansive view of the Mediterranean, Marseille and the surrounding countryside. We took the bus back down the mountain to visit the St. Victor Abbey which is much less popular and more sedate. It is darker inside with few windows in the church that dates back to the 16th century. On one side of the church there was a reliquary with a large leg bone from St. Victor and bones from several other saints - a bit strange from my way of thinking.
We walked to the Pharo Palace which Napoleon III had built for his wife in 1858. We didn't go in the palace but did enjoy the large lawns surrounding the palace. Today must have been a special day for school trips as we saw hundreds of elementary-age students in different places From one end there is a great view of the Fort St. Jean on the other side of the harbor and the Marseille cathedral behind it, seen below.
We took another bus back to our hotel and had lunch at a nearby restaurant. Marseille certainly doesn't lack for places to eat! We both had salads for lunch. I had a strange "ruby" beer which I probably won't have again - it seemed to be sweetened with some kind of fruit syrup. The wait staff are helpful but many of them don't speak a lot of English, although better than my French so I can't complain.
We took a siesta in our room for the afternoon before taking the metro to the main train station to buy tickets for our trip to Avignon tomorrow morning. Two of the ticket machines did not cooperate - we could select the start and end train stations but then nothing happened. We were able to find a different type of ticket machine which did eventually produce the tickets we needed. We wanted to try out the Metro so we wouldn't have any complications in the morning.
After we got back, we went to a nearby pizzeria to get individual pizzas (and wine, always wine!)
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