Last night, we finished up with a half-baked idea about going to Marseille for the day. The idea itself was probably more than half-baked, but exactly how we were going to get there was still under discussion.
Somewhere between the end of last night’s blog and this morning, it developed into a fully cooked plan.
We’ve definately decided that we are going to Marseille for the day, and we have definately decided that we are leaving Claude at home for the day. We are going by bus.
Or buses, to be more accurate.
Taking the bus is the path of least resistance, where “least resistance” means “least stress”. For everyone.
The day started out as another cracker of a day. Warm, with a forecast high of 20, and sunny with blue skies. We both wore a long-sleeved tee-shirt today, and carried our puffer jackets in case it got cold.
So we hopped into Claude, and drove down to the local park and ride facility, and took the “A” bus into the city. The bus was pretty empty to start, but got more passengers as the trip progressed.
For those of you that know MBW, almost anything can set her off sneezing. Some dust, smoke, someone wearing stong perfume … you name it. And when she sneezes, we will let off 9 or 10 sneezes in quick succession.
Something set her off on the bus to the city, and she started sneezing. Another female passenger standing nearby pulled her scarf up over her nose and mouth, and gave us a dirty look like we were carrying the plague.
Once we got into the city, we bought a return ticket each from Aix to Marseille, a trip of about 30-40 minutes.
I’m not sure what the attraction is in Marseille, but they have a bus leave Aix for Marseille every 5-10 minutes for most of the day.
All reports that we have had are that traffic in Marseille is a bit silly, and we couldn’t see any point in putting ourselves (or our mental health) under any more stress than we needed to.
We got into Marseille at around 10.30am and needed to figure out how to get from the bus station to Port Vieux (the old port), down by the water by 11.00am. We decided to purchase an all day ticket again, because … well, just because.
So that is now 3 tickets that we are carrying around in our wallets, all of which we will need again later in the day. And all of which look … very similar.
The trip down to Port Vieux was interesting. Despite a sign expressly forbdding smoking on the bus, the driver was puffing on an e-cigarette for most of the journey. Multi-tasking at its best.
We got down to Port Vieux just before 11.00am, the starting time for our walking tour. We met up with Mattew, an Italian-born man who has lived in Belgium, but has now been living in Marseille for 7 years.
The group was only small – a couple of ladies from Turkey, a couple from Brazil, ourselves, and a few others that came from places I didn’t catch.
Mattew was interesting, and fortunately most of the history that he gave us aligned with the history that previous walking tour guides have given also.
Marseille was the first settled colony in France, colonised 2600 years ago. Mattew took us through all of the old streets and gave us the history.
There were attacks from Vikings, Romans, Nazis … maybe not in that order, but they all had a go at some time. And then there were kings that created problems, some of which met an untimely end.
I’m not going to try and repeat everything that he said. Let’s face it – I can’t remember what I had for breakfast, so there is no chance that I can regurgitate all of the dates and places and people that we learned about today.
While we started at the old port (Port Vieux), we finished at the new port. One of the places that we stopped at was Le Major Cathederal, which would have to be one of the biggest buildings that I have seen in my life.
I know that when we were in Avignon, I said that the Palais des Papes was the largest I have seen, but that was actually a number of buildings all joined and interconnected.
This was just one enormous church building. And the floor was covered with these tiny ceramic tiles that couldn’t have been more that 1cm x 1cm in size.
Once the tour ended at 1.00pm, we wanted to go and see the Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde, a basilica that is built at the top of the hill overlooking Marseille, and offering stunning views over the city and the port.
I recall that one of the reasons that we left Claude behind today was to reduce stress, but that bus trip up to the basilica was one of the scarest trips I have ever done. Narrow, windy streets with cars parked just anywhere, and a bus which either didn’t have functioning brakes, or a driver that chose not to use them.
Seriously, he came around one corner so quickly, with a car parked illegally on the corner, and he must have avoided taking off the car’s side mirror by a hair’s breadth. Pretty scary stuff. Or pretty impressive … I’m not sure.
We got up there, took some photos, and then managed to catch the same bus back down the hill again. With the same driver, and the same stress.
We got back down to the new port and went in search of a very late lunch – it was after 2.00pm.
We found a boulangerie – we do like boulangeries – and bought a baguette with tomato and mozzarella on it. We also found a crepe shop and bought a Nutella crepe for dessert.
It was a pretty unusual experience speaking to the crepe guy in broken Frenglish, while the Bee Gee’s “How deep is your love” was blaring out of his tinny little radio.
By this time we’d decided that we had had enough of walking around. We checked with ChatGPT if we had covered off all of the important things to do on a day in Marseille, and other than a boat trip out to one of the islands, we had done it all.
Besides, I couldn’t manage yet another bus/ferry ticket in my wallet.
By now the weather was turning nasty. The wind had picked up and it was getting cold, and it was starting to spit with rain.
We made our way back to Port Vieux (the old port) to catch the metro back to the bus station, and then we caught a double-decker bus back to Aix-en-Provence.
My observation of Marseille is that it is a very busy, very commercial city. Unlike many of the smaller provincial villages that we have been through where everyone walks around with a baguette in their hand, nobody carries a baguette in Marseille.
Which is sad, really 😞
There is an over-representation of McDonald’s, Burger King, Domino’s Pizza and Haviana footwear shops around the city.
In fact, the further south that we have come, the less quaint and provincial the cities have become, and the more commercially-oriented.
Which is a shame, because I have loved the small villages we have been through.
My other observation is that the further south and east we have travelled, the less “French” it is. You can hear people speaking different languages (French, Italian, Arabic, Spanish) because all of those countries are so close to here, and people move around.
We got back to Aix around 5.00pm, and caught the bus back to the carpark to retrieve Claude. The bus home was one of those fancy new “100% electrique” buses. It was overcrowded when we got on, and rapidly progressed to seriously overcrowded, then dangerously overloaded.
I assume that there are rules here that say the driver cannot refuse any passenger a ride – unlike in Australia where the driver can determine that the bus is full, and just go sailing past bus stops.
The driver was not a happy man. There was a lot of gesticulating and muttering to himself things like “Mon dieu” and “Sacreblue”. It was a regular sardine express.
The bus was so full that the driver couldn’t get the front door to close because it kept getting jammed on people in the doorway. I was jammed between some tall dude and the windscreen, and not making the driver’s job any easier because I was blocking his view of the side mirror.
When finally many of the passengers got off and we could all breath again, the driver looked at me and started giving me his thoughts. He must have thought that a) I could understand him, and b) that I cared.
While I don’t know exactly what he said, I’m pretty sure that “what a bunch of morons” is delivered universally in any language.
But I gave him my most sympathetic “Je ne Parlez pas Français” and that was the end of that conversation … until we got off the bus at our stop and I said “Merci beaucoup” (thank you very much) to which he replied (in English) “have a great afternoon”.
We had no plans for dinner, so we decided to stop at a supermarket that we have seen on the way to parking each morning, and see what we can find.
Laurent and Dider’s AirBNB is tastfully decorated and well appointed, but it has very limited cooking facilities which limits our options for dinner.
MBW asked Joséphine to take us back to our accommodation in Nîmes, and off we went.
The more observant among you will note that we are not staying in Nimes, we are staying in Aix-en-Provence. Nimes was a few nights ago.
Interesting.
So that little snafu last night when we couldn’t find the Route Cézanne and we went on a big long 45 minute drive to nowhere may not have been entirely Joséphine’s fault … it’s possible that the problem originated in the front passenger seat …
We found the supermarket, and our limited options for dinner were limited even further with the limited options at the supermarket, but we ended up buying some seriously overpriced eggs, and utilised some of the stuff we already have in the fridge to make an omlette for dinner.
It’s been a great day in Marseille. Another big walking day – we have both done >13,500 steps – but it’s a good tired.
As I said earlier, I’m missing that quaintness of the little provincial villages that we have been through – the ones where you slow down to enter the village, and 2km later you speed up again as you exit it.
But Aix-en-Provence and Marseille have both been nice too.
Tomorrow we leave Laurent and Didier’s place and head to Farzad’s place in Nice for 4 nights. After that we are off into Tuscany, Italy. It feels like we have been travelling forever, but we still have 4 weeks to go.
I’ll let you know if I stop having fun.


































Ciao
#Europe2025