Flying into Marseille from Lisbon to meet my family for a week in the south of France ... tired out from a schedule of work and a conference combined with the more serious business of re-connecting with a favourite city ... this view from my window seat of the white limestone calanques of the Marseille coastline and that impossibly blue sea had me wide awake and excited ...
There was barely an hour to unwind and trade stories in this little haven of a hotel just outside the city centre ...
... before an exciting rendezvous - meeting up with a virtual friend, blogger Corey Amaro, from Tongue in Cheek, and her husband (below). I've followed Corey's blog, chronicling her life in a Provençal village and her travels, for about two years now and it's one of the wonders of blogging that it was possible to meet for the first time and feel like an old friend! I think you can see from the pic what lovely people they both turned out to be ...
This restaurant - Chez Aldo - was their recommendation, like all the other bits of advice about where to go/eat/stay in Provence they generously offered. We had these spectacular views of the sun setting over the bay of Marseille from our table - though between talking non-stop and this totally memorable soupe de poissons de roche, eaten with fresh cut cloves of garlic to rub on toasted baguette, topped with aioli, there wasn't much time spent gazing at it ...
With only a morning to explore Marseille the next day, before driving inland, it seemed we could see only a little - but that was not counting on some super friendly taxi drivers who were eager to show us their city and fill us in very knowledgeably on all the history - they turned out to be the best tour guides!
And so we drove, rather than climbed like penitent pilgrims, up the steep hill to Notre Dame de la Garde which dominates the skyline of Marseille ...
Seemingly growing out of the limestone rock, this Neo-Byzantine church is topped by a giant golden (copper covered with gold-leaf) statue of the Madonna. Standing 11 metres tall and lit up at night like a beacon, she's la bonne mére, guardian and protectress of the city ...
... which from this dizzy height spreads out panoramically below and all around ...
Nothing quite prepares you for the interior of the church - I literally gasped when I climbed up from the sparse basilica below into this place, unlike any other cathedral I've seen ...
This is a seafarer's church, clearly. Ever since 1214, when the original basilica was built on this site, sailors have climbed this steep hill to pray for a safe voyage or give thanks on returning. The maritime connections are everywhere, from the model boats hanging from the ceiling, to the anchor and ship motifs, to the ex-votos from people saved from shipwrecks ...
From all this wonderful candystriped colour, we whizzed back down the hill to the simple, austere Abbaye St Victor whose history goes back to the martyrdom of St Vic in 302 AD ...
... and then over to Marseille's official cathedral, La Major - a relative latecomer, clocking in at 1852 ...
In between we managed to spend an hour wandering on foot through the oldest quarter of Le Panier (below), having absorbed by now from our taxi back-seat history lessons a dizzying array of facts about Marseille's history, from its founding in 600 BC (this making it the oldest city in France) by the Greeks who gave it its original name of Massalia, through Roman wars, Christian popes and martyrs, its leading role in the French Revolution, to occupation by Germany in world war II.
Le Panier, once partly responsible for Marseille's reputation as a seedy, dangerous place, was amongst other things a refuge before the war for resistance fighters, communists and jews until 1943 when the Nazis evacuated 30 000 people from here in one day, before dynamiting and destroying almost the entire quarter. Hard to imagine all of this from the peaceful scenes we encountered walking through here ...
I think we saw quite a lot for a visit of less than 24 hours! Enough to know that this city is definitely worthy of a longer stop-over and to fuel my desire to return one day ...
