Southern France, Pt. 3
Travel to Marseilles
From Sainte-Maxime we hopped on a small bus where we met two Dutch & Russian architects who were following the same journey.
They spotted us the cash for bus fare, as there was no credit card reader for fare collection.
We rode the bus to Les Arcs train station, and transferred to train to downtown Marseilles:
We bought the architects cappucinos and they asked us why Donald Trump was not in jail.
It was a little tight on the train, as I sat across from a tall older Danish man who immigrated to France and told me all about it.
The train station in Marseilles is gorgeous:
Arriving at the main downtown train station in Marseilles we dropped off our bags at our hotel and walked down hill to the waterfront:
We were surprised to see a structure similar to Arc de Triomphe:
Regional government offices:
Nice public art:
Catholic cathedral:
Architecture:
The marina:
Traffic:
Rental bicycles:
Fascinating fire trucks:
European restaurants have more elaborate facades–I suspect it is because they have more pedestrian customers and spend less money on leasing parking spaces and building big-ass signage to attract drivers:
Circling back to the main train station:
We were there for the lead up to the summer Olympics–and witnessed some French patriotic displays:
We got a view overlooking the crowds at McDonalds:
Riding the metro we saw some French-style hipsterism:
And we went for an electric mountain bike tour, booked through AirBnB experiences:
We rode a ferry from the bike rental shop back to the marina, which was nauseating:
Aix-en-Province
In our last few hours in Marseilles, we visited Aix-en-Province.
We managed to locate the bus from the Marseilles train station which took us to the bus depot at Aix-en-Province.
Unfortunately, we were lugging our bags and they had no bag storage at the bus depot.
We dragged our bags over a mile to the nearest rental bag storage depot, damaging our bag wheels on cobblestone streets–turning heads with every step as we made a racket.
After dragging our bags and relieving ourselves of that burden, the city was beautiful (though small).
Having walked & gotten a coffee, we grabbed our bags, hailed an Uber to the airport and flew back home to San Mateo, California, USA.